Brighton
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The Brunswick Open Mic in Brighton is a Very Good Open Mic
i start on a salty note: this open mic isn’t an open mic in the most important of ways. I don’t mean “anyone who turns up on the night gets a slot” – I understand why even open mics would like to operate some form of quality control – it’s also a good way of… Read more
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Comedy Competitions Were A Mistake
Comedy competitions are silly things to take seriously, but sometimes you see an injustice so egregious it makes you wonder if David Cameron’s meritocracy was a scam after all. Someone more cynical than me would decry the Brighton New Comedy Award as a thinly-veiled marketing campaign for the Jill Edwards stand-up comedy course. At the… Read more
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Sea of Stars is the first video game I’ve properly fallen in love with since Breath of the Wild
Hark at me with my zeitgeist blog posts, but I’m really enjoying 2023’s charismatic tribute to the golden age of Japanese RPGs, Sabotage Studio’s Sea of Stars. I bought it for my quiet Christmas in suburban Luton, as part of what’s become a bit of a theme the past few months; an attempt to relearn… Read more
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An evening with John Lloyd and Steve Pemberton
Tonight was an End of the Pier show – not in the traditional sense, but these talks with comedy greats did take place at Horatio’s, the old karaoke bar at the end of Brighton pier. It was an interesting place to be on a dark and stormy night, and the waves looked garish in the… Read more
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Brighton Folk Choir Pub Crawl Wassail for Brighton Women’s Centre
There are two types of wassail: the one where you sing at apple trees and honey bees, and the door-to-door cheeky begging variety, which is the precursor to modern carol singing. Just like the bar in The Blues Brothers which does both types of music (country and western), I’ve dabbled in assorted wassails over the… Read more
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The Threechurches at Brighton Folk Choir End-Of-Term Cabaret, and Christmas Panto in Kemptown
A couple of performances to start the week, after a wonderful weekend in Sheffield. First up, The Threechurches – the name of any combination of three members [1] of The Highchurches taking to the stage together – played a short set [2] at the Brighton Folk Choir’s end of term cabaret at The Rose Hill.… Read more
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Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be 2025 edition: The Divine Comedy, Babybird, and Echobelly live in Brighton
I’m not sure what I do more often, vow to stop attending nostalgia shows or write up the nostalgia shows I’ve attended. In the past week I’ve seen three bands, all of whom were at their creative peak in the 1990s. These bands fill venues of various sizes by playing songs from 30 years ago… Read more
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The Magnetic Fields play 69 Love Songs at Brighton Dome
In the future, will there be nostalgia shows? Or will we run out of past to celebrate? Thoughts such as these always go through my mind when I battle myself over whether I want to see a band sing songs from back when bands could still have careers. You can’t see anyone as spectacularly weird… Read more