4

	Varndean School (venue website) Theatre 20, 27 May, 12:00pm-1:00pm, 1:30pm-2:30pm, 3:00pm-4:00pm, 4:30pm-5:30pm, 6:00pm-7:00pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 18+ only.

Returning to the Fringe for a second year – with the same concept, but all-new storylines – This Time Tomorrow is site-specific theatre trimmed back to its bare bones.  It’s mixed-bill of four short plays, set in four parked cars; it’s both an entertaining novelty, and a fascinating experiment in social conditioning.  With the tiny audience tucked, two at a time, into the cars’ back seats, there’s an irresistible thrill about eavesdropping on dialogues in such confined and personal spaces.  But the burning question for this, my second visit, was a simple one: would the acting stand up to scrutiny, now that the element of surprise was gone?

3

	Booth Museum of Natural History (venue website) Theatre 17-20 May, 7:00pm-7:40pm, 8:15pm-8:55pm, 9:30pm-10:10pm Reviewed by Lynne Morris
Suitable for age 15+ only.  World Premiere.

And No Birds Sing was among my most anticipated shows of the festival. Performed within the atmospheric Booth Museum of Natural History, the publicity captured the mood of the type of theatre I enjoy – strange, sensory and potentially a little grotesque. Visuals and soundscapes were promised, along with the obvious taxidermy and curiosities.

4

	Upstairs at Three and Ten (venue website) Theatre 25-26 May, 1:00pm-1:50pm, 7:00pm-7:50pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 15+ only.  Warning: Contains strong language.  World Premiere.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

As the script points out early on, Who Did I Think I Was? is a play about "two men sharing digs"; but forget any thoughts of college capers, because these men are father and son.  Both have suffered tragedies, and both have ended up alone - though both have a lot of happy memories to share. And both are played by a single actor, Peter Henderson, which means their stories are told through a series of interleaved monologues spanning several years.

5

	Komedia Studio (venue website) Comedy 4-5, 18, 25 May, 9:00pm-10:30pm; 26 May, 6:30pm-8:00pm Reviewed by Darren Taffinder
Suitable for age 15+ only.  Warning: Contains strong language.  World Premiere.

Does improv have to be funny? There are a lot of other emotions - pathos, despair, disappointment, longing, spiritual emptiness, a sense that somewhere in the past your life has taken a wrong turn and if only you could get back to that moment everything would be okay - those are just a few that spring to mind. It takes a very brave group of performers to allow a story to unfold without a sense of where its unfolding to, and just let it go, sometimes, into very dark territory. The Maydays are brave.

3

	Latest Music Bar (venue website) Theatre Run ended Reviewed by Darren Taffinder

For those who didn’t grow up in the seventies, Trumpton was part of a trilogy of children’s programmes (alongside Camberwick Green and Chigley) – all set in the county of Trumptonshire, probably somewhere north of us. Not much happened in Trumptonshire; basically people went to work, and came home again. The show makes Postman Pat look high-octane. But its charm lay in its puppetry animation, and Freddie Phillips’s stripped-back, lo-fi music – each member of the Trumptonshire community had their own theme song that would play when they appeared.

5

	The Warren (venue website) Theatre 24-25 May, 6:30pm-7:30pm Reviewed by Jonathon Manning
Parental Guidance. Under-17's must be accompanied by an adult.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

Theatre company The Wrong Crowd make it clear that The Girl with the Iron Claws is aimed as much at adults as it is at children.  Word seems to have gotten round too, as although the audience is speckled with children, mostly it’s the faces of grown-ups that you will see in the theatre.

3

	The Jive Monkey Theatre & Bar (venue website) Theatre 22-24 May, 8:00pm-10:00pm Reviewed by Catherine Meek
Parental Guidance. Under-17's must be accompanied by an adult.  Warning: Contains strong language.  World Premiere.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

Masha loves Constantin loves Nina loves Trigorin: this is a tale of their unrequited feelings and the resulting despair and torment, with characters very loosely based on Chekhov’s protagonists in The Seagull.

4

	Marlborough Theatre (venue website) Comedy 24-26 May, 10:00pm-11:00pm Reviewed by Darren Taffinder
Parental Guidance. Under-17's must be accompanied by an adult.  Warning: Contains strong language.  World Premiere.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

I wouldn’t have gone to Canadian Mae Martin’s stand-up show if I hadn’t been reviewing it. My life would have gone on as normal until Friday, 21st December (the date of apocalypse as predicted by the Mayans – the end of the world is a theme of this show). But I certainly wouldn’t have been as happy. One of the great benefits of being a reviewer is when you see something really good that you would’ve missed otherwise, and this was one of those nights.

5

	Sallis Benney Theatre (venue website) Childrens 6 May, 3:00pm-4:00pm, 7:00pm-8:00pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Family-friendly. Suitable for all ages.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

Within the first five minutes of this imaginative modern circus show, I knew it would be one of the highlights of my Fringe.  Bringing acrobatics and dance out of the big top and onto the stage, Rolling On The Floor Laughing combined old-school ropes and trapezes with modern computer animations, all of it built around some distinctly up-to-date themes.  A cute opener, casting the young artists as characters in a Wii video game, set the tone for the evening; its oh-so-familiar sound effects and Mario in-jokes were what first captured my attention, but their real purpose was to highlight the real-life skills of the performers, on show behind the translucent video screen.

5

	The Old Market (venue website) Theatre 23-24 May, 8:00pm-9:20pm Reviewed by Alice Ash
Suitable for age 15+ only.

Without question, Blonde Poison is the best piece of theatre I have seen at the Fringe this year, and quite possibly one of the most earth-shatteringly good performances I have ever seen from any actress. Elizabeth Counsell plays Stella Goldschlag, a Jewish collaborator during the war: a broken woman, less than human, betrayer of her own people.  And she tells her story with an astonishing believability.