The Zhoosh! Brighton Blog
Brighton Festival Look ahead – part 1 (up to Sun 22nd)
The clocks have gone forward, the hawthorn’s in blossom, and the carousel is back in working order on the beach – it can only mean that the Brighton Festival and the Festival Fringe is here. As ever, there’s loads of amazing stuff on in the main festival but again as ever, a lot of things have either already sold out or veer to the pretty expensive end of the scale.
Enter, stage left, Brighton Festival Fringe. Now the world’s third-largest Fringe Festival, whatever you’re in to arts-wise you’ll find something in the Fringe for you, including plenty of things of specific interest to an LGBT audience. If you’re on a budget, there’s loads of free stuff, whether it’s open-air performance, comedy, spoken word, or nosing around people’s cribs/admiring their art works with the Open Houses all over Brighton. There are some real highlights its worth digging deep to grab a ticket for too.
There’s the return of recovering showgirl Miss Hope Springs in an all-new one wo/man musical comedy cabaret show. Hope’s Winnebago is parked up in Paris and she’s singing in a seedy Pigalle nightclub. Je M’Appelle Hope, upstairs at The Marlborough (12th-15th May). Details here
The Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus are out in force (14th/15th May) at the Old Courtroom (Details here). They’re now the largest gay male chorus out of London and there’ll be some new work in with the old favourites.
As close as you’re ever going to get to seeing Kate Bush perform live, Lucy Bundy is Fake Bush in a full-length show at The Brunswick (15th May). Bonkers costumes, songs about washing machines and nuclear fallout, trademark ballet shapes, and if you’re lucky she’ll bring along her cloud-busting machine. A treat.
It’s a tiny venue so you’ll need to be quick on the tickets but I strongly recommend Polly Samson & Jonathan Kemp’s Literary Salon (Horseless Carriage of Curiosities, 20th May). In Polly’s new short story collection ‘Perfect Lives’ not everything is as perfect as it seems and the city hides secrets. Rent boys, royals and gangsters populate the gay underworld revealed in Jonathan Kemp’s ‘London Triptych’.
It’s an unknown quantity but The Boutique – ‘a fruit bowl of gender clichés’ – at The Marlborough Theatre sounds like it’s going to be pretty interesting. Lesbian, gay, straight, transgender, transvestite, male, female, or somewhere in-between, it all happens in a little boutique with a quick-change room and the most ‘colourful’ of clientele. 19-22nd May
Cult drag performance artist Jonny Woo is hosting Gay Bingo at Coalition on the beach (20th May). Ably assisted by Ma Butcher and John Sizzle they’re promising a fast, furious and fantastically good fun evening of cabaret and bingo playing. Not recommended for those with a weak disposition.
Rounding off the first half of the festival is Cabaret Whore Encore at the Komedia Studio (22nd & 26th May). Cabaret Whore Encore features four desperate divas from around the globe and was a sell-out at the Soho Theatre and Edinburgh Fringe, and could easily bag Sarah-Louise Young the Best Cabaret Act award this time round too. See you down the front!
