This year’s Brighton Fringe is set to be the biggest fringe festival in England, with 800 shows available across the town, plus a small digital offering.
Here are some of my picks from the festival, which runs from 5 May to 4 Jun. 45 shows across the programme for you to explore and enjoy.
You can also check out my interviews/previews for the following shows:
And The Summer Shall Follow
Blue Blood, or How to Kill Your Way to the Top
Chopped Liver & Unions
Disintegrate
Experiment Human
Life Learnings of a Nonsensical Human
Manic
My First Time Was In A Car Park
Sunsets
Check out the full programme here.
Anna & Marina (Brighton Theatre)
5-6 May, Latest Music Bar -a historic drama for today.
Baby Dinosaur (Dave Bibby)
13 & 20 May, The Caxton Arms – horror comedy set in Jurassic Park
Bed (TKO Productions)
2-4 Jun, The Rotunda Theatre: Bubble – playful, pocket-sprung musical
Britney’s Peers (Ding for Disco)
8-20 May, The Actors-Theatre – ‘A Doll’s House’ with a noughties teen movie makeover
Call Me Daddy: The Musical
22-23 May, Ironworks Studios – dark comedy musical
A Caravan Named Desire (Split Infinitive)
30 May – 3 Jun, The Rotunda Theatre: Squeak – explores desire and sex work in the UK through interactive performance
A Couple of Swells (Lemon Squeeze Productions)
5 & 12 May, Laughing Horse @ The Walrus – male impersonators Vesta Tilley and Hetty King come back to share their stories with you
Destiny (Florence Espeut-Nickless)
5-8 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Bubble – monologue about a teenage girl growing up on a Wiltshire council estate
Dietrich & Hartshorne (Patricia Hartshorne)
12-14,19-21,26-28 May, 2-4 Jun, New Steine Hotel – Bar and Bistro – solo cabaret with songs and repartee
Dizney in Drag (The Hairy Godmothers Inc)
5-8, 11-14 May, Brighton Spiegeltent – an elephant’s graveyard of adult fantasies and fairytale follies
Don’t Rock The Boat (Louis Cavalier)
6-8 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Squeak – friendship in a rehabilitation centre
Dry & High
5, 8-10 May, Presuming Ed’s, The Caxton Arms – stand-up comedy about the ebb and flow of life in your 40s
Eternity’s Gate (Joseph Winder)
22-24 May, Caravanserai Brighton: Junk Poets – a new solo show about the life and death of Vincent Van Gogh
Fisherman Jon: What’s On The End Of My Rod? (Coral Bevan)
20 May, 3 Jun, Laughing Horse @ The Walrus – a drag clown odyssey
Flamenco RaÃces (Lourdes Fernandes Flamenco Co)
29 May, Komedia Main Space – the show aims to universalise flamenco
Glad To Be Dead? (MIM Theatre)
22-24 May, R-Bar – monologues from beyond the grave
Godz (Head First Acrobats)
22 May – 3 Jun, Brighton Spiegeltent – a hedonistic dive head-first into the lives of the ancient Gods of Olympus
Headache (Tanieth Kerr)
8-10 May, The Actors-Theatre – play exploring family, loss, brain injury, the mortality of parents, and the courage to go to karaoke
Homophobia on the Orient Express (Olly Olly)
11-12 May, The Actors-Theatre – comical mystery drama highlighting some important issues in the LGBTQ community
HóPe (Giullianna Martinez)
30-31 May, 2-3 Jun, The Lantern @ ACT – one-woman show on illness and oppression
I Was Kinda The Bad Guy
20-21, 29-30 May, Laughing Horse @ The Quadrant – what would you do if you were the villain in someone else’s story
If They Could See Me Now: The Words And Music Of Dorothy Fields (Suzanne Noble & Paul Maguire)
18-19 May, The Actors – Theatre – a warm musical celebrating the Great American Songbook
Illusionati: A Magical Experience (The Great Baldini)
29 May – 4 Jun, Laughing Horse @ The Walrus – imagine Tommy Cooper meets Blofeld
The Importance of Being Earnest as performed by Three F*cking Queens and a Duck (Out Cast Theatre)
9-13 May, The Rotunda – the filthiest farce at the fringe
John Callaghan’s Cabaret Electro
16 May, Brighton Spiegeltent: Bosco – blurring the lines between music and artistic performance
The Loop (Mind Fog Theatre)
5-7,11-12 May, The Lantern @ ACT – autobiographical dramatic piece on living with OCD
Lord God (The Foundry Group)
19-21 May, Lionhouse – 1920s-set comedy musical as God takes a holiday
La Maupin (Fantastic Garlands)
12 & 14 May, The Actors-Theatre- LGBTQ, folk-punk musical
Miss Margarida’s Way (5Go Theatre Company)
2-4 Jun, The Actors – Theatre – darkly hilarious satire on dictatorship
A Night With Ross Feratu & Friends (Lee Brace)
6,18,20,26 May, 3 Jun, The Caxton Arms – an hour of madness, merriment, music and moaning!
Nutshells (Yellow Brick Theatre)
6-7,13-14 May, Laughing Horse @ The Temple Bar – a delectable mix of beat poetry, theatre and song
Persephone (Ami Sayers, Mollie Semple and Abi Smith)
16-21 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Bubble – queer re-imagining of the Greek myth
Police Cops in Space (Police Cops)
5-7 May, Caravanserai Brighton: Luna Parc – sci-fi comedy blockbuster
Praise Kink (Billie Gold)
19-21 May, Ironworks Studios – from the mind of a lesbian ex-sex worker, now a drag performer, a fast, wild and exciting look at the world
Rambunctious Scallywag (Farrah Alice Black)
17-21 May, 3-4 Jun, Caravanserai Brighton: Junk Poets – a joyful journey through the quarter-life crisis of a 24 year old
Scruffy (Sugar Theatre)
12-14 May, The Caxton Arms – poetry, gymnastics, and even an Avril Lagigne tribute act
Sex, Lies & Improvisation (Between Us Improv)
27-28 May, Laughing Horse @ Caroline of Brunswick – a black comedy about lying together
60 Minutes of Mood Swings (OnTheNose Productions)
25-27 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Bubble – feminist comedy musical
Sons (Concept Theatre)
18-19 May, Caravanserai Brighton: Junk Poets – an exploration of masculinity and men’s violence against women
The Streets of London (Wooden Stick Theatre)
11-14,20-21,27-28 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Squeak – addressing addiction and homelessness
Surfing the Holyland (Slackline Productions)
1-4 Jun, Caravanserai Brighton: Junk Poets – a fast-paced solo show on female empowerment
Toy Stories (Menagerie Theatre Company)
16-21 May, Brighton Toy and Model Museum – part stand-up comedy, part performance lecture
Unwanted Objects (David Head & Matt Glover)
5-8 May, The Rotunda Theatre: Squeak – a new story and song show
Who Is No 1? (The Foundry Group)
8-9 May, Latest Music Bar – comedy play about the making of The Prisoner TV series
Wildcat’s Last Waltz (Joshua Welch)
18-21 May, The Rotunda – a raucously funny drag comedy