Theatre

Shakespeare’s Globe on Tour: Twelfth Night Brighton Open Air Theatre, 12 July 2018 A rosy glow in the summer air; an expectant thrum from the excited and tightly packed audience perched on timber-and-astroturf tiered seating; and the smell of a hundred picnic dinners. We...

The chairman of Brighton’s oldest amateur theatre company has skydived 15,000ft to launch a half-a-million-pound fundraising campaign. The money is needed to modernise the building in Clarence Gardens near Churchill Square. Felicity Clements jumped out of a plane in the skies...

Brownton Abbey, Brighton Dome Concert Hall, 25 May 2018. Last week I went to Tarik Elmoutawakil and Rob Jones’ Brownton Abbey at Brighton Dome: a night that promised to be a “performance party [where] celestial beings from queer dimensions… transform Brighton Dome into a...

The String Quartet’s Guide to Sex and Anxiety is a strange and bewildering piece. Part concert, part dramatic reading, it blurs the lines of what you expect ‘theatre’ to deliver. Set amongst hundreds of music stands and a back wall made up to stacked chairs, it feels as though we...

The Tale Of The Cockatrice By Mumblecrust Theatre, The Blockhouse Theatre, The Warren, 2nd and 3rd June This show is great! An unexpected discovery towards the end of the festival, and what a treasure from Mumblecrust Theatre returning for the second time to Brighton Fringe with...

Hamlet? By Bloody Bawdy Villains; The Warren – Blockhouse “In this production of Hamlet I’m going to play Hamlet and I’m going to do all the soliloquies and it will be really good.” –Damien Warren Smith, Artistic Director of Artistry & Direction. I went to review this...

The Fabulous Bäckström Brothers, The Old Market, Hove. Thursday 31st May 2018. http://theoldmarket.com/shows/fabulous-backstrom-brothers/ I’ll begin at the beginning. Where it all began… At least I would if I could express on paper just how brilliantly funny this brand new...

Big Brighton Fringe Festival Ceilidh 2018 By Brighton Ceilidh Collective BHASVIC, 1st June 2018 I am a sucker for a ceilidh and this city-based group (with real Celts in their midst) always deliver. The irrepressible Brighton Ceilidh Collective gather during the fringe for an...

https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/guru-dudus-silent-disco-walking-tours-125379/ “There’s a special device in your silent disco headsets that auto-tunes your voice so it sounds exactly like the original; so when you’re singing out loud just go for it, it’ll...

Peacock Poetry Prize winners announced The winners of the Peacock Poetry Prize 2018 – an annual creative writing competition produced by Brighton Festival and Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) and supported by Lulu.com – have been announced. The...

The Gingerbread Man By Stuff and Nonsense Theatre Company The Hat, The Warren 27th May This new show from the theatre company Stuff and Nonsense was quite frankly the best thing I’ve seen in the Brighton Fringe this year. Although this show was aimed at ages 3 plus, it was quite...

And the Devil Will Drag You Under – Desmond O’ Connor. Spiegeltent, Old Steine Brighton, 26th May 2018 Saturday night at the Spiegeltent and an expectant Brighton crowd are seated and then greeted by, well…. The Devil. A Devil that blows flames out of his...

What a terrific idea it was to hold a ‘Punks Picnic’ at Brighton Open Air Theatre (BOAT) located in Dyke Road Park, Brighton & Hove on Bank Holiday Sunday. The weather was simply perfect. It was an event for the whole family with people aged from 2 to 72 years old in...

https://brightonfestival.org/event/13570/creation_pictures_for_dorian/ Creation (Pictures for Dorian), Gob Squad. The Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts I’m lucky. The prime years of my youth are behind me now but I’m ageing well. At least that’s what I’d like to believe....

Anna – Emul8 Theatre Co., Rialto Theatre, 20th May Having worked in the Hastings area some time back, I’d heard often of the inspiring protagonist of this show, Annie (Baroness) Brassey, a titled lady adventurer oft found in vast undiscovered areas in foreign lands in her...

‘Hymns for Robots’ – The Rialto, Brighton 16.5.18 Wednesday 16th May turned out to be a rather fascinating if not busy day for some of the Brighton & Hove News review team. It all began with this – a splendid play featuring Jessie Coller and Charles Craggs, which...

Garry Starr, the disgruntled actor who has been kicked out of the Royal Shakespeare company due to ‘artistic differences’, sets himself a tough task: to save theatre by performing vignettes that showcase all genres of theatre all in under 60 minutes. From the outset, Damien...

https://brightonfestival.org/event/13583/brownton_abbey/ Brighton Dome Concert Hall, 25 May This Friday’s upcoming Brownton Abbey at Brighton Dome promises to be a very special night: a “performance party (where) celestial beings from queer dimensions will transform Brighton Dome...

About a Revolution – Windmill Young Actors. The Warren, 17 May. These bright young actors took on a challenging topic with verve and aplomb as they embarked on a revolutionary tour of 1917, 2017, and everything in between. The sincerity of anger at a political climate in...

About A Revolution, Windmill Young Actors. The Warren, 17 May. The show created an immersive experience with the placing of the actors making you really feel part of the show. It portrays a stunning account of revolutions throughout history, for example, the Russian revolution...

Tales, BAIT. Sweet Dukebox The blandly ambiguous title of this piece of devised theatre from new company BAIT gave no clue as to what to expect. On entering the tiny theatre space we are greeted by the two performers, smiling and nodding, at once friendly and wincingly fake. The...

https://brightonfestival.org/event/13557/the_string_quartets_guide_to_sex_and_anxiety/ A ground-breaking fusion of theatre and classical music awaits at Brighton Festival’s flag-ship show this week. Sex, anxiety and music have been central to Calixto Bieito’s career...

1 Woman, a High-Flyer and a Flat Bottom: Samantha Baines c/o Hannah Layton Management; The Blockhouse, The Warren, 20th May This was a one-woman show which promised to explore the multitudinous lost women of science by actor, writer and TV performer Samantha Baines. I’d not heard...

Circus-Sission. The Show that Made the Cut. 18th, 19th, 25th, 26th May and 1st, 2nd June 2018. Brighton Spiegeltent-Bosco. A great smack in the face of circus diversity! Hosted by Ozzie’s Head First acrobats, in all their sexuality-fluid glory, with their own Game of...

Cabaret Boheme: Cinematic Spectacular By Veronica Blacklace. Spiegeltent, May 18th. This show certainly puts the tits in titillation. The opening gambit from compere, performer and singer was ‘There’s going to be a lot of vaginas out’! So, with a bang, Veronica Blacklace (an...