INTERVIEW: Mark Inscoe – Man of Many Parts Hove-based musical theatre star, Mark Inscoe, is about to reprise his West End role of the transgender woman Bernadette in the stage version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, having played the role in London’s Palace Theatre nine years ago. Brian Butler talks to him about homophobic bullying at sch By Brian Butler • 4 min read
REVIEW: Sondheim on Sondheim @Royal Festival Hall Choices of songs for compilation shows are always tricky – what to leave out is usually the problem, and whether to have a narrator interjecting with comments is another crucial decision. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: The Seven Doors of Danny @Phil Starr Pavilion This morality tale in words and music performed as part of B RIGHT ON LGBT Community Festival first saw the light of day as a concert item and it has grown and developed since its premiere in 2016. Further development and bulking out could make it a first class piece of musical theatre. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Expenses Only – The Musical @Phil Starr Pavilion In the good old days when I did stage plays and musicals we used to reckon that you needed one hour of rehearsal for every minute of actual playing time on stage when the show played. So it was incredible to learn that the talented singing line-up in this new show by Andrew Stark had just four days By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: TWINKLE @ Phil Starr Pavilion Harold Thropp is a very tired very angry panto dame. Arriving at a down at heel Northern town – probably Sunderland – he discovers that Widow Twankey has been reduced to a tiny cupboard of a dressing room in what he describes as the “cellar “. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Jack & His Big Stalk @Sallis Benney Theatre Starring the crème de la crème of Brighton’s drag royalty, this year’s offering from the Alternative Panto company is stacked high as a beanstalk with innuendo, double takes and downright honest to goodness rudery. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Hope for the holidays – a new Hove – Resound and Rebelles There are some excellent LBGT choirs in Brighton and Hove, but to my mind the gay men’s group Resound and their female counterpart Rebelles, are technically head and shoulders above the rest. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: A Christmas Carol @The Spire This is a one-hour truly immersive piece of theatre – audience involvement is a must during this hugely entertaining event. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
Arts REVIEW: Deathtrap by Ira Levin @Theatre Royal Broadway playwright Sidney Bruhl has had 11 years and 4 flops in a row and is getting desperate for another hit. So he thinks his dreams have come to true when aspiring first-time writer Clifford Anderson sends him what Sidney considers a sure-fire Broadway smash of a play called Deathtrap. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Rainbow Chorus – Classics to Classical I have to remind myself that this diverse and inclusive singing group is an amateur non – audition choir where some members can’t read music. That makes their latest concert all the more remarkable because they opened the event with a beautiful and sensitive rendition of the phenomenally tricky Faur By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts BRIGHTON FRINGE REVIEW: Guilty of Love @St Mary’s Church Books, plays and films about the life and death of the brilliant code-breaker Alan Turing are many and varied. This is the second musical on his life which I have seen in recent years , and as it’s 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised, it’s a timely re-visit to the subject matter. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts BRIGHTON FRINGE REVIEW: Agent of Influence In this Dick Barton style cheap spy thriller monologue Rebecca Dunn as Times newspaper fashion and gossip columnist Lady Pamela, conjures up a world of high society, smart clothes, Nazis and the abdication of Edward VIII. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
