Two new performances added due to sold out show tonight!
18th April with Matinee and evening performances.
Hastings Smugglers, created and directed by local filmmaker Nick Bloomfield, is a new historical film premiering as his latest work. Blending documentary, live action, animation, music, and storytelling.
Set in the Georgian era (1714–1837), a time of war, heavy taxation, and corruption (nothing changes!), the film shows how smuggling became an essential part of local life and survival. Goods such as tea, tobacco, spirits, wool, lace, and luxury items fuelled a shadow economy that involved not only fishermen and farmers but also traders and officials.
The government’s attempts to suppress smuggling through Riding Officers, seizures, informants, and the Coast Blockade—although it was encouraged during the Napoleonic Wars!
Central to the narrative are the letters of John Collier, five-time Mayor of Hastings and senior customs officer, revealing corruption, intimidation, and the difficulty of enforcing the law, alongside moments of integrity. The film also features John Banks, an educator whose father was a sometimes, unwilling smuggler, offering a 19th-century Old Town perspective on the trade.
