BRIGHTON FRINGE- bleeding knees, downing cider, and doing the festival for free this bank holiday...

 

 

It's bank holiday weekend and Brighton Fringe.

 

Tick and tickski.

 

On top of that, there’s a bucket load of stuff for free.

 

Tickamundo.

So... where to start.

There’s Fringe City, on New England Road, which is a fab thing to do as a family; wandering around to get a taste for shows you might want to see.

 

It sets the festivally atmosphere up nicely.

 

There’s a man there who makes the most gigantic bubbles. Like, huge. Just don’t stand too close if you don’t want to start your day covered in washing up liquid.

The Fringe City Family Picnic is also on this Saturday, which takes place in Pavilion Gardens. Fingers crossed it's nice weather, mind, as it doesn’t look too hopeful given today’s apocalyptic downpour.

Then at 4pm on Saturday, there’s a Vintage Fashion Show at the Spiegel Tent garden, where they’ll be men and women’s clothes from the 1920s to the 1950s.

 

That just sounds immense.

 

I went to the Spiegel Tent for a pint the other night after seeing Failure at the Nightingale, which was anything but. Performance artist, Mary Pearson, gave a high energy performance of an 'aspiring pop diva, and chronic underachiever'. She didn’t even bat an eyelid when she cut her knee open and was standing on a plinth with blood dripping down her leg.

But I digress. The Spiegel Tent never fails to put you in the festival spirit. I downed two pints of cider in record, time and momentarily forgot it was my turn to get up with Nancy at 5.30am the next morning. 

 

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about.

Hendrick's Carnival of Knowledge, at Angel House, Hove, has lots of free literature events going on over the weekend, so would be worth a look in.

And there’s free comedy events going on as well, at different Laughing Horse @ venues throughout the city.

You could literally do the whole festival this bank holiday on beer money.

 

Just set your alarm if it’s your turn to do the early morning wake up call.