As her father’s dementia progressed, Bev Lee Harling gathered tales from his vivid memories of working life in the family foundry in Elephant and Castle – cobbled yards, molten liquid and the smell of burnt metal she remembered from childhood.
As his words grew less reliable, those stories became more precious, but it was music that held on longer than anything else. He could still remember every word of a Hank Williams song long after he’d forgotten what he’d had for dinner. And in his final years, it was nature that kept him grounded, walking every day, marvelling at trees, finding in the natural world a stillness and connection that nothing else could give him.
Weaving together captured stories, songs, and his local landscape of Fairlight, ‘Things I Know and Things I Don’t’ asks what we pass down, what we hold onto, and what truly matters when language falls away.
At its centre stands a remarkable wood and steel tree, part stage set, part playable instrument, part artwork, made in collaboration with acclaimed sculptor Leigh Dyer, whose craftsmanship brings this extraordinary object to life at the heart of the show. Funny, intimate, and deeply human, it celebrates a person at their most unguarded and finds a great deal of joy there.
Time: 7.30pm
Address: Stables Theatre, The Bourne, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 3BD
Price: £15
Book online: hastingsstoryfest.org.uk