Brighton Fringe News & Reviews

This is where you can read recent news articles and reviews of shows in this year's Brighton Fringe


List News & Reviews: By Star Count | By Date


Nathan Cassidy: Amnesia - Brighton review

May 12, 2023   The Brighton Seagull

Article about Nathan Cassidy: Amnesia

Nathan Cassidy: Amnesia - Brighton review

Kicking off Brighton Fringe 2023 with Nathan Cassidy is the best way to start the season. A longtime favourite of ours, Cassidy won our Best Standup award last year (and if he wins it again this year, we'll have to make it the Nathan Cassidy Memorial award for Best Standup), and this year he's looking on track to win it again with another flawless performance.
The thing is, right, nobody wants links, depth, heart or soul in comedy anymore, so he's given us exactly what the TikTok generation want: short bits of unconnected comedy that you can just swipe away from. Or did he? With jokes about how animals are taking over (why can't humans shit with 'gay abandon' like horses can?), how 2048 is too far away to care about global warming, and how Pizza Express is trying to capture the teen market, Cassidy truly brought his A-game this year.
Some comedians treat Brighton Fringe as a warm-up for Edinburgh, but Cassidy always brings a truly polished show every time we see him. Life is about beautiful connections, and Brighton Fringe is about Nathan Cassidy, an incredible comedian making the best shows you could hope to see. Click Here For Article


Welcome to the 2023 Fringe - Our New Fringe Programme is Live!

January 25, 2023   LH News

Welcome to the 2023 Fringe - Our New Fringe Programme is Live!

We're back! The Laughing Horse programme for Fringe 2023 is Live... come and join us in Brighton Click Here For Article


Film Club - An Improvised Comedy

January 23, 2023    The Student

Review of Film Club - An Improvised Comedy

Film Club - An Improvised Comedy

"Quick witted and cleverly crafted." Click Here For Review


British Comedy Guide Interview

January 6, 2023   British Comedy Guide

Article about Adam Larter *Cricket Noises*

British Comedy Guide Interview

 Click Here For Article


Edinburgh Festival Fringe comedy reviews: by Kate Copstick

January 3, 2023   The Scotsman

Article about Gerry Carroll - Young

Edinburgh Festival Fringe comedy reviews: by Kate Copstick

Gerry Carroll: A Man in My Position *** Kate Copstick's review of my 2022 Edinburgh show.

Gerry Carroll's hour is strangely sweet and raw and like nothing else I have seen. It might have been more comfortable being slightly formatted or directed in spoken word, but the odd pick'n'mix of memories and poems, comic chat and Leonard Cohen feels properly, honestly personal, and is even funny in parts. I would far rather watch this more-than-slightly shambolic hour, in its shambolic venue, than anything that is only here to take your money and promote its tour. Click Here For Article


Attempts at spookiness make for top clownery

August 27, 2022    The Wee Review

Review of The Ritual

Attempts at spookiness make for top clownery

A performance that strains the comic potential of repetition to its limits, The Ritual is one of those silly, experiential moments that no Fringe is complete without.

A vampiric aristocrat, The Master (Steffen Hånes), is desperate to make a spooky entrance and Gregor, his butler (Gregory Lass), is desperate to provide him with it. Every interruption, every disturbance in the crowd, is a cue to reset and start again. Tonight, his aura’s disrupted by some spontaneous raising of a cross sign, a toilet break, and simple confusion over an audience member’s pronunciation of Kirkcaldy, so it’s back to his shrouded slumber, ready for another go.

The demands made of Gregor by his Lord in order to prepare for his entrance only increase as the hour progresses. He wants spooky lights, he wants smoke, he wants the room cleared of Christians. Eventually he wants the blood of a virgin. And Gregor hands responsibility for securing these demands onto a third party – Emily, a put-upon Scottish techie in plain clothes, completely at odds with the otherwise theatrical Transylvanian vibe.

It’s one-note humour, but brutally and brilliantly exploited. The two Transylvanians are intensely into their parts, which only makes the mask slips funnier, and Emily’s undramatic cameos are all the more delightful for the contrast. They labour the conceit very, very hard, but the audience keep buying into it. In several different spells, Gregor fills minutes encouraging us to clap along with his bodhran, trying to catch us out with his rhythms, but such are his comic facial mannerisms, it somehow doesn’t get tiresome.

It’s pure clowning, thinly plotted but highly entertaining. All it really lacks is the narrative clincher that would lift it from riffing brilliantly off a productive idea to the fully finished product. Click Here For Review