Zelly's summer send-off: Five Ipswich arts events not to miss

There is always a point in August when summer starts to feel like it is slipping through your fingers. The evenings get a little shorter, someone mentions September far too casually, and suddenly there is an urge to squeeze every last bit out of the season.

Luckily, Ipswich is giving us plenty to enjoy.

From Dolly Parton-powered rebellion and theatre under the trees to sustainable fashion, classic rock in a medieval church and a disco night made for people who actually want to dance, these are five events that caught my eye.

9 to 5 The Musical at Ipswich Regent Theatre

Tuesday, 18 – Saturday, 22 August 2026

There are few things more satisfying than watching an awful boss get his comeuppance, especially when Dolly Parton provides the soundtrack.

Based on the 1980 film, 9 to 5 The Musical follows three women who have had quite enough of their sexist, egotistical boss and decide to do something about it. Cue revenge plots, friendship, office politics and some gloriously big musical numbers.

The premise still feels surprisingly familiar. Anyone who has ever sat through a meeting thinking, "surely this cannot be real", will probably find something to relate to.

And, of course, it has Dolly.

Where: Ipswich Regent Theatre, St Helen's Street
Tickets: From £20, plus £1.70 restoration levy per ticket

Passion for Fashion X MEAT at MOTE, Museum of the Environment

Saturday, 22 August 2026, 18:45–22:00

This one immediately appealed to the multidisciplinary artist in me because it refuses to stay neatly in one box.

Fashion becomes environmental activism. Clothing becomes art. Fine art shares space with live music.

Hosted by sustainable fashion organisation Ketchup Clothes and Colchester-based artist Sue Gascoyne, Passion for Fashion X MEAT features a sustainable fashion show alongside performances from Diana Costa, Jayden Wells and two still-secret local musicians.

Ketchup Clothes founder Dr Karen Dennis has spent decades transforming discarded garments into one-off pieces, while Gascoyne's MEAT installation adds another layer to the evening's conversation around consumption.

I like events that allow art forms to mingle with each other. You might arrive for the fashion and leave talking about environmentalism, or come for the art and discover a musician you have never heard before.

Where: MOTE, Arlingtons, 13 Museum Street
Tickets: £15, including a drink on arrival

The Hay Wain at Christchurch Mansion Lawn

Wednesday, 19 – Saturday, 22 August 2026, 19:30

John Constable's The Hay Wain is one of those paintings so familiar that it can become almost invisible.

Green fields. River. Cart. English countryside. We recognise it before we really look at it.

Packing Shed Theatre's The Hay Wain asks us to look again.

Performed outdoors on Christchurch Mansion Lawn, the play imagines the lives behind Constable's famous landscape, shifting attention away from the picture-postcard countryside towards people shaped by work, hardship, resilience and hope.

With the painting itself back in Ipswich for the Constable 250 celebrations, you can encounter The Hay Wain inside the Mansion and then step outside to see another group of artists imagine the human stories beyond the frame.

I am particularly drawn to theatre that responds to places, where the surroundings become part of the performance.

Where: Christchurch Mansion Lawn, Christchurch Park
Tickets: £20 / £18 concessions, plus booking fee.

Led Free & Co. at St Peter's by the Waterfront

Saturday, 29 August 2026, 19:30

There is something wonderfully excessive about the idea of Led Zeppelin riffs bouncing around a medieval church.

Which is precisely why this one made my list.

Led Free & Co. celebrate the music of Led Zeppelin, Free and Bad Company, mixing crowd-pleasers with deeper cuts from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

St Peter's gives the show something extra. A building that has stood for centuries filling up with electric guitars and classic rock feels like an enjoyable collision of worlds.

I am a sucker for unusual arts spaces. Put something somewhere it technically "shouldn't" be and I am already interested.

Where: St Peter's by the Waterfront, College Street
Tickets: £19.35 including booking fee

Discoteca at The Smokehouse

Friday, 21 August 2026, 20:00–23:00

Sometimes culture asks you to contemplate the human condition.

Sometimes it asks you to stop overthinking and get on the dance floor.

I support both.

Discoteca brings Andy Westbrook and Disco DJ Mac together at The Smokehouse for three hours of records, dancing and the kind of musical enthusiasm that comes from people who have spent years collecting sounds they genuinely love.

The pair first met in Ipswich in the 1980s before following different paths through music. Now they are back behind the decks together in their hometown.

Good records. Intimate room. People dancing.

Sometimes you really do not need to complicate things.

Where: The Smokehouse, 6 South Street
Tickets: £7 plus booking fee, 18+

Five very different ways to end the summer

What I like most about this collection is how difficult it is to reduce Ipswich's arts scene to one thing.

Within a matter of days, you can watch musical theatre, see discarded clothing transformed into wearable art, experience Constable through theatre, hear classic rock inside a medieval church and dance to disco in one of the town's smallest music venues.

And if summer really is determined to leave us, we may as well give it a decent send-off.

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