Brighton Fringe 2025 - raised balls, free pastry and absolute bananas

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 30th May 2025

It's a very sensible place for a fringe festival, the seaside. Say you do a work-in-progress that goes weirdly; just walk down to the beach, take a good long look at the view and, hey presto, instant perspective. And things definitely do go weirdly during our few days of show-going. In a good way, mostly.

To begin, though, a fine example of successful showmaking, with The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show. Persuading people to watch a series of short plays might otherwise be tricky but offer coffee, croissants and a clash-free timeslot and they have to locate extra seats here at Ironworks Studio, late morning. That early start presumably avoids clashes with actors' other work too, as they've an excellent cast, plus scripts that have been carefully quality-controlled; the creative team pick them from hundreds of new submissions.

This morning's selection features four enjoyable plays on a fantasy-in-relationships theme, mostly comedic, then a late switch to a raucous political summit with some spectacularly multi-lingual name-calling, funneled through a hapless translator. And all seems to go absolutely swimmingly, although we do overhear the actor who probably got most laughs get approached by one of the plays' directors after, and the ominous 'I've a couple of notes...'

Later, there's a place for full-on high-concept mayhem too: the Spiegeltent, a mini festival site on a grassy strip that Sean Morley - host of Saturday night's Glang Show - describes not incorrectly as a long and noisy traffic island. The room itself, Wundabarn, is a barn-like space where much of the self-explanatory Weekend of Weird shows take place, and they do get messy.

Firstly, on Friday, it's A Night of Drama, in which Oklahoman impressario Jack Grossman guides a gifted cast through a theatrical masterclass, notably night co-founder Zoe Wohlfeld, Brighton Fringe veterans Ben Alborough and Luke Rollason, and - most importantly - a couple of human bananas tossing out the show's key ingredient: banana skins.

There are buckets of them, regularly replensished for the audience to fling at any underperforming performers. And we do, winding up and letting rip like theatrical football hooligans. Oddly cathartic it is too, although a word of warning: only sit front-row here if you love an occasional fruity wet slap on the back of the head.

Alborough is back the next night - now dressed as, er, Napoleon? - for the aforementioned Glang Show, in which performers are again disrupted, but by balls. This time we punters take the reigns, guiding the onstage actions by raising a plastic ball - glanging - and making requests, which can get spicy.

Somehow an actual archbishop gets involved, hugs secrets are revealed, and there's a gradual descent into chaos bar all but the stoic Andy Barr - initially acting as a security guard - who's glanged into giving a five minute monologue about Who He Is. The determination with which Barr tackles this while all about him go bananas almost brings a tear to the eye.

Brighton is about as far from Scotland's capital as you can get in the UK, but an excellent spot to preview Edinburgh Fringe shows, in various stages of readiness. Alastair Clark's On the Record is about his old life working in a record shop, which is a promising setting: even for big music buffs, those places could often be about as welcoming as a high-end boutique, or an old betting/porn/money-laundering shop with blacked out windows.

Clark was no stranger to that curious form of customer service, and it's a rich source of material, and subsequent soul-searching. There's some lovely writing here, and a bunch of fine set-pieces, albeit - to quote one of history's great pianists - not necessarily in the right order. Yet.

Barry Ferns is also wrestling with that nice problem to have: so much material to cram into one hour. Renowned for his willfully uncommercial comedy happenings, as a performer, Ferns is like Andy Kaufman if Andy Kaufman went on to found one of London's best venues, The Bill Murray, which keeps him busy.

So finding time to WIP is clearly a challenge, and this show is still a rough diamond. The tale of his difficult years living as Lionel Ritchie - intriguing already - with lots of enjoyable Barry-related visual aides then a second half race-against-time drama, there's some dynamite stuff here, but squeezing it all in might require several more run-outs, to find that magical through-line. He's like top 70s bike racer Barry Sheene, all revved up but just waiting for a map of the track.

But the highlight of this weekend, and perhaps the Brighton Fringe generally these days, is the Komedia Comedy Showcase. Hosted by a joyously on-form Luke Rollason, basking in the glow of a recent Bafta win (plus brilliant speech) and the bestowing of his bursary, this annual bash boasts a splendidly random eight acts. From Carl Carzana's likably droll suitcase-and-surprise-guest antics to Ozzy Algar's witchy Isle of Wight launderette, Haylin Kai's joyous branch-of-a-tree blessings and - star of the show - the sensational Sam Hickman.

The harp-plucking comic begins the second half by sashaying on in a splendid curtain-cum-cape - gold, doubled-lined, looks like a five-foot drop - then juxtaposes some classy classical twangs with a joke so rude that the couple on the end of our row almost spill the carafe of white wine they'd acquired at the interval. You get all sorts at Brighton Fringe. Good times.