Ellen Cheshire

I first drew up this bucket list in January 2022, as the world was emerging from the long shadow of lockdowns. It was a useful reminder that there were plenty of things I wanted to see, do and experience, and that “another time” has a habit of never quite arriving. So the list began: part wish list, part reminder, and very much a work in progress. Since then, I’ve been adding to it, crossing things off and occasionally discovering something new that really ought to be on ther

For the past few years, I’ve given myself some sort of annual cultural challenge, partly to give the year a bit of shape and partly to make sure I don’t just keep doing the things I already know I like. In 2024, I went back to 1984, revisiting as much as I could of what I had seen at the theatre and cinema that year. In 2025, it was Sondheim, with live productions alongside a rather large trawl through his favourite films. And in 2026, I went Gothic, taking the theme into the

Looking back over the past few years, I have set myself annual challenges that combine theatre and film in ways that push me to see work I might not ordinarily seek out. In 2024 I undertook a project revisiting all the productions I had seen at the theatre and cinema in 1984. In 2025 I focused on filling in gaps in my Sondheim knowledge, watching musicals live and exploring his top forty films. Both years encouraged me to view familiar works differently, take risks and draw c

My work sits at the intersection of cultural history and practice. Alongside my freelance writing about theatre, film and literature, my role as Fundraising and Development Manager at Chichester Cathedral gives me the opportunity to explore history, creativity and place from a different perspective, while helping to support the people, projects and traditions that keep a cultural organisation alive. Whether I’m telling the story of the music that fills the Cathedral’s spaces,

Over the years, I’ve occasionally ventured into the world of theatre reviews, but a covert assignment with The Spy in the Stalls reignited my passion for this undercover craft. Since then, I’ve been regularly donning my disguise and stepping into the shadows, where every review is a stealth mission—uncovering the brilliance (or the flaws) hidden within each performance. This page serves as my secret dossier: a direct link to the operations I’ve carried out in the name of thea

Having visited Jane Austen's house in Chawton and followed her footsteps around Bath, as I was in Southampton to catch a matinee at the Mayflower, I decided it was time to add Southampton to my Austen travels. Austen lived in Southampton from 1806 to 1809 (between Bath and Chawton) following the death of her father. She moved there with her mother, sister Cassandra and their friend Martha Lloyd, joining her brother Frank and his wife Mary, who were already living in the city.

September's A Year of Gothic moved away from the supernatural Gothic of earlier months and towards something more psychological. Across opera, film and fiction, desire, isolation and identity became sources of unease, with the most unsettling transformations taking place within the mind rather than the body. September's central production was The Seven Deadly Sins / The Human Voice at the Charing Cross Theatre. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's The Seven Deadly Sins follows Ann

Mary Shelley never actually lived in Bournemouth. This was something I discovered while planning a little Shelley pilgrimage around Bournemouth, Boscombe and Christchurch. It seemed slightly odd, therefore, to be setting off to find Mary Shelley in a place where she never lived. But there is a surprisingly strong Shelley connection here, particularly once you start looking beyond Mary herself and at what happened to her family after her death. My visit was part of a weekend c

While I was in Christchurch in September 2026, my Airbnb host pointed me in the direction of Chaplin's Bar and Modern Times restaurant in Boscombe. Obviously, once they'd told me about the place, and even given me their tote bag, I had to take a closer look. It was well worth a visit, and I took rather a lot of photos. So enjoy this little GIF, which is still only a fraction of its delights. It also got me thinking that I might have accidentally started another sidequest. I'v

My second trip to Dirt in the Gate's Grindfest, a horror and genre festival at Christchurch's Regent Centre, and once again the programme managed to combine cult favourites, strange discoveries and films that probably don't get nearly enough chances to be seen on the big screen. This year I went for ten films across three days, mixing rewatches with first-time discoveries, a couple of classic Gothic literary reworkings, a mystery screening and a lost BBC horror. There were va

There is something special about encountering cinema history in person. From early experiments with photography and motion studies, to the development of projection technology, national cinemas and the stories behind the screen, film museums and permanent exhibitions offer a chance to experience cinema history beyond the films themselves. Over the years I have visited a number of fascinating collections, from local exhibitions celebrating cinema pioneers to internationally re

Here’s the 27th batch of #52FilmsByWomen watched since taking the pledge in 2016. This set of 52 films (1354-1405), watched between May and September 2026, continues my in interest in women’s filmmaking across decades, genres, and formats. It includes 18 feature films, 2 event cinema screenings, 30 shorts and 2 television entries. Many of the features and shorts watched for the 11th Femme Filmmakers Festival for which I had the honour of being a judge. You can read more abou

August's A Year in Gothic live theatrical performance around which the month's films and fiction spun was Death Note The Musical at the Barbican Centre, bringing the Gothic into the realm of moral certainty, surveillance and absolute power. At its centre is Light, a student who discovers a supernatural notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is written within it. What begins as an attempt to create a better world rapidly becomes an exercise in control, as the power to d

I was delighted to be invited to join the jury for the 11th Femme Filmmakers Festival, watching and discussing the 17 short films in this year’s Competition Selection. The festival, hosted online by Filmotomy, ran from 14 to 23 August, bringing together short films from filmmakers around the world and spanning animation, documentary, drama, comedy, thriller and experimental work - alongside a feature film programme, and further short films. Being a juror is rather different f

July's A Year in Gothic live theatrical performance around which the month's films and fiction spun was -320°F, Hideki Noda's strange and unsettling exploration of humanity's desire to overcome mortality. At Sadler's Wells, a biotechnology expedition into a mythical relic becomes a journey through genetic memory, ancient history and scientific ambition, where bodies, identities and timelines begin to blur. The play draws together the Gothic's longstanding fascination with for

Nestled innocently within my main bucket list are four entries that could each stand as their own separate quests. Since they all share a similar goal - exploring the UK and Ireland through their cinematic venues - I’ve combined them here for convenience. These are: visiting the other six cinemas in the small chain that my local Bognor Picturedrome belongs to; ticking off all independent cinemas in Sussex; seeing films or concerts at venues with cinema organs (from the Cinem

When I decided to spend June (and a bit of July) exploring the films of Gene Tierney, I knew I was revisiting one of Hollywood’s most fascinating screen presences. Tierney’s career is often defined by a handful of iconic roles: the haunting mystery of Laura, the obsessive darkness of Leave Her to Heaven, the romantic melancholy of The Ghost and Mrs Muir. But between those celebrated performances lies a much wider and more varied career: Westerns, wartime adventures, romantic

Two theatre visits have been ticked off my bucket list over the past few weeks, and they sit neatly alongside each other, even if they come from very different theatrical worlds: Grace Pervades by David Hare at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (27 June 2026), and Grayson, a new musical about Grayson Perry, seen in a work-in-progress presentation at Soho Theatre Walthamstow (18 July 2026). The coincidence is almost comically neat: both share the initials GP, but they also form an u

June's A Year in Gothic live theatrical performance around which the the month's films and fiction spun, was Beetlejuice: The Musical which reframes death not as solemn inevitability but as meta-theatrical spectacle shaped by grief, family and disruption. At the Prince Edward Theatre, Beetlejuice establishes its tone immediately through its opening number “Being Dead”, which playfully undercuts mortality itself. Everyone dies, it suggests, regardless of effort, discipline or

Very excited to share that my essay, Beyond the Blonde, has been published in Encounters with Marilyn Monroe: Celebrating 100 Years. A hundred years after her birth, Marilyn Monroe remains an obsession: endlessly reproduced, discussed, mythologised, rediscovered and reinterpreted. Few screen stars have lingered in the cultural imagination quite like Marilyn, who continues to exist simultaneously as Hollywood legend, fashion icon, tragic figure, comic genius and symbol of mode