Framing New Brighton returns to The Light on Monday 2 November at 7.45pm, with director Dylan Cubbin and photographers Ken Grant and Alex Hurst on stage after.
Framing New Brighton, Wirral filmmaker Dylan Cubbin’s documentary about the seaside town, is coming back to The Light Cinema in New Brighton for an anniversary screening on Monday 2 November 2026 at 7.45pm. After the film, Cubbin will be joined on stage by two of the three photographers it follows, Ken Grant and Alex Hurst, for a question and answer session.
The film looks at New Brighton through the photographs of Grant, Hurst and Tom Wood, “whose work captures the town and its people across decades of social and cultural change,” Cubbin told us. Since its first sold-out screenings around Merseyside it has travelled to Bradford, Sheffield, Amsterdam, London and Dublin.
Updated 29 October: The Light has published its booking page for the screening; the link is below.
The screening
- When: Monday 2 November 2026, 7.45pm
- Where: The Light Cinema, New Brighton
- What: Framing New Brighton (33 minutes, UK, 2025), then a Q&A with Dylan Cubbin, Ken Grant and Alex Hurst
- Tickets: book on The Light’s listing for the screening. The listing confirms the 7.45pm showing and the Q&A, but shows the price only at checkout
The Q&A will cover “the making of the documentary, the photographs behind it and the importance of New Brighton for photography,” according to the film’s team, who call it “a unique opportunity to see the film on the big screen again and hear directly from its filmmaker and two of the featured photographers.”
What the film is about
The short synopsis the team sent us puts it simply: the three photographers “revisit their photographs of the seaside town of New Brighton, uncovering the untold stories and inspiration behind each frame, while exploring the connection between artist and place.”
The longer version sets out the ground it covers:
“Once famed for its bustling fairground, towering landmarks, and holiday crowds, New Brighton has long been a place of vivid contrasts. From the high energy nights of the iconic Chelsea Reach nightclub in the 1980s to the slower Sunday strolls along the promenade, the town has continually reinvented itself while retaining its distinctive character and charm.”
It mixes candid interviews, the photographs themselves and what the team describes as “rarely seen archive footage”. Each of the three comes at the town differently. In the words of the release, it is “Ken Grant’s intimate photographs of everyday life, Alex Hurst’s view of the streets and shoreline and Tom Wood’s iconic images of New Brighton’s nightlife.” The longer synopsis describes Grant’s “empathetic eye for working class life” and Wood’s “bold, colourful images that have become synonymous with Merseyside life.”
The synopsis ends with an invitation to people who know the place: “Whether you remember the packed dance floors of the Chelsea Reach or the quiet beauty of an empty prom at dawn, Framing New Brighton invites audiences to rediscover this remarkable town on the big screen.”
In the director’s words
Cubbin, whose earlier credits include Liverpool Story (2024) and The Town I Love So Well (2025), wrote an introduction to the film that he shared with us:
“I made Framing New Brighton out of an interest in how photography can shape our understanding of a place over time. New Brighton is a town with a distinctive history and identity, and I wanted to explore how different photographers have responded to it through their work.”
“What interested me most was the idea that photography can hold both the everyday and the historical at once. An image can capture a fleeting moment, but it can also become part of a wider record of social and cultural change. In New Brighton, a place that has undergone many shifts over the years, photography offers a way of tracing those changes while also paying attention to what endures.”
“The film is also about observation, about the patience of looking, and the different ways artists build a relationship with a place through time. Each photographer brings a distinct perspective, but all three are attentive to the character of New Brighton and to the people who have shaped it.”
On the response so far, he says: “The response has been incredible, and the audiences have been so engaged. It’s been really special to share the film with people who know and love New Brighton, and to see it continue its run in cinemas.”
And on why the three photographers: “Ken, Alex, and Tom each reveal something unique about New Brighton. I wanted to bring their different visions together to show how photography can preserve memory and perhaps reframe how we see familiar places.”
2 photos, swipe or scroll. Photos: supplied by Dylan Cubbin
Where it has been shown
Screenings listed in the film’s press notes: The Light Cinema in New Brighton and in Bradford; FACT, Plaza Cinema and Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool; Filmhuis Cavia in Amsterdam; and the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield. The team says it has also played London and Dublin.
2 photos, swipe or scroll. Photos: supplied by Dylan Cubbin
Who made it
The film is presented by Village Art Club. Dylan Cubbin directed it, with cinematography by Daniel Frost and sound by Finn Stewart Jones; additional sound is by Daniel Draper, post-production sound by Sam Auguste, original music by Hypnic Jerk and graphic design by Mark Mazier, according to the film’s poster.
2 photos, swipe or scroll. Photos: supplied by Dylan Cubbin
What it means for you
If you grew up in New Brighton, danced at the Chelsea Reach or know the prom on a quiet morning, this is a chance to see the town as three photographers have seen it, and to put questions to two of them and the director in the same room. It is a Monday-night screening of a 33-minute film, so there is time for the Q&A without a late finish. For more going on across the borough, see what’s on in Wirral this month.
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