Ellen Cheshire

Some places have been quietly glowing on my bucket list for years, waiting for the right moment. A day in Walthamstow and Hackney gave me a chance to finally tick a few off - each one with its own distinct character, yet all threaded together by art, craft and imagination. The William Morris Gallery  had long been near the top of my list and stepping inside felt like stepping into a carefully crafted world. The rooms are full of fabric samples, sketches, printing blocks and

Milne in 1922 By Emil Otto Hoppé - Shadowland, September 1922 (page 62), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58472213 On Christmas Eve in 1925, the first Winnie-the-Pooh story, The Wrong Bees , was published in the London Evening News. In celebration of this 100th anniversary, this latest blog in the Writers in Sussex  series explores the Sussex landscape that inspired A.A. Milne’s beloved stories and the enduring magic of Ashdown Forest. Ashdown Fo

Tessa Thompson in Hedda (2025) Here's the 24th batch of #52FilmsByWomen watched since taking the pledge in 2016. This batch of 52 films, 1198 – 1249, are those watched between July and November 2025. They included 38 feature films, 9 shorts, 2 TV series and 3 feature-length documentaries. Many of the shorts and features were those watched as part of the 10 th  Femme Filmmakers Festival, and online celebration of films directed by women. You can read more about the films prog

Camden Town might be more readily associated with live music than movies, but after Nigel Smith gave this tour a very enthusiastic plug at the end of his tour of the Carlton Cinema on the Essex Road, I booked immediately. Partly because I’m a sucker for a good cinema story… and partly because the Odeon Camden is due to close soon. The chance to explore its history before the lights go down felt too good to miss. As ever with Nigel’s walks, this was far more than a list of for

Jamie Patterson, born in 1986 in Brighton, East Sussex, is a British filmmaker whose work is closely tied to his home city. He co-founded the Brighton‑based production company Jump Start Productions and in 2018 wrote and directed Tucked , his first feature film. Tucked  is a raw and tender drama about Jackie, an ageing drag queen given six weeks to live, who forms an unexpected bond with a younger queen called Faith. The film explores identity, grief and community, blending h

I’ve always been fascinated by bio-pics, so much so that I wrote a book about them! Seeing Blue Moon  (2025, Richard Linklater) at the London Film Festival reminded me exactly why. Opening in the UK this Friday, it is a gorgeous example of how a short window in someone’s life can illuminate an entire world. Richard Linklater’s latest unfolds over a single night in lyricist Lorenz Hart’s life in 1943, at the opening night of his former writing partner Richard Rodgers’ Oklahoma

With Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein  in cinemas now, ahead of its Netflix release, it seemed like a good time to write up my visit earlier this year to Bath, seeking out locations with a Mary Shelley connection. There aren’t as many as for Jane Austen, but they’re worth the search. I whiled away hours in the fascinating Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein , which brings the novel’s enduring visual power and legacy vividly to life. Mary Shelley spent a pivotal period in Ba

Patrick Hamilton c. 1930 Patrick Hamilton’s The West Pier  (1952) captures a very different side of Sussex from the pastoral warmth of...

Former Carlton Cinema, now Gracepoint church It’s been 828 days since I joined Nigel Smith’s Islington’s Big Screens  walking tour back...

This Autumn sees the publication of Encounters with Jane Austen , a sparkling new anthology that commemorates the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth. Edited and introduced by Professor Jennie Batchelor, the collection brings together over 30 writers, artists and scholars to share their personal, creative and often surprising engagements with Austen’s life and work. From essays and poems to short stories and interviews, it brims with affection, wit, and fresh perspectives on

Bucket list item checked! Prospect Cottage Visiting Prospect Cottage  has long been on my bucket list, and finally standing there, in front of Derek Jarman’s black-tarred cottage with its golden windown frames and wild shingle garden, felt quietly profound. The place holds a presence that’s hard to describe—at once fragile and defiant, personal yet universal. It’s a home, but it’s also a work of art, a manifesto written into the landscape. The tour itself was made unforgetta

This year’s Femme Filmmakers Festival (an online festival from 16 - 28 September 2025) highlighted the extraordinary contributions of...

Mandy Patinkin and Madonna in Dick Tracy Continuing my journey through Stephen Sondheim’s top 40 films, I have watched numbers 21–30,...

My first trip to Dirt in the Gate's Grindfest , a horror and genre festival with a wild line-up of cult treasures, oddities and rediscoveries. I caught 9 of the 13 programmed features, each one introduced with gusto, which gave the screenings a real sense of community and mischief. Here’s how they stacked up, from the best to the worst: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 Stars) American Psycho 2000 – Directed by Mary Harron A deliciously dark black comedy horror based on Bret Easton Ellis’s novel. Chri

This post continues our series on writers in Sussex - those who found inspiration in its landscapes, towns and coastlines, weaving the spirit of the county into their work. R. C. Sherriff (1896–1975) is best known for his play Journey’s End  (1928), a powerful account of life in the trenches during the First World War. Sherriff’s connection to Selsey, West Sussex, was pivotal to the creation of the play. In the 1920s, he maintained a holiday home there, and the town became a

When I first visited Efteling  in 2024, I stayed in Bosrijk, the park’s beautiful woodland accommodation. It’s the perfect halfway point between fairytale and reality: self-catering cottages tucked among whispering trees, close enough to hear the distant hum of the park yet peaceful enough for quiet evenings by the lake, watching the water shift and reflect the last light of day. That first trip was wonderful but all too brief. I saw enough to fall under Efteling’s spell but

Peter Dinklage in She Came To Me (2023) Here's the 23rd batch of #52FilmsByWomen watched since taking the pledge in 2016. This blog...

In this series exploring writers in Sussex, we trace how the county - its towns, landscapes and shifting coastlines - has left its mark...

In the second chapter of my Sondheim project, I continue watching Stephen Sondheim’s favourite films. Watching films 11 through 20, in...

Over the past month, I've watched 25 films featuring Jennifer Jones: 24 features and one short. I’d only seen six of the feature films...