Roll up, roll up, cabaret fans. Joe Black is here to transport this eager, baying audience from the main room at Komedia Brighton, to a basement bar in the backstreets of Berlin, and beyond. Welcome to Kleines Kabarett. Our host takes to the stage in dominant fashion, treating the audience to a song or two to start off proceedings. His singing oozes dark indulgence, creating a real sense of atmosphere. The scene is set. First up is Ezme Pump, serving 60s icon dog/diva, complete with attempted-genital-licking attitude. She summons a lead, which she proffers to the audience. But who is…
Author: The Reviews Hub - Brighton
Writer: Tim Crouch Directors: Tim Crouch, Karl James, Andy Smith Performers: Tim Crouch, Ruth Wilson Since it was first performed in 2005, Tim Crouch’s slick two-hander has gained a particular reputation as a play that rewards reviving and rewatching. Each performance features Crouch and a new actor who has never seen the play or read the script before. This conceit gives the piece a tension that exemplifies the magic of theatre, the bare fact that there are real people on stage in front of you, who may or may not get it right. Tonight’s performance features star of TV, film…
In these times, we’ve never needed the arts more. Enter Josie Long, a left-wing comedian with a licence to tell stories. Long laments on the enormity of living in an era that often feels scary; rising prices, rising fascism, genocide, hatred. For someone who cares about the world, and the creatures that are its current custodians, it can be overwhelmingly exhausting. From the big to the small, we zoom in on Long, just one human of the over eight billion currently alive, in the bathroom of her Glaswegian tenement flat. She’s discovering, at the age of 43, her first grey…
As he takes to the stage, Matt Richardson warns us that he was once described by a scowling teacher, when he was aged just seven, as an acquired taste. Does this ring true now he’s a thirty-something standing on a stage? For this reviewer, not that she can see. Matt Richardson has mass appeal. There’s a bit of an air of a naughtier, early era Russell Howard here. That moment when he was on the cusp of big fame and at his absolute funniest. As always with this sort of talent, it feels like a real privilege to be catching…
Writer: Amy Rosenthal Director: Richard Beecham Amy Rosenthal’s wonderfully crafted play is a sparkling twentieth century period piece exploring the ever fascinating interplay between the controversial and somewhat scandalous Mitford sisters, bringing oodles of wit and charm to the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne. The Mitford sisters are intriguing characters to explore in a play or on screen. Indeed, only this summer, well after this play was commissioned, saw the television series, Outrageous, explore their lives. From an aristocratic family, the sister grew up in privilege in the nineteen twenties and thirties, where, at an impressionable age, their world view points…
We’ve come together at Brighton’s Theatre Royal, a venue that Jane Austen herself would have been sure to approve of, for a night of improvised antics, inspired by the works of said author. As the show begins, an assumed academic takes to the stage in robes, a leading authority on Austenisms from modern day life. With the help of the eager audience, a title, ‘Swans in Springtime’, is selected, and so, the show begins. We join a father and daughter duo, set to flee their home in fear of the incoming swan season. In a new locale, mingling and misunderstandings…
Kindness prevails in a new genre of comedy battle. The principle of Boast in Show is simple. Instead of bashing your opponent like you would in a roast battle, you lavish them with compliments, kindness, and, er, taking a photo of their teenage self to visit their much-hated hometown (more on that later). Hosted by affable chap, Carl Carzana, who offers Mr Bean bizarre with just a touch of Bruce Forsyth (trust us, it’s pleasing!), Boast in Show takes up its new home at Brighton Komedia for this, its Ultimate Champion edition. With a handcrafted, self-portrait Carzana trophy, complete with…
Sadly another Brighton Fringe is over. The twentieth anniversary of the Fringe presented a diverse bunch of fabulous shows, as always, for the whole month of May. Comedy continues to be front and centre of the programming but theatre, spoken word, dance, circus, cabaret and the indescribably odd all get a look in at Fringe time. This year’s Reviews Hub team reviewed 54 shows from across the spectrum of what was on offer, and there were plenty of wonderful productions to ponder as contenders for the 2025 Reviews Hub Best Show of the Fringe. Our Short list is as follows: …