The stage is sparsely dressed: a second raised platform and a couple of small crates are all that greet us. This belies the whirlwind that The Department of Ulterior Motives (DUM) is about to unleash. We’re here to see Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin: A Drag Crime Caper - quite the mouthful. Holmes and his companion Dr Watson need little introduction. Arsène Lupin, perhaps less familiar, was created over a century ago by Maurice Leblanc. Lupin, a fictional ‘gentleman’ thief a

A director’s chair, script and drinks table await us at this Brighton Fringe production of You Oughta Be in Pictures. Taking to the stage, Polis Loizou introduces the concept of the show to us – as if we are to receive a lecture or presentation. Loizou, a former film student, has uncovered footage from an actor’s audition in Hollywood. Yet, we are not shown any segment of this – instead, he will re-enact the unseen aspect of the audition, the words and some of the assumed act

A mundane setting is presented: chairs clustered in a waiting area, a coffee table and a coffee machine. A flurry of people weave in and out of the space, seemingly purposefully, appropriately to The xx’s Intro. It’s a hospital waiting room and we will meet a disparate group of individuals whose lives are about to intersect. Lucy (Kitty Broadhurst), an off-duty nurse, finds herself torn between two profoundly different moments: in one room, her wife is giving birth; in anothe

It looks like an ordinary office at first glance: two chairs and a desk. Yet the tape recorder and telephone suggest an earlier analogue era. The painting of a suited, moustachioed, man gazes inscrutably down on the proceedings. Assumptions of normality are undermined by the appearance of Androv (Paul Bassett Davies), with a hood over his head. Removing it tentatively, he is obviously disoriented. When another man, Brodky (John Black), enters the room, Androv is immediately f

They walk among us: Karens. This is a pejorative term generally aimed at middle-aged, middle-class, women with a sense of entitlement. Holly Hughes presents I Want To Speak To Your Manager (How I Was Radicalised And Became…Karen) at Brighton Fringe after a highly successful run in Dublin. Hughes explains her slide into this world, before mounting a robust defence of it. Hughes criticises petty entitlement in restaurants, where groups of women egg each other on, insisting on g

An unconscious man is tied to a chair. There’s another chair with restraints next to him. Alongside the chairs, incongruously, there are various kitchen items, including a blender. It’s not unfair to wonder what’s going on – and in Binding Agent the questions continue to mount. Simon (Sam Hill) comes around, discombobulated. It transpires he had been abducted in a street by means of chloroform. A man, Herne (Joseph Reed), observes him. Simon instinctively believes that this m

Does therapy work? Brian Leonard takes to the stage and opens up about his familial struggles. He and his wife have a daughter, Emily. She attends kindergarten (“reception” in the UK) and almost is immediately labelled as “acting up”. She probably preferred “precocious”. They are referred to a mental health professional. His credentials appear to be impeccable: he is a New York Times best-selling author. Yet soon the parents become sceptical of his abilities. His narcissism r

Nancy (Farrah Alice Black) and David (Felix Berendse) find themselves in a room together, with no recollection of how they arrived there. They embark upon a tentative, strained, conversation. It transpires that Nancy’s last memory was of being in a hospital bed with her husband and daughter at her side. David’s last recollection is driving on a motorway, with fragments of an erratic driver and a tractor in his mind. Although they appear to be youthful, both insist that they a

Identity sits at the heart of this impressive Brighton Fringe debut Are You Even Indian? In the aftermath of World War II, the UK was crying out for a population boost to help to rebuild the nation. Tens of thousands from the Indian subcontinent answered the call; today some 5m people in the UK can trace their heritage to the region. This production introduces a woman (Neetika Knight) and a man (Mohit Mathur), charting the trajectory of their relationship, from tentative dati

A woman kneels as we enter the auditorium. On stage, there is little more than a chair and glass bowl. Between Strands is a minimalist piece of physical theatre, deeply rooted in East-Asian culture and ritual. A young woman from Taiwan is studying in the UK. She is of course far from home and this distance weighs heavily on both her and her close family. Her grandmother dies – but she is not yet ready to say goodbye. Selina Hsung-Chih Tseng performs sensitively as both grandd

Set in a struggling CD and DVD shop on a London high street, Physical Media follows proprietor Tony (Alex Machell), who obsessively curates the shop’s soundtrack largely for his own benefit, given the near-total absence of customers. The easy familiarity with which postman Gary (Paul Richards) rifles through unpaid bills and recommends discarding final demands immediately signals the shop’s precarious financial state, a point reinforced by the persistent calls from Tony’s lan

In Neddy Goes To Glasto, Sinead (Neddy to her friends) returns to Glastonbury after a ‘hiatus’ of 30 years. Yet beneath the festival setting, this is fundamentally a story about grief and the struggle to process loss. Neddy’s sister has died tragically young. More than a sibling, she was Neddy’s closest friend, bound to her through a shared childhood trauma. Her death has left a wound so raw that Neddy has scarcely begun to confront it, let alone heal from it. But off to Glas

There is a structure, centre stage, concealed by a theatrical short curtain. A show is clearly about to break out. And so it does: a coquettish, apparently French, MC - Razmatastique- takes to the stage, her movement staccato, deliberate and provocative. She introduces the premise of this evening’s proceedings: heartbroken and unable to let her former romantic interests go, Razmatastique is going to summon them to the stage in pursuit of closure. The first apparition is from

Mrs Gary Breath…well, that’s some title – so what’s going on? It’s her 34th birthday and Annie’s life is pretty good: she has a steady job, close friends and enjoys an easy-going flat share with her good friend Chuck. Romance, however, has slipped down the agenda. Her last serious relationship was six years ago, with Gary, whose halitosis gives rise to the title of the show. She meets her parents for lunch, but something is off - and it’s not just the awkward interactions bet

Photo credit: Mayah Salter

A man is in a cage, fasting. He is The Hunger Artist (Jonathan Sidgwick) and his impresario is selling tickets across Europe for people eager to observe the spectacle. His impresario will insist that his fast does not extend beyond 40 days; perhaps alluding to Jesus in the wilderness, or on the grounds of health and safety, but more likely because novelty fades and fresh tickets must be sold. As the production unfolds, we learn about the unnamed man, who regards this unusual

Seated on a barely lit stage, a suited man is somewhat pensive. It soon becomes clear why. It’s 1865, and we are in Victorian London. Henry Webster (Ashley Munson) has joined the London Ghost Club, hoping to write a ghost story. There, he befriends Edward Price (Paul Ackroyd), who persuades him to join their investigation into a reported haunting. Rumours speak of the spirits of two children wandering their former home in search of light and safety. Apprehensively, Webster pr

A performer is on stage as we enter the space, scurrying from one container to another. Newly arrived drag artist Goody Prostate (Ryan Stewart) has belatedly been asked to headline the local library’s reading hour. They will be reading to children and their parents. However, these are dark, fractured, times: word has spread that a drag artist is going to read to children, and the authorities expect the worst. It seems very likely that there will be an unruly reception committ

Julia Knight took to the stage on her birthday with Songs of Joy & Justice, a thoughtfully structured cabaret blending wit, social commentary and musical skill. The show unfolds as a sequence of songs themed around joy and justice, with Knight accompanying herself on the keyboard almost throughout. Humour runs as a constant thread, inviting easy comparisons to Victoria Wood—a connection Knight acknowledges directly by including two of Wood’s songs in the programme. The set mo

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show celebrates its 20th anniversary at this year’s Brighton Fringe with a lively collection of short-form theatre. The show offers a series of vignettes, short scenes of new writing. These are designed to entertain, of course, but in some cases may serve as a springboard for full-length productions. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show offers two different versions of performances – the ‘Early Riser’ and ‘Late Brekkie’, with the audience being offered