Brighton Festival
Brighton Festival 2018 launches with Guest Director David ShrigleyThursday, 15 February 2018
At the Brighton Festival 2018 official launch this morning, the much-anticipated ritual of opening the brand new programme for the first time was taking place everywhere. It’s printed using a typeface based on visual artist and Guest Director David... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talkMonday, 29 May 2017
Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as an old, expensive pair of shoes. Kureishi’s promo tour for his latest novel, The... Read more... |
Tristan & Yseult, Brighton Festival review - playful and inventive storytellingWednesday, 24 May 2017
Tristan & Yseult has become something of a calling card for Kneehigh, which was founded in 1980 and is now the unofficial National Theatre of Cornwall. Emma Rice, currently artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London, created this... Read more... |
Adam Buxton's Bowie Bug, Brighton Festival review - a comic PowerPoint masterclassWednesday, 24 May 2017
It’s a tricky business, approaching comedy on a day when a national tragedy has just occurred. Comedian and broadcaster Adam Buxton is aware of this. It was especially noticeable last night, with his show delayed as a direct result of the Brighton... Read more... |
Rich Hall's Hoedown, Brighton Festival review - country comedy trumps hecklersTuesday, 23 May 2017
Brighton is getting a bit above itself tonight. There’s a weird full moon atmosphere in the Theatre Royal, even though it’s not a full moon. At one point, Rich Hall makes a gag wherein he wishes the world were run by women, the brunt of which is... Read more... |
The Gabriels, Brighton Festival review - hilarious drama in the shadow of TrumpTuesday, 23 May 2017
The subtitle of Richard Nelson’s new trilogy suggests an anti-Trump polemic. Instead, its miraculous, almost invisible craft fulfils the President’s most hollow promise. It restores full humanity to a family of lower-middle class Americans who often... Read more... |
An Evening with Picador Poetry, Brighton Festival review - gripping literary showcase fired with sex, politics, and paranoiaMonday, 22 May 2017
Old, young, or somewhere in the middle - people of all ages fill the seats around me and noisily wait for the evening to begin. The Picador Poetry List - home to literary giants like Carol Ann Duffy and Clive James - is celebrating its 20th birthday... Read more... |
Meow Meow's Souvenir, Brighton Festival review – subversive but evocative new song-cycleMonday, 22 May 2017
Dream palace, cesspit and church; celebrated, mopped (by Marlene Dietrich, no less) and fucked: Brighton’s Theatre Royal has seen a whole lot of history, of both the splendid and the seedy variety. Now it has found a magnificent if unlikely... Read more... |
m¡longa, Brighton Festival review - sensual tango explosionSaturday, 20 May 2017
Watching tango dancers Gisela Galeassi and Nikito Cornejo own the apron of the stage during the second half of m¡longa, the brain finds it difficult to process what the eyes are seeing. The pair seem to be one writhing, dark-toned dervish of jutting... Read more... |
No Dogs, No Indians, Brighton Festival review – poor production shoulders too big a taskFriday, 19 May 2017
A whacking great story has gone largely untold in British theatre: the legacy of colonialism in India, including the cultural ghosts the British left behind. With the 70th anniversary of Indian independence just round the corner this summer, poet... Read more... |
Jeremy Hardy, Brighton Festival review - expert raconteur shows political biteThursday, 18 May 2017
Jeremy Hardy is very happy to mock his audience and they love it. One of the biggest laughs of the night is when a punchline refers to us as a collection of “middle class white people”. Being Brighton, he goes further, explaining how tolerant the... Read more... |
Visual art at Brighton Festival - disturbing, playful, but ultimately rudderlessThursday, 18 May 2017
As befits a festival with a spoken word artist as its guest curator, storytelling is at the heart of the visual arts offer in the 2017 Brighton Festival. It is not known if performance poet Kate Tempest had a hand in commissioning these four shows,... Read more... |
