The Sarah Siddons, Brecon

The Sarah Siddons is a lively town centre pub on Brecon High Street. It is a long thin pub and as well as the front entrance on the High Street it has a back entrance on Church Lane behind, in the shadow of the St Mary's Church tower. It takes its name from the 18th century actress who became famous as a leading tragic actress playing roles such as Lady Macbeth, and was born in Brecon in 1755. This is a fairly tight narrow pub and when you enter from the high street there is immediately a small section with flat screen tele and an elevated stage and then you get to the central bar before walking past to some additional seating at the end before the back entrance. From what I could tell the Sarah Siddons has regular music weekend nights throughout the year anyway, but was in full throttle during the Jazz festival and fringe with a series of bands somehow managing to squeeze onto the small stage at the front of the pub. And the acts it favoured were those that liked to play it “loud and proud”. Not the most comfortable pub to watch live music and that, combined with the fact that there is no real ale to be had here, only the standard draft fizz options, meant we didn’t frequent this one much, whilst in town for the Fringe.