Culture of Portsmouth

The city has four established music venues: The Guildhall, The Wedgewood Rooms (which also includes a smaller venue, Edge of the Wedge), The Cellars At Eastney and Portsmouth Pyramids Centre. For many years a series of symphony concerts has been presented at the Guildhall by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Outdoor performances by local acts also take place regularly at Southsea Bandstand.

In the past the city was host to a major international string quartet competition, held every three years between 1979 and 1991. In the 1970s the Portsmouth Sinfonia (1970–1979) approached classical music from a different angle.

Since the late 1970s three acts from the city have made the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart: the indie/rock bands The Cranes and Ricky, plus the pop act Same Difference.

The City hosts yearly remembrances of the D-Day landings to which veterans from the Allied nations travel to attend. The City played a major part in the 50th D-Day anniversary with then US President Bill Clinton visiting the city

There are four main nightspots in the city: Southsea (Palmerston Road), Guildhall Walk, Albert Road and Gunwharf Quays. Major nightclubs include Tiger Tiger, Liquid and Envy and Popworld.

In literature, Portsmouth is the chief location for Jonathan Meades' novel Pompey, in which it is inhabited largely by vile, corrupt, flawed freaks. He has subsequently admitted that he had never actually visited the city at that time. Since then he has presented a TV programme about the Victorian architecture in Portsmouth Dockyard.

In Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, Portsmouth is the hometown of the main character Fanny Price, and is the setting of most of the closing chapters of the