Reviews
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – Bad Luck Cabaret
Electro-pop titan Laurie Black is a Brighton Fringe staple, her Bad Luck Cabaret an always-diverse mix of interesting art far from the complacency sometimes seen in this genre of tent-based vaudeville. A Spiegeltent refugee – Black explaining to the audience how this year’s replacement “Spiegelgardens” is run by a crappy pub chain – a full… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – PERFECT HARMONY: AMELIA CROTCHET AND FRIENDS
An uneven hour of musical comedy with some confusing interludes. With character comedy, it’s important to get one’s persona’s status and power relationship with the audience confirmed quickly. Here, Tasmin Sarkany plays Amelia Crotchet, a “semi-failed” classical musician in a double-act with her violin. There’s a lot going on, and Sarkany is a confident performer… Read more
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REVIEW: Proud of Yourself Comedy – The Colonel Fawcett, Camden
Stand-up comedy is in a funny place. The most successful proponents are fairly trad, liberal acts, many not wanting to upset the political apple cart lest they get banned from Live At The Apollo. There is also a whole new roster of extreme right wing comedians grifting and griping about being “cancelled” while punching down… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – Alex Franklin: Gurl Code
Everything is everywhere all at once in Alex Franklin’s brain, an ADHD explosion of infinite possibility in which no logical cul-de-sac can be left unexplored. A British, half-Chinese and trans stand-up comedian, Franklin has put together a beautiful, proud, intersectional hour. It bounces around ideas about family, identity, and belonging, and hangs off a subtle… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – Moby Dick
Moby-Dick is a book much quoted but seldom read. Its infamous tale of obsession, ecocide, and preposterous human ego is a fine tome for our times. It is also so much more besides. It’s about Ahab’s fanaticism, sure, but it is also: a tale of queer love, which is hinted at here; the desperate and… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – Dian Cathal: Trans*Atlantic
So who do you hate more then, Americans or trans people? Actor, writer and stand-up Dian Cathal fits into both categories, you see, and it would be helpful for him to know which aspect of his being you have more of a problem with. Not that he would ever apologise for or compromise over either,… Read more
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REVIEW: Brighton Fringe – Landlord’s Wet Dream
It’s Fringe season, so I’ll be reviewing shows around and about, some for the Morning Star and some for The Reviews Hub, with my old mucker Simon Topping as Brighton editor. The first show I saw might actually be the best of the lot, in that it’s funny AND important. You can read it over… Read more
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Martha Casey Day / The Launch of Once&Future Festival
I’m currently reading Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein, a very interesting deep dive into paranoia, conspiracy, and the sinister nature of modern online existence, sparked by her being continually mistaken for Naomi Woolf during the pandemic. I knew exactly how she felt when walking into Presuming Ed’s on Friday night and finding Brighton comic Simon Harriyot… Read more
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Review: Sketch-Off 2025 Final, Leicester Square Theatre
Despite the crisis in the arts, the UK has a never ending supply of fresh weirdos. Some come straight from their university improv clubs, and some are doing their recovery in public after a year of being brutalised at infamous French clowning school Gaulier. And some are here because their anarchic spirit allows them to… Read more
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All the shows I saw at Brighton Fringe 2024
Over on my newsletter I’ve posted links to all the Fringe, Spiegeltent, and Festival shows I went to this year. I’ve probably forgotten a couple, but this is how posterity shall remember it. I had a lovely time, and enjoyed excellent company throughout. Next year, I think I’ll take a few more risks and see… Read more
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