Brighton Festival 2013, part the third

Just to round things off, the Fringe this year went on for an extra week, until 2 June... and so did the five pound fringe. This is what I saw on the tail end of the 2013 festival:

Friday 31 May
Buddhism: is it just for losers, The Nightingale. This also doubled as Tim Pilcher's birthday celebration so how could I not go. I saw Matt Rudkin of Inconvenient Spoof do Naive Dance Masterclass at Edinburgh (reprised in part at the AOH launch) and was very impressed. No Silvia this time, tho she was in the building, but Matt was joined by two other chaps who initially graded us by height into different rows of the theatre, splitting up couples as they went along. Then we had a mixture of puppets, silly costumes and nonsense poetry - losing me a bit in the middle - but it all came good in the end, despite a prop malfunction on the night!

Saturday 1 June
Glen Richardson’s ‘Sing-Along-A-The-White-Album’…One More Time! The Lord Nelson Inn.

I thought I'd missed this, but Brian of the Five pound fringe put on an extra show, so I was delighted. In the afternoon I got out my copy of the White Album and played it on the record deck to get me in the mood. Only two tables worth of punters at the beginning, but it gradually filled up, ultimately with a stag party wearing shower caps! Glen was joined by Tom Arnold on drum box and he went through the double album track by track, sometimes on keyboard, others on guitar (never knew he could play!). Phew! what a marathon virtuoso performance, even tho he did forget to turn the 'song sheet' over most of the time. Apparently there were more guest singers the previous night, but we were treated to Claire (?) singing Sexy Sadie, and Emily Hell singing Revolution Number 1. How Glen tackled Revolution Number 9 was a master stroke. Great beer too and a fitting end to the festival.

Sunday 2 June

Lucky Jim at the Battle of Trafalgar. Not strictly a festival event, but free, with Harvey's on tap, and some great company.

One of the events I saw right at the start of the festival won an award! Horlicks And Armageddon was voted Most groundbreaking act! Well done Sarah and Colin.

My Edinburgh week is booked, and I'm looking forward to seeing more great Brighton stuff up there...