BRIGHTON FESTIVAL: Time Keeps The Drummer – Brighton Dome Corn Exchange

Spread over five hours, Fevered Sleep’s experimental theatre piece Time Keeps The Drummer explores the subjectivity and elasticity of time via the unflappable improvisational skills of twelve children and one adult drummer. It’s a bold marathon of a show that puts its money where its mouth is in terms of following through with a concept. To truly explore the concept of time you need to feel it passing and it’s surprising how easily the hours drift by.

There’s a relaxed atmosphere to the show. We’re told that we can come and go as we wish over the duration and there are even beanbags in front of the stage for people to recline upon. The relaxation of theatre etiquette makes it the perfect for restless children and adults, and completely takes away any fear of being trapped in a theatre for any longer than you want to be.

The only adult performer on stage is a drummer who sits in a raised alcove centre stage playing an invisible motion capture drum kit. We’re given silent disco-style headphones through which we can hear what the drummer is playing at any time – only for brief interludes is he ever heard out front. His role seems to be as a symbol of how one person’s experience of the passing of time is different to everyone else’s. Often his sloppy, skittery playing is at odds with what is happening on stage and the effect is to let us experience the relativity of that.

The headphones also give a “choose your own adventure” element to proceedings. There’s always plenty going on to switch your focus between. Bubbly synth or twinkly piano backing tracks duck in and out and trade places with jukebox hits on the theme of time: Rock Around The Clock, Time After Time, Final Countdown. And then there’s all the stuff the kids themselves are doing. They keep themselves supremely occupied for the five hours, performing some pretty expressive interpretive dancing, standing still holding twigs or dressed as ghosts, hanging words up at the back of the stage.

And then peppered throughout the show are set pieces where the kids are let loose with microphones. These parts fall into two categories. One takes the form of one child asking another a long string of questions about the nature of time: What do you think time is? Does a tree experience time? Does a ghost experience time? Etc., etc. The other consists of one child asking another child dressed as an adult questions about their working life and how they spend their time. These parts have a “kids say the funniest things” feel to them and become rather trying at times. But there’s an impressive confidence to their ad-libbing and a refreshing authenticity to their approach to big questions, even if their answers in themselves might not always be particularly revealing.

It’s a piece full of time-related symbols that will resonate with all ages in different ways, asking questions that will enliven young minds and offering perspectives that will give older minds pause for reflection. The twelve children demonstrate an amazing energy in their ability to go from one task to another. Their endless enthusiasm and sense of purpose gives life and levity to what is a really rather experimental enterprise.

Runs Until 10 May 2026