It takes some chutzpah to present the Fringe premiere of a West End musical that played 2000 performances over five years and across three theatres, and only closed less than three years ago. Even more so when the show is highly ‘proppy’, technically and...

Tues – Sat 7.30pm, Sun 4pm. 17 May - 30th June

It’s clear that Florence Leon is a performer with passion, but you need a little more than that to pull off a solo show. The fairly full house was clearly a mix of Leon’s supporters and people not connected with the show who’ve taken a chance on what...

23-24 May 21:00 £8.50 (£5) [1hr15mins]

To my generation, Judy Garland is seen as an icon of years passed. Known for “The Wizard of Oz” and little else amongst the modern youth, she fails to evoke the nostalgia and grace that Marilyn Monroe or Grace Kelly can still effortlessly command. To...

5, 12, 19, 26 May, 2 June 17:30 £8.50 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 May 19:45 £8.50 3-4, 10-11,...

Pity the composer who gets there first: Auber’s opera ‘Manon Lescaut’ eclipsed by both Puccini and Mascagni; Nicolai’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ by Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’. Pity most of all poor Sandy Wilson, who thought he had the musical...

14 May - 31st May 2013, Tues – Sat 7.30pm. Sun 3.30pm

The Wrong Crowd have readily demonstrated that you can’t go wrong with a good fairy story. The Girl with the Iron Claws is essentially a version of Beauty and the Beast, but refreshed and reinvigorated in pretty much every possible way. It is...

21 May 19:30 £12 (£10) [1hr]

I was impressed by the summary this show boasts, breezily claiming to encapsulate the bulky genres of contemporary dance, comedy and social commentary in a neat hour. No wonder it's called 'Failure'. A sparsely clothed Mary Pearson explores the dark grey...

22-24 May 19:15 £8.50 (£6.50) [1hr]

Living in Brighton you occasionally hear the Mods mentioned, in particular regarding the fights on Brighton beach with the Rockers. When the majority of people think of the Mods they think of scooters, parkas and that distinctive target logo. Jeff Noon’s...

22 May, 2 June 19:30 £14 (£12, £10 Group Bookings for educational trips ) [3hrs]

This is a spectacular butchering of Poe. As I walk in everything seems quite promising. Statue like figures are placed among the pews. Chiming, clicking and eerily loud breathing fills the air and the church setting promises a chilling performance. Sadly,...

18, 25 May 13:00 £8 (£6) 17-21, 24-28 May 17:00 £8 (£6) [1hr20mins]

Oh dear. The twenty-somethings in the audience weren't happy. They'd come expecting blood and guts and a good dose of horror kitsch, but all they got was fundamentally a show for schoolchildren. Not a bad show on the whole, but just not the 18+ show they'd...

21-23 May 21:00 £9 (£7.50) [55mins]

Interweaving three separate but related stories, Mark Kydd's new autobiographical performance tells, first and foremost, the tale of his growing up gay. That he has an older brother who is also gay is the hook on which the trio of stories hang. Born and...

21-24 May 19:30 £10 (£8) [1hr]

Broadway Baby doesn’t often get the chance to turn restaurant critic, but as Sam’s of Brighton have added their pre-show Supper Club at the Spiegeltent to the official Fringe programme, who are we to overlook the chance to review it? The meal was...

Spiegeltent. 3-4, 7-12, 14-19, 21-26, 28-31 May, 1-2 June 18:30 £30 [2hrs]

A play littered with second guessing, false pretences and a lot of alcohol would be the most apt generalisation of Brighton Little Theatre’s- or should that be Harold Pinter’s- No Man’s Land. The brilliance of this 1975 play almost out shone the...

20-25 May 19:45 £7.50 (£6.50) [2hrs25mins] 25 May 14:30 £7.50 (£6.50)...

With the stereotypical, “Ooh Matron!” persona as articulated by the likes of Alan Carr and the distinct lack of engagement with sexuality as espoused by Simon Amstell and his ilk, comedy which engages with the modern gay man is at a crossroads. This is...

16-18 May 19:15 Free, ticketed [55mins]

Quirky and engaging, this one-woman show tells the painful tale of coming of age. Olivia and Kay form a destructive friendship based on their common loss and position as outsiders. Told from the perspective of Olivia or Owl, the story sees them at the age of...

11-12, 18-19 May 15:00 £8.50 (£6.50) 11, 18 May 17:00 £8.50 (£6.50) 15-20...

Elegant, bold and beautifully choreographed, Square Peg Theatre will take your breath away with Forwards and Backwards. The story slowly unfolds, breaking chronological time as its title would suggest. Fragments of the relationship between Andrew (Lecoq...

17-19 May 18:00 £8 (£6) [1hr]

An impressive and beautiful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s music, performed with great talent by the Sussex Symphony Orchestra. The performance itself was emotionally evocative whilst the experience was quaint and warming – an ideal...

18 May 19:30 £15 (£10, £5 Children (under 16) & NUS) [2hrs15mins]

The roaring twenties seem to be a fashionable era to reflect on these days and after Great Gatsby the musical, Ruby in the Dust presents Hutch. Billed as a play with music, based on Charlotte Breese’s biography, it tells the story of Leslie ‘Hutch’...

Studio 3, Riverside Studios, 14 May - 8 June. Tickets £15-17.

A comedy reviewer's nightmare is an atypical gig. By that I mean one that either goes down so badly with the audience that you can't get a grip on the material for hearing the pin drop with a thud, or one that goes down so well that you find the material...

20-25 May 18:00 £5 (£4) [1hr]

'Carry On meets Hilary Mantel' is such a genius promotional tag line that it's difficult to resist being drawn through the doors to this Reformation Rumble. OK, so it doesn't quite have the absurd humour of the Carry Ons, nor hit the literary heights of...

20-26 May 20:00 £10 (£8, £10 no other price) [1hr45mins]

Let me introduce you to Blue the Puppet, Alamanda the Awkward Prawn, Toilet Duck Man, and Malcolm and Miranda, the Outsized Cushion Couple. They're an odd assortment of characters to put together, but put together they are, and work well they do, as...

16-19 May 20:00 £8 (£6) [1hr]