Norse God Wrestling to Drag Queen Quaffing: a Balmy Weekend at the Brighton Fringe

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Sunday 4th June 2023

Is there a better way to do a city break than the Brighton Fringe, which peppers the city with interesting shows, and other stuff, from early May to early June? British Comedy Guide arrived on the first hot weekend of the summer, encountering a glorious juxtaposition of sunny seaside wanders and the darker basements, attics, tents and cafes you'll find at a Fringe, hosting every type of comedy you can imagine, and a fair bit you probably couldn't.

Day One: Larvae, Monopoly and caravans

Just off the train, my first port of call is so Brightony, inside and out. Saturday lunchtime, Raul Kohli does a very promising WIP in the beautifully decorated upstairs at The Quadrant pub, furnishing a diverse crowd with sharp insights into his identity issues as an English Indian, including a convincing case that knife crime is quintessentially British, and how the current English and Scottish leaders could make an ironic type of history. But will they still be in charge when Edinburgh comes around? Frantic rewrites possible.

It's a nicely receptive lunchtime crowd - one regime-eschewing Russian gets a warm round of applause - and the only heckling happens at the clock tower outside. Through the open window you can watch a pro-Palestine demonstration being counter-demonstrated by a pro-Israel one, which gets quite heated, as you can imagine. It's a seaside town with an edge.

And a long-established alternative spirit. Down towards the seafront it's the Fringe's first Weekend of Weird, at the festive Spiegeltent's Bosco Theatre, and El Dizzy Beast certainly fits the bill: a wild but heartfelt show about birth, blossoming, love and larvae semantics from the avant garde Venezuelan Andrea Spisto.

Actually it's a bit of a weird afternoon generally as the all-important projector is playing up. During one awkward delay Spisto's partner offers to aurally describe what would have been on screen, which would have been an interesting alternative version actually. Another time, maybe.

Back in that tent a few hours later there's a more familiar but still very novel affair. Local boy Benjamin Alborough's Absolute Monopoly is an absolute riot, with a cause: to make that often monotonous board game fun again. Alborough is the suave ringmaster; or at least suave until things get loopy later, as the audience act as the board, tossing the contestants' counters between them with increasing vim as forfeits are tackled and fluids spilled. Who knew being a money-grabbing landlord could be such joyous fun?

As the sun goes down it's the perfect time to visit another self-contained festival site further into town, the Caravanserei, which began life at Camp Bestival ten years ago and looks like a village from the dreams of Terry Pratchett, or Terry Gilliam. Or Terry Jones, actually. Proper Terry vibes, anyway.

And oddly fitting in such a setting is Mythos: Ragnarok, a show we didn't know we needed, but do now. It's the norse gods saga - Loki, Odin and all that - with wrestling. And not just boring old olympic-style grappling, but high-flying WWE-esque slapdowns, which - and this is somewhat overlooked on those portentous US spectaculars - are absolutely hilarious. Between scraps they dig right into the dark and dirty tales Marvel wouldn't touch, so the inevitable tussles make lots of sense. You've never heard an audience have such fun.

Our Saturday concludes in more traditional style with Late Show at the Forge, the club launched last year by Brighton's Mr Comedy, Stephen Grant, at the impressive new Ironworks Studios. It's a solid if slightly lop-sided line-up tonight, as can be the way with late shows: first-on Scott Bennett is in top form and blows everyone else away before they've even begun. That's showbiz.

Day Two: Wine, More Wine and Song

We purposefully packed quite a bit into day one, knowing that day two could veer wildly off-course due to the afternoon's first activity: Drag Queen Wine Tasting, at the classy cafe Redroaster.

It's a pretty foolproof set-up, this: three glasses of quality plonk, lovingly presented by the effervescent sommelier Beth Brickenden, while her statuesque sidekick Vanity von Glow belts out showtunes, and useful health updates on the songs' original singers (Celine Dion: world tour recently cancelled due to a rare neurological condition. Tina Turner: dead).

Vanity gives her forthright opinions on the booze too - she's pleasingly frank when not a fan - which is fair enough, as it's Brickendon who does a lot of the saucier jokes. But you'll also learn a few things along the way; question is, will any of us remember them later? Particularly today, as there's a bonus prosecco encore, as Brickenden introduces us to Madame F, a bubbly collaboration with Queer Britain. Good cause booze? You can't beat it.

Actually we feel surprisingly perky despite mixing those tipples - that's decent wine for you - if also grateful to Matty Hutson for delaying his start, a bit; it's one of several travel issues this evening, in fact. Hutson got tangled up in a bike race while driving down from London, but eventually arrives at the rather nice Arista bar, then spends a good while setting up his elaborate musical feast downstairs.

The eventual show goes all Memento with the timelines, as if directed by Christopher Nolan; he does the second bit first while someone runs off to get the wi-fi code so he can locate the new intro he wrote that morning. Classic WIP action. Anyway, this way round works, as he launches into classic-riff tiny response songs, vocoder audience interactions and meatier affairs about friends, follicles and an upset shark. Lovely stuff.

Our final show takes us back up the London Road to the Caravanserai complex, where Mythos are flyering at the entrance in full costume, which is certainly a good way to grab the attention. Other shows prefer stealthier promotional methods: there's a poster for Wrong Songs in the urinal.

Which certainly didn't hurt, as there's a hefty queue for this popular colab between gaming, singing and now Doctor Whoniverse character Sooz Kempner and the composer Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer the Opera, Anna Nicole). More travel dramas first though. Trumping Matty's tour de farce, Sooz announces that her car breathed it's last on the way down ("that's true," whispers the friendly chap next to me, who turns out to be the producer's dad) and she ends up trying to flog it from the stage.

After those motoring mishaps Sooz must have been delighted to discover the Caravanserai's visual theme when she eventually arrived: off-the-road vehicles in various states, mostly caravans, but also a sort of quasi Batmobile crashing right into the stage. Then a few songs into their set her necklace snaps off, just to rub it in.

Thankfully the show itself is anything but a car crash, as these two are now an absolute song-and-dance machine (the dancing is a recent addition, Thomas explains), rattling through their varied back-catalogue of mini hits and full-length off-Broadway bangers, all showcasing Kempner's vast range, from pop to operatic, sweary to even swearier. I can't help sneaking a look at that nice couple next to me, every time she detonates a c-bomb. And they're bloody loving it.

Anything goes down here. What a perfect place for a Fringe.