Oh, We Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

Ian Gledhill is at The Abbey Theatre on Wednesday 10 November with Oh, We Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside, a light-hearted look at the history of British seaside entertainment. It's a talk that traces the coast's growth from the eighteenth-century fashion for sea bathing to the nineteenth-century expansion driven by the railways and mass travel, and the specialist buildings that cropped up alongside them: bathing machines, piers, towers and aquaria, not to mention end-of-the-pier shows and the legendary seaside landlady.

What makes the talk work is Gledhill's own background, which is as varied as the subject he's covering. He's worked as an engineer for London Transport designing underground railways, and he's appeared in pantomime with Julian Clary. He's spent time in travel and tourism, music publishing and television, and has worked in the theatre as an actor, director, set designer, stage manager and opera translator. His interests run from architecture and history to transport and classical music, with a particular fondness for opera and operetta.

That mix of engineering, theatre and travel is exactly where this talk sits. It's as much about the buildings as the entertainment, so you'll hear about the piers and the bathing machines alongside the shows and the characters. It's a bit of a nostalgic trip through the British seaside, told by someone who's spent his career moving between the technical and the theatrical.

The talk is at The Abbey Theatre, Westminster Lodge, Holywell Hill, St Albans, AL1 2DL, on Wednesday 10 November. It starts at 10:30, with doors open from 10:00, and tickets are £7.50.