4

The Old Market (venue website) Theatre 9, 16-17, 23-24 May, 2:00pm-2:10pm, 2:10pm-2:20pm, 2:20pm-2:30pm, 2:30pm-2:40pm, 2:40pm-2:50pm, 2:50pm-3:00pm, 3:00pm-3:10pm, 3:10pm-3:20pm, 3:20pm-3:30pm, 3:30pm-3:40pm, 3:40pm-3:50pm, 3:50pm-4:00pm, 4:00pm-4:10pm, 4:10pm-4:20pm, 4:20pm-4:30pm, 4:30pm-4:40pm, 4:40pm-4:50pm, 4:50pm-5:00pm, 8:00pm-8:10pm, 8:10pm-8:20pm, 8:20pm-8:30pm, 8:30pm-8:40pm, 8:40pm-8:50pm, 8:50pm-9:00pm, 9:00pm-9:10pm, 9:10pm-9:20pm, 9:20pm-9:30pm, 9:30pm-9:40pm, 9:40pm-9:50pm, 9:50pm-10:00pm, 10:00pm-10:10pm, 10:10pm-10:20pm, 10:20pm-10:30pm, 10:30pm-10:40pm, 10:40pm-10:50pm, 10:50pm-11:00pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp

Suitable for age 15+ only.

It's happened to all of us, at one time or another. Someone comes up to you with a big smile, a friendly handshake and some anecdotes about the things you've done together - yet you simply haven't a clue who they are. In The Department Of Unreliable Memoirs, a 10-minute interactive experience for an audience of just one, you'll find that problem writ large; for you've forgotten not just the stranger's name, but your own identity and past.

3

	The Nightingale (venue website) Theatre 8-10 May, 6:30pm-7:45pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp

I wish I’d been a fly on the wall on that fateful day when, as I imagine it, some bright spark shouted out: “Let’s put on the show right here!”  Right here, on this bus!  On this completely ordinary scheduled public service bus, in front of whichever bemused commuters it happens to pick up along the way! And we won’t bother with tickets or reservations or any boring things like that, and we’ll bring our accordions and dance in the aisle, and we’ll talk about love and peace and harmony and everyone will have the most wonderful time!

3

	1 Shakespeare Street Theatre 5-7, 12-13, 19-20, 26-27 May, 2:00pm-3:00pm, 4:00pm-5:00pm, 6:00pm-7:00pm Reviewed by Naomi Dixon
Suitable for age 15+ only.  Warning: Contains strong language.

Gone But Not Forgotten is an intense and powerful drama, devised by locally-based Wired Theatre. The performance is set in a fully-furnished house in Poets’ Corner, and focuses on the issues of age, relationships and memories.  The drama itself deals with difficult and often uncomfortable concepts – ones we all grapple with either day to day or at least, at some point in our lives.

5

	The Nightingale (venue website) Theatre 6-7 May, 9:45pm-10:30pm Reviewed by Mathilda Gregory
Suitable for age 18+ only.  Warning: Contains strong language.

After a festival opening weekend where the Two Wrongies were simply everywhere (and delighting everyone), I think it’s fair to declare them a Brighton Institution. And the excited crowd who packed The Nightingale to see this scratch performance of new material evidently wouldn’t disagree. We were all clearly fans of their first offering, the triumphant World of Wrong, but the thrill of new material from the Wrongies mean the bar downstairs was buzzing for this sold-out show.

4

	The Warren (venue website) Theatre 5-7 May, 3:00pm-4:00pm Reviewed by Jonathon Manning
Family-friendly. Suitable for all ages.  Warning: Contains flashing lights.

Before the show has even begun, Le Navet Bete will make you smile, as the cast show you to your cabin aboard HMS Boat.  With the ship is ready to depart – and the audience already being entertained by Private Party – the voyage takes an unexpected twist, thanks to the arrival of Major Blunt and his prisoner, Napoleon Bonaparte.

3

	Laughing Horse @ The Temple (venue website) Cabaret 5, 12, 19, 26 May, 8:15pm-9:15pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 18+ only.  World Premiere.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

Stage magician Peter Campbell-Wells has been shopping on eBay – and when you’re a self-confessed fake psychic, what kind of things do you buy?  Why, it’s obvious: haunted things.  Haunted relics, haunted models, haunted toys… all utterly fraudulent, but all of them earnestly hawked by their purportedly clairvoyant owners.  In this brand-new show, Campbell-Wells has a fair old laugh at the sellers’ expense, using their spiritual tat as a jumping-off point for his own distinctly-sceptical routine.

5

	The Jive Monkey Theatre & Bar (venue website) Theatre 8-11 May, 8:00pm-9:00pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 18+ only.  Warning: Contains strong language.  2-for-1 tickets for Friends of the Fringe members.

Ten years in the making, Sam Devereaux’ self-penned one-man play is funny, tragic, and deeply affecting.  We snoop on private moments in a rock’n’roll superstar’s Las Vegas dressing room, while he prepares for another headline act in front of an adoring crowd.  But fame hasn’t proved what he’d hoped for.  As he pops the pills he needs to get his tired body through one more show, we learn that what he really wants – something truly special – is to sit on the porch, and play blues on his harmonica.

4

	New Venture Theatre (venue website) Theatre 5, 8-12, 15-19 May, 7:45pm-10:30pm; 6, 13 May, 2:30pm-5:00pm Reviewed by Catherine Meek
Suitable for age 15+ only.

Hats off to NVT; this is surely, as near as dammit, the evocation of the world of inner and outer conflicts which Tennessee Williams envisaged for Streetcar.  It’s produced with dedication to make the theatrical experience a holistic one: tickets resemble the old-fashioned stubs which were once were handed out on trams, and the programme is a buff-coloured A6 “Official Time Table” for the New Orleans trolley bus and streetcar services, complete with actors’ profiles reproduced as ID cards.

4

	The Nightingale (venue website) Events 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 May, 12:45pm-1:30pm, 2:45pm-3:30pm, 4:45pm-5:30pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 15+ only.  World Premiere.

“Theatre can happen anywhere”, proclaims the front cover of the Nightingale’s programme… and this elegant half-hour piece, pre-recorded and performed through headphones, happens across the road at Brighton Station.  A single actress is waiting for us on the railway concourse, and as we follow the directions played into our ears, we share her thoughts and discover some insights of our own.

3

	Marlborough Theatre (venue website) Cabaret 3-5, 18 May, 10:00pm-11:30pm Reviewed by Richard Stamp
Suitable for age 15+ only.  World Premiere.

In a sense, I’m wasting my time reviewing “gentleman rapper” Professor Elemental.  Not because, as he disarmingly points out, he seems to perform in Brighton every ten seconds; no, because you can do the job perfectly well for yourself, right here on YouTube.  If that video has you in stitches, you’ll love his live show.  If it doesn’t… well, this probably isn’t for you.