Leigh on Sea News - ray-morgan

Ray Morgan Reviews Dial M for Murder

On Tuesday evening I escaped the chilly November night to escape into 1960s London for the crime thriller 'Dial M for Murder', written by Frederick Knott and made famous by the Hitchcock film...

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Cold water swimming

My first ever blog for this website was on sea swimming, back in 2016. I said this...

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New online radio station to launch with virtual party

After the success of locally-run club nights, the team behind High Tide Club have launched Southend’s premier queer radio station, High Tide & Friends

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Ray Morgan Writes on Create98 Home Boxes

Create98 in lovely Leigh on Sea have certainly been very creative with adapting to new ways of working since we were all forced into hiding in March...

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Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Review

Glitter hairspray, sequins, tassels and pom poms - no, not my walk in wardrobe - it's Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at the Cliffs Pavilion!

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Robin Hood and The Merry Men Review!

I have a confession to make. I've never been to a Cliffs panto before. I used to go to the Palace Theatre pantomime as a child, but it was very lowkey, usually with local performers, and I don't remember much about them.

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Home comforts

Readers, I'm approaching 35 and while I do not think of getting older as a bad thing (I'm only 35, fully aware that is still YOUNG and not something to MOAN about) - it did strike me that I'm a different gal than I was in my twenties. 

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Grease is the word

My view is: why sing the words when you can talk? HOWEVER. As a child and teen I was obsessed with Grease.

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Staycationing in the SS postcode

I'm making the most of our seaside town this summer - it's the kind of place where you already feel like you're on holiday isn't it? I have a family of seagulls nesting near my house - often at 4am I am suddenly awoken by their familiar, holidayish squawk. Yes, it's 4am and I don't sleep well at the best of times, but I also do LOVE that sound. 

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Leigh Folk Love

Did you venture down to Leigh Folk Festival last weekend? Here's Ray Morgan's love of Leigh Folk

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Never too much, never too much

There's a running joke where I work that I'm always cramming in twelve things every evening and fifty in a weekend. My colleagues roll their eyes like: what ridiculous schedule of events do you have planned this evening?

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Sounds of summer

On Saturday afternoon, I was lying in my garden in a deckchair. The sky was blue, there was a gentle breeze, everything smelled of suncream and warmth

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On new friends and cocktails

A few years ago, we made some friends because they used to go to my wife's pop-up cafe, and we'd always end up talking over the coffee urn until it got to the point where we realised we should probably all go for a drink rather than have tiny pieces of conversations while Jo and I were serving flapjacks to the public.

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A Leigh Day

Bank Holidays carry a weight of pressure. You have to be DOING something, you have to be USING your time. If you're lucky enough to not work on Bank Holidays, that is, and shout out to any of you who had to work this weekend.

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Being Frank: film screening in Leigh-on-Sea

An exciting one-off film night is coming to Leigh on Sea with a screening of documentary Being Frank, about cult comedy character Frank Sidebottom, and a Q&A with its Director, Steve Sullivan. 

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Sleepless in SS9

Readers, I've been suffering from insomnia. Well, it's been a weird one. I've been able to GET to sleep, but then my neighbours go to bed directly above us and they have the creakiest floorboards known to mankind

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Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Palace Theatre begins with a sparse set of distressed walls and decayed decor, and we go straight into dialogue that's, of course, Oscar Wilde - so it's peppy, zingy and immediately compelling

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An evening at Create98

Many of you reading this will already have seen Create98 on the Broadway; a creative space that hosts a multitude of workshops from painting and crochet to poetry and cooking.

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Southend Subcultures

At the weekend I visited the Subcultures exhibition at Southend's Beecroft Gallery, part of the brilliant Southend Museums. A collection of photography, fashion and memorabilia, it charts Southend's subcultures past and present, from mods and punks to teddy boys, goths, and more recent scenes like Junk Club. 

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The power of stories

Last week, Jo and I were invited to perform at True Stories Live at Norwich Arts Centre, a night of (yes you've guessed it) true storytelling. 

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