Brighton Fringe benefits

Image by trainman74 via FlickrThis weekend launched our first Brighton Festival and Fringe - possibly one of the best benefits of living in Brighton. There's so much going on and we've already clocked up over £150 worth of tickets mainly bought on their unusual content or title. Take Friday's play, 'The Extraordinary Mugging of Mr Winterbottom' at the Three and Ten, 10 Steine Street. The venue was great little drinking hole with a small but cosy stage upstairs. The play itself was very well scripted and the two main actors did a fine job capturing the intense but witty atmosphere of a tube train journey. I'm sure there were some Street Fighter II references in there. Shame there were so little of us in the audience. They've done a YouTube video if anyone's interested. After that we got chatting to the box office lady, Nicky who was directing another event at the venue called the Haunted Moustache, another ticket we've bought for later this month. She explained it was based on the writer's actual true life experience inheriting her aunt's moustache. More event details here.

Saturday we tangled with the shopping and festival crowds in town and actually bumped into the actors who did the 'Mugging' play as they promoted with flyers. The one we met seemed a bit shocked but pleased to meet someone who'd seen the play. Later we went over to the Udderbelly tent, a giant-purple-cow-on-its-back inflatable marque next to the fountain on Old Steine. Apart from the well picked catering of Asahi beers, Bailey's milkshakes and more, we were there to see the X-Files Improv show. I wasn't the biggest fan of the show and didn't realise that Dean Haglund, the improviser was actually in the TV show as the geeky, Garth-from-Wayne's-World like character. Still, the improv idea seemed too good to pass up and was possibly the most painfully funny thing I've seen in yonks. He picked out the audience various members to assist his improv sketches with the first guy setting a high bar of funniness providing sound effects to Dean's intro scene. Another example was lady providing the arms to Dean's press-conference spokesman, flailing her arms according to the dialogue. Highly recommended.