Chris Neville-Smith's blog on theatre

The third Scarborough Fringe launches this weekend. This is an off-shoot of a project started by North Yorkshire Council called The Scarborough Fair. A fringe wasn’t part of the original plan – it was meant to be winte...

We first see Phoebe on a night out. Sort of dancing, sort of fending off a random advance from some arsehole, but mostly concentrating on a list of things she needs to be doing as soon as she’s in. Once at home (with her flat depicted on stage by a floor plan), she arranges her clothes in an unusually neat arrangement and goes to bed. Gets up, does a revised list again, with ...

It matters less than it used to with late online listings becoming a viable route – but Edinburgh Fringe’s paper programme was officially launched today. As usual, the headline figure everyone looks for is the number of ...

As that’s the end of coverage for Brighton Fringe coverage 2026. Thank you to everyone who’s been following this over the last month. Also please do let me know if you find this new format more or less user-friendly than my old one. I’m hoping that links to individual reviews are a plus, but I’ll go by what you think.

Anyway, time for a closing summary. After some c...

And we’ve reach the end. Today is the last day of Brighton Fringe. There is an awards ceremony this evening, but I tend to give minimal coverage to that, because the majority of nominees are things I haven’t seen, and therefore don’t have that much to say.

But I do have my own picks to do. It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: my lists for Pick of the Fringe an H...