PREVIEW: Brighton Comedy Festival

Brighton Comedy Festival

Various Venues

Brighton and Hove

It’s the Brighton comedy festival next month and if you’ve not checked out the lineup, then do so now here:

The month-long festival kicks off with a huge charity fundraising gala event at the Dome, with all monies raised going to the Sussex Beacon. Performing on the night will be Adam Hills as the host, the crepuscular and always excellent Rich Hall, Romesh Ranganathan and Brighton favourite Josh Widdicombe. This promises to be a great night out and a fantastic start to the festival proper.

For more info or to book tickets for the Gala night see here:

Folk to look out for this year include the wonderful deep and twisted delights of Sara Pascoe (above) bringing her show to the dome on the night of the 24th, Andy Zaltzman on the 19th, inviting you to write his material for him or at least email him with what you’d like him to lampoon, Doc Brown and his hip, perfectly-timed and very stylish hip hop show on the 16th and – with her very first UK tour – the subtle, slow-burning and deceptively simple comedy of Susan Calman (below) on the 23rd. Those are my top tips of the up-and-coming folk, you know what the bigger-named straight white boys all do, so check out the website for who’s doing what where.

The Brighton comedy festival offers the widest range of stand-up and performance comedy outside of the Edinburgh festival and its top-notch international lineup, mixed with the very best up-and-coming acts, gives it a real edge and a feeling of relevance in what can often be an overhyped part of the entertainment world. With a range of venues across town, some huge and some more intimate, there’s plenty of choice.

Here’s the festival calendar.

Oh and check out Briefs: The Second Coming, the Aussie boys with the best glittery packets in town, described as an Aussie Cirque du Soleil meets RuPaul’s Drag Race. I saw them in London; they are great, saucy, fierce, sexy and very funny and it’s a grand evening where you can just watch a collection of very fit and handsome men contort themselves for your pleasure. See a video of them strutting their sexy stuff here…. Briefs are at the Old Market from October 16th to 18th, book them now!

Last but not least this delightfully odd camp odyssey about gay rights, the 80s and disco. Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho, which was a smash hit at the Brighton festival back in May, now back after wooing the crowds in Edinburgh. On the eve of the vote for Section 28, Maggie gets lost in Soho and accidentally becomes a cabaret superstar, will this change her mind about the homophobic bill? Also at the Old Market 24th/25th.