Meet Pete. He has a shaved head and skinny legs, and he’s dressed in a pair of turquoise-blue shorts and sparkly trainers. Pete has a story to tell – the story of a quest for love. Pete is gay and has a predilection for men with a bit of fat on them. We start with […]

Mixing traditional tales from around the world (including the Native American story of the crow who stole the daylight) into a narrative about the necessary balance between day and night and the value of both, Ripstop Theatre’s beautifully titled Luminous Tales is billed as a ‘gentle journey through the darkness of night, over the light of the […]

So, why are some things in the Festival and some in the Fringe? This was asked of me by an interested ‘non-artist’ friend visiting Brighton in the hectic month of May. Once, the answer would have been straightforward: the Brighton Festival is curated, and artists are invited to take part and paid a performance and/or […]

I first saw Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof in the early 1980s, and, thirty years later, sat in the midst of an excited audience, here I am again to see a restaging of her 2001 work Agua. Spanning completely the rear of the stage there’s luscious verdant green projections of palm tree fronds rippling in sultry breezes. A couple are […]

A small pontoon stage floats on the water of St. Peter’s Basin in Salford Quays. It has its own window box of reeds. Small floating bundles of red twigs mark out a performing area in the water. The audience looks down on this scene – in the background trams pass by and customers park cars […]