Brighton Festival 2017 highlights

Brighton Festival 2017

Saturday 6th to Sunday 28th May 2017
various venues, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1UE, England MAP
various ticket prices on sale from Fri 24th Feb, plus FREE outdoor events

Daily capacity: 20,000

Brighton Festival 2017 highlights include:

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Kate Tempest: Opening gig
Brighton Festival Exclusive
Sat 6 May, 6.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
As Guest Director of Brighton Festival 2017, it is only fitting that Kate Tempest should take to the stage on the very first evening. Giving the audience a taster of what we can expect over the following three weeks, join us for an early evening special full of music and spoken word to open your minds and grant you an insight into Brighton Festival, Tempest-style.

Mica Levi's Under the skin: Film screening with live orchestra
Sun 7 May, 8pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Jonathan Glazer's 2014 film Under the Skin impressed critics with its uncomfortable portrayal of an otherworldly predator, for which Mica Levi's beautiful, elemental and skewed music provided the intoxicating soundtrack.
Previously known as a DJ and singer-songwriter in her band Micachu and the Shapes, Levi earned herself a BAFTA nomination for the film score which she conducts in this live performance by the London Sinfonietta.

Kate Tempest with Mica Levi & Orchestrate: Let Them Eat Chaos, Rearranged
World Premiere, commissioned by Brighton Festival
Thu 11 May, 7.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Hip-hop inspired storytelling meets cinematic orchestration as Kate Tempest teams up with Oscar-nominated musician and composer Mica Levi and ensemble Orchestrate. Levi has long collaborated with Orchestrate, a network of some of the UK's most accomplished and adaptable young musicians. For this special one-off performance, Orchestrate will perform a selection of Levi's works, followed by a special performance with Kate Tempest of Let Them Eat Chaos, re-worked for string orchestra.

High Focus Records: Ocean Wisdom, The Four Owls and Jam Baxter
Brighton Festival Exclusive
Fri 12 May, 7.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Established in 2010, High Focus Records has offered a platform for a new generation of UK rappers and producers. For this special Brighton Festival show, the label presents three acts from its impressive roster: The Four Owls, whose 2011 debut Nature's Greatest Mystery became an ambassador for UK hip hop around the world; Brighton-based MC Ocean Wisdom, whose debut release Walkin'was an underground smash that marked him out as one of the scene's most exciting prospects; and Jam Baxter, an accomplished and outlandish hip hop lyricist, both as solo artist and member of Contact Play and Dead Players.

Shirley Collins presents Lodestar Live
Sun 14 May, 7.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
One of the most important voices in British Folk, singer and song collector Shirley Collins returns to performing in her beloved home county with music from her first release in nearly 40 years, Lodestar. Having only sang in public at a handful of guest appearances since 1982, this is a rare opportunity to see the Sussex-based artist performing songs from her critically-lauded album Lodestar performed with special guests and dancers handpicked for the occasion including the likes of Boss Morris, Brighton Morris Men, Sam Lee, John Kirkpatrick, Bing Lyle and Naomi Bedford.

Meow Meow: Souvenir
Brighton Festival Exclusive
Sat 20 May, 5pm & 8pm, Theatre Royal Brighton
Actress, singer, dancer, Meow Meow is a cabaret diva of the highest order. Her kamikaze performance style has thrilled audiences globally with her shows The Little Match Girl, Apocalypse Meow and An Audience with Meow and via her collaborations spanning artforms and genres: from Pink Martini to Amanda Palmer. For this exclusive Brighton Festival performance, Meow Meow joins forces with the Orchester der Kleinen Regiment to summon the ghosts of Brighton's Theatre Royal, past, present and future featuring original collaborations with composers Jherek Bischoff, August von Trapp, and The Lilliputian Octet.

Kate Tempest and Band
Fri 26 May, 8.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Hot on the heels of a headline tour in support of second studio album Let Them Eat Chaos, Kate Tempest and her band bring a specially extended live show to kick off the final weekend of Brighton Festival in fine style. Support comes from Melbourne MC REMI, who, with musical collaborator Sensible J, has become one of the fastest-rising hip-hop acts in Australia. REMI's sophomore LP Divas and Demons was released last year through his own label and included the widely loved single For Good featuring Sampa the Great.

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD

Apples and Snakes: In their shoes feat. Patience Agbabi, Dizraeli, Tommy Sissons
Sun 7 May, 7pm – 9pm, All Saints Church
England's leading promoter of performance poetry and spoken word present a mixed bill of some of the rising starts of the form: Patience Agbabi, a renowned poet on the international literary circuit, author of four books and former Poet Laureate of Canterbury; Dizraeli, a rapper, multi-instrumentalist and sometime singer who has recently composed a soundtrack for E4, spent a week in the refugee camp at Calais and travelled to Senegal to study West African music; and Brighton-born Tommy Sissons, a national poetry slam champion whose work deals with topics such as the impact of politics on youth culture and working class values. There will also be readings of five specially-commissioned In Their Shoes poems written by selected poets and performed live for the first time.

Picador Poetry: Kate Tempest, Glyn Maxwell, Holly McNish, Richard Osmond
Fri 19 May, 8pm, Theatre Royal Brighton
To mark 20 years of the Picador Poetry list, this celebratory event showcases established names and new voices from this broad church: Kate Tempest, who will read from her passionate, political verse Hold Your Own, and long poems Brand New Ancients and Let Them Eat Chaos. Glyn Maxwell, one of Britain's most respected and awarded contemporary poets; Holly McNish, whose viral YouTube videos have reached 4 million views, Lorraine Mariner, who has been described as a Dorothy Parker for the internet age, and poet and forager Richard Osmond, one of the Evening Standard's ‘new guard'of young poets.

Bang Said The Gun: Featuring Dan Cockrill, Martin Galton, Laurie Bolger & Rob Auton
With guests Vanessa Kisuule & Sally Jenkinson
Sat 20 May, 8pm, The Spire
Voted the best poetry night in the UK by The Times, Bang Said the Gun is for people who don't like poetry. Described by Kate Tempest as ‘like mud wrestling with words'and by former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as ‘a vortex of energy and enthusiasm', it's loud, raucous, political, trivial, serious and very funny. Don't miss a rich mix of the best and freshest talent that will grab you by the collar and drag you into another world.

Lyrix Organix: Unfold Kojey Radical. Plus guest talk by Deanna Rodger
Tue 23 May, 7.30pm, The Spire
Lyrix Organix explore what it means ‘To Be Human'with a double-headliner live show. UnFold is a critically acclaimed live show that champions the next young stars of spoken word. This one-off show shines a spotlight on Toby Thompson (described as ‘the future'by Kate Tempest), Laurie Ogden and Solomon OB (National Slam champion 2016), in a collection of live performances threaded by a soundscape from London String Collective. This Brighton Festival special edition is co-headlined by Kojey Radical, an extraordinary 24 year-old poet, musician and striking visual artist whose explosive live shows have led to sold-out performances at London's Jazz Cafe, MOBO Award nominations. The night also features a special guest talk by internationally acclaimed poet Deanna Rodger.

OUTDOOR

For the Birds
Brighton Festival Exclusive
Sat 6 – Sun 28 May (except Mon & Tue), Woodland Location
Artist and producer Jony Easterby has brought together some of the most dynamic sound and lighting artists in the UK to create this unforgettable outdoor experience. Originally staged at RSPB Ynys-hir reserve in Wales, For the Birds went on to become the audience highlight of the 2016 New Zealand Festival, where it attracted more than 10,000 people over three weeks. Against a canvas of darkness and the sound of wind in the trees, audiences follow a 2km trail of ingenious and beautiful installations of light, sound and moving sculpture which will surprise and enthral.

Five Short Blasts: Shoreham
UK Premiere
Sat 6 – Sun 28 May, around high tide (Every day except Mon 15 and Tue 16), Shoreham Harbour
Following its premiere in the Port of Melbourne and the lower Yarra River, Five Short Blasts: Shoreham has been created in collaboration with Shoreham's water communities and the same team who brought the water-themed installation Gauge to Brighton Festival 2015. Audiences cast off aboard our small seagoing vessel, a perfect crucible for listening to where you are. There, amidst the changing of the tide, you experience the voyage into mystery that the water always holds.

Walter and Zoniel – SPECTRA: CAST
Fri 12 May, evening preview, Sat 13 – Sun 14 May 12pm – 5pm, The Beach, Doughnut Groyne
Artist duo Walter & Zoniel invite visitors to cast multi-coloured stones onto Brighton beach to create a vast rainbow of vibrant pebbles, each one colour-coded to represent a different artistic view. As a myriad of opinion mounts up, the beach gradually represents the diversity of creativity and outlook that powers cultural debate. Part performance, part installation, SPECTRA:CAST is an artwork for all that allows everyone to make their mark.

Circa: Depart
Co-commissioned by Brighton Festival
Thu 25 – Sun 28 May, 8.30pm & 10.15pm, Woodvale Cemetery
Inspired by the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, Depart will take you on a haunting journey through the underworld in the uniquely atmospheric location of Woodvale Cemetery. Led by Circa's Yaron Lifschitz with a creative team including electronic musician Lapalux, this ethereal collaboration brings together acrobats, aerialists, choral singers and video artists for an outdoor circus experience that audiences have been describing as ‘mesmerising', ‘hauntingly beautiful'and ‘pure magic'.

FREE EVENTS

Your Place
Sat 13 & Sun 14 May, Hangleton & Sat 20 & Sun 21 May, Whitehawk
As part of a new partnership with Brighton People's Theatre, Brighton Festival is working with local residents and Festival artists to programme an exciting and diverse line-up of music, dance, theatre and spoken word in the Hangleton and Whitehawk communities. Along with community steering groups, and the help of Kate Tempest and local company Nutshell to create the space, we are putting together an amazing array of workshops, performances and participatory activities. Learn to dance, see a show and meet artists from around the world.

Storytelling Army
World Premiere, commissioned by Brighton Festival
Fri 26 – Sun 28 May, Throughout Brighton
Each one of us has a story to tell. Extraordinary moments amongst the ordinary. The little victories against the odds. An everyday epic. Brighton Festival is working with Nabokov and Guest Director Kate Tempest to assemble and mobilise a Storytelling Army: a dynamic collective of people from all walks of life and all corners of the city, including those who are homeless and vulnerably housed. Look out for pop-up performances across Brighton, be it in the local supermarket, the pub or on the top deck of a bus.

Weekend without walls
Sat 13 May, 12 – 5pm, Easthill Park, Portslade Village & Sun 14 May, 12 – 5pm, East Brighton Park, Whitehawk
From mini theatre shows to bingo, get ready for an afternoon of inventive performance in the park. The line-up includes: Bingo Lingo, a cheeky reinvention of this great British tradition; Willy and Wally, an environmental message from street artists Cocoloco; Chameleon's Witness This, a powerful and personal piece of dance theatre telling the story of choreographer Kevin Edward Turner and his journey with bipolar; Corazón a Corazón, contemporary dance fused with British Sign-Language; Theatre for One by Lempen Puppet Theatre; Orbis, a duet from Humanhood which explores the relationship between humankind and the moon; To me, To you, a new playful aerial dance show by the critically acclaimed company, Wired Aerial Theatre; and Happy Feet, a dazzling dance-off, with the Ragroof Players.

VISUAL ART

Ipek Duben: They/Onlar
Sat 6 – Sun 28 May, 12pm – 7pm, Fabrica
How does Turkey view the Other? And how by extension, do we? In her multi-screen video installation, Ipek Duben goes behind the scenes in Turkish society to provide a glimpse of her country's ethnic, religious and gender diversity, and the everyday discrimination and resistance that it triggers. Projected onto large screens, personal stories reveal the lines of division within Turkish society from the subjects'personal perspectives as religious, ethnic or sexual minorities. Ipek Duben is an artist, author and editor whose work examines issues of alienation, identity, prejudice and migration.

Cathie Pilkington: The Life Rooms & Doll for Petra
Sat 6 – Sat 27 May, University of Brighton, Grand Parade &
Throughout the Festival, Tue – Sun, Ditchling Museum of Art Craft
A Royal Academician since 2014, Cathie Pilkington is acclaimed for her often unsettling sculptures that question how the female figure is represented. Brighton Festival showcases three works as part of this year's visual art programme:
Anatomy of a Doll, exhibited for the first time since its debut at the Royal Academy, at the University of Brighton Gallery, responds to Degas' famous figures of ballerinas. Showing alongside is Harmonium, which transforms a humble wooden shelving unit into the framework for fascinating individual tableaux. Over at Ditchling Museum of Art Craft, Doll for Petra (co-commissioned by Brighton Festival) is a powerful sculptural response to a carved wooden doll made by Eric Gill for his daughter Petra exhibited as part of a new body of work produced in response to the museum's major Eric Gill exhibition running concurrently.

Lynette Wallworth: Collisions
Wed – Sun, 6 – 28 May (timed slots), Lighthouse
In the 1950s, with no context, no understanding, Nyarri Nyarri Morgan from the remote Pilbara region of the Western desert was moving through a trade route with his family when he witnessed an atomic test. In this thought-provoking, intimate, virtual reality film experience, by acclaimed Australian artist and director Lynette Wallworth, Nyarri, now a Martu Elder, reflects on his first contact with the West, and shares his perspective on the Martu way of caring for the planet.

Eddie Otchere: The Bright Room
Sat 27 & Sun 28 May, 11am – 11pm
Acclaimed photographer Eddie Otchere is best known for his photographs depicting hip hop culture since the 1990s. Exhibited and published worldwide, his celebrated works include portraits of Wu Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls, Mos Def, Goldie and many others. In this special Brighton Festival event Otchere will set up a community darkroom – an open-access space in which the people of Brighton can capture, reflect on and share their experiences, celebrating what it is to be part of a community.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Chineke!
Sat 6 May, 5 pm. All Saints Church
Jonathon Heyward: Conductor, Sheku Kanneh-Mason: Cello
Established to provide opportunities for the cream of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) talent, the Chineke! Orchestra is changing the face of classical music by drawing on the artistry of exceptional BME musicians from throughout Europe. Dynamic young conductor Jonathon Heywood kicks off with an overture by the first composer of African ancestry, the Guatemalan Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–99). Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who caused a stir as BBC Young Musician 2016, performs Haydn's First Cello Concerto, before the programme climaxes with Elgar and Mozart.

I Faglioni
Sun 7 May, 3pm, Glyndebourne
One of the world's most exciting vocal ensembles celebrates the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi by delving into the lesser-known delights of the composer's sacred music. Reconstructing a service of Vespers as it might have been celebrated in 1640, I Fagiolini is joined by the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble in rarely heard works by the great master of early music and gems by some of his contemporaries. Voices, cornetts, sackbuts, Baroque violins, theorbos and organ blend thrillingly in music of rare spiritual and emotional power.

Monteverdi: II Combattimento. Les Talens Lyriques with Christophe Rousset
Sun 21 May, 7.30pm
Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Continuing the commemoration of Monteverdi's 450th birthday, the master of Baroque music performance, Christophe Rousset, and his extraordinary ensemble Les Talens Lyrique bring their rare powers of interpretation and insight to three masterworks dealing with love and loss: An exquisite fragment from the lost opera L'Arianna; Il ballo delle Ingrate, a dance which shows the living what to expect if they resist the arts of Cupid, and Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.

Britten Sinfonia & Brighton Festival Chorus
Sun 28 May, 7.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
In 1942, shortly after the USA entered WW2, Copland was commissioned to write a work to fortify and comfort people during the time of national distress. The resulting Lincoln Portrait is a stirring setting of extracts from great speeches made by Abraham Lincoln, including the Gettysburg Address. Fanfare for the Common Man was inspired by a speech given in the same year by Vice President Henry A. Wallace. John Adam's Harmonium, harnessing poetry by Donne and Dickinson, is a glittering symphony that, drawing on the full power of a massed chorus, brings the Festival to a resplendent close.

THEATRE

Andy Smith & Fuel: Summit
Brighton Festival Co-commission
Mon 8 & Tue 9 May, 8pm, The Spire
Previewing at this years'festival, and performed in British Sign Language and English by a cast of three, Summit is a new play written and directed by award-winning theatre maker Andy Smith (Adler & Gibb, what happens to the hope at the end of the evening). Exploring language, rhetoric and communication, Summit tells the story of a meeting: a meeting to resolve a potentially catastrophic situation. Our situation.

No Dogs No Indians
World premiere, Brighton Festival commission
Wed 17 & Thu 18 May, 8pm, The Spire
Three intertwining stories explore the effects and legacy of the British in India in a powerful new play by poet and playwright Siddhartha Bose to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian independence: A young revolutionary prepares to storm a whites-only club in Chittagong in 1932 occupied Bengal; an aspiring intellectual born in post-independence Kolkata is in love with all things British: Shakespeare, cricket, The Beatles, but he begins to question his own identity; In 2017, a man returns from London to the New India, where he encounters steel magnates, supermodels and tech millionaires, but is haunted by ghosts from the past.

The Public Theater's The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family
UK Premiere
Sat 20, Sun 21 & Sat 27 May, 1.30pm, 4.15pm and 7.30pm (all three plays). Tues 23 May, 8pm (Hungry), Wed 24 May, 8pm (What Did You Expect), Thurs 25 May, 8pm (Woman of a Certain Age
Richard Nelson's The Apple Family Plays was the theatrical highlight of the 2015 Brighton Festival. Now the Tony Award-winning playwright and director follows up with The Gabriels, a landmark series that follows in real time, tracking their lives throughout the turbulent election year of 2016. History, money, politics, art and culture are all on the table in this moving three play cycle about a family celebrating, remembering and waiting
for the world to change.

Kneehigh: Tristan & Yseult
Directed & adapted by Emma Rice
Tue 23 – Sat 27 May, 7.30pm, Thu 25 & Sat 27 May, 2.30pm, Theatre Royal Brighton
Emma Rice's acclaimed staging of the Cornish legend catapulted Kneehigh onto the national stage, leading to many other memorable productions including Brief Encounter and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, last seen in Brighton in 2015. Tristan & Yseult remains one of the company's most loved shows, which critics have called ‘a triumph', ‘deliriously joyful'and ‘breathtaking in every respect'.

DANCE & CIRCUS

Charlotte Vincent: Virgin Territory
Wed 10 – Fri 21 May, Onca Gallery
Charlotte Vincent's powerful new work leads you through a series of lyrical, disarming exchanges, performed on multiple screens by four children (aged 12-14) and four adults. With moving, resilient performances at its core, Virgin Territory elicits an emotional and discursive response in its searching enquiry into our hyper-sexualised digital world.

Teac Damsa: Swan Lake
Tue 9 May & Wed 10 May, 8pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
From one of Ireland's foremost dance and theatre-makers comes a magical new adaptation of Swan Lake. Michael Keegan-Dolan has forged a searing new vision for this beloved tale, creating a world of magical realism, powerful imagery and potent storytelling. The Dublin-based band Slow Moving Clouds has created a new score that combines Nordic and Irish traditional music with minimalist and experimental influences.

Casus: Driftwood
Thu 11, Fri 12, Sat 13 May, 7.30 pm, Sat 13 & Sun 14 May, 2pm, Theatre Royal Brighton
Sensational Australian circus group Casus (Knee Deep, Brighton Festival 2013) elevates circus to a form of silent theatre in which momentum alternates with stillness, strength with fragility, emotion with humour. In this colourful and turbulent concoction of pure joy and intimacy, Casus brings a blank canvas to life and reveals our innate need for human contact. This is a show that reminds us that to feel is to be human; that in a moment of danger, a grasping hold is survival.

Theo Clinkard: This Bright Field
Brighton Festival co-commission. World premiere
Thu 25 May Part One (timed slots), 5pm – 7pm. Part Two, 8pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
Brighton-based choreographer and designer, Theo Clinkard follows his recent commissions for Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and Danza Contemporánea de Cuba with This Bright Field. Audience and performers share the stage for a captivating and intimate mobile installation before the second part presents a dynamic landscape of emboldened collective energy.

BOOKS AND DEBATE

Ali Smith
Tue 9 May, 8.15pm, Brighton & Hove High School
From the imagination of the peerless Smith (Brighton Festival Guest Director 2015), Autumn, set in the wake of the Brexit vote, is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time.

Hanif Kureishi
Sun 28 May, 7.30pm, Brighton and Hove High School
One of the UK's most celebrated novelists discusses his latest work, The Nothing. With characteristic black humour and deftness of touch, the author of seminal works such as The Buddha of Suburbia and Intimacy has produced a tense and captivating exploration of lust, helplessness and deception. In conversation with the author and broadcaster Mark Lawson, he looks back on a visionary career in which he has explored some of the great themes of our day: identity, cultural difference, and religious fundamentalism.

George Monbiot & Ewan McLennan: Breaking the Spell of Loneliness
Sun 7 May, 8pm, The Spire
A collaboration between writer George Monbiot and folk singer-songwriter Ewan McLennon was sparked by an article in The Guardian in which Monbiot argued that an epidemic of loneliness is defining our era. A collection of songs Breaking the Spell of Loneliness was born, crystallising these thoughts. Now, in a one-off interplay between words and music, the pair join forces for a poignant and rousing live performance which juxtaposes the songs with the human stories that inspired them.

Democracy Debate: What Comes Next?
Sat 13 May, 7.30pm, ACCA
Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee chairs a panel of top thinkers and politicians to debate the future of our political system, as Western societies are becoming more polarised than ever. Panellists include Caroline Lucas MP, Diane James, formerly UKIP leader elect and now independent MEP for the South East, the New Statesman columnist and author Laurie Penny, Vice Chancellor, University of Sussex Adam Tickell, and David Runciman, of the University of Cambridge.

FILM

Kelly Reichardt Season
Duke of York's Picturehouse
A collection of films by cult indie screenwriter and director Kelly Reichardt, which focus on American identity. In Old Joy (Wed 10 May, 6.30pm), two old friends reunite for a weekend camping trip in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, during which they examine their lives and their friendship; Wendy and Lucy (Wed 17 May, 6.30pm) is a finely crafted, and carefully composed picture of life in the margins of society; Meek's Cutoff (Sun 21 May, 1pm)
Is an enigmatic and desolately beautiful pioneer fable following the story of a young pioneer who sets out with her husband and others in 1845 along the infamous Oregon trail; and in Night Moves (Sun 28 May, 1pm), a character-driven thriller in which a trio of eco-radicals from Oregon hatch a plan to blow up a local dam that's damaging the environment.

David Lynch: The Art Life
Thu 11 May, 8.50pm, Duke's at Komedia
This is a timely look at what helped shape one of cinema's most acclaimed and enigmatic directors. Narrated by Lynch himself from his painting studio in the Hollywood Hills, he takes us on an intimate journey from his idyllic upbringing in small-town America to studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and his subsequent move into film.

Wrangler and Francesca & Mica Levi: The Unfilmables
Sun 14 May, 9.30pm, Duke of York's Picturehouse
The Unfilmables is a response to the greatest films never made. Wrangler (featuring Stephen Mallinder, ex-Cabaret Voltaire, Benge and Phil Winter from Tunng) and Francesca and Mica Levi, calibrate film, music and imagination to bring lost film concepts to life in two live audiovisual performances.

CHILDREN AND FAMILY

Velo: Handful of People
Brighton Festival commission
Fri 26 – Sun 28 May. Fri 26, 6pm, Sat 27 11am & 3pm, Sun 28, 11am, Brighthelm Centre
Internationally renowned French company Vélo Théatre (Brighton Festival 2009 – The Rabbit in the Moon and 2015 -– The Frog at the Bottom of the Well..) bring us their latest carefully crafted piece of ‘Object Theatre'. Featuring a beautiful miniature set model with in-built surprises and enriched by audio/visual testimonies of those seeking refuge, Vélo Théatre explore the importance of the little things – the tiny sparks. Enter their world and embark on a journey in pursuit of happiness. Age 10

The Unicorn Theatre: Jeramee, Hartleby and Oooglemore
Mon 8 – Tue 9 May, 2.30pm, 4.30pm & 6.30pm, Theatre Royal Brighton
Jeramee, Hartleby and Oooglemore are at the seaside. ‘They have a towel, an inflatable ball, a picnic and three contrasting temperaments' (Time Out) in this ‘stupidly lovely show… that offers a child's eye view of the world and all
its mysteries'(The Guardian). Revelling in delightful innocence and glorious stupidity, Jeramee, Hartleby and Oooglemore is a surprising and surreal encounter with three people who have a lot to say but only three words with which to say it. Age 3

Tales of Birbal
Sat 20 May, 11.30am & 2.30pm, The Grand Hotel, Consort Suite
Whatever the question, Birbal – cunning advisor to Mughal Emperor Akbar – has the answer. Mashi Theatre's travelling storytellers stop by to share the enchanting Tales of Birbal – ancient stories of adventure and problem-solving that have been treasured for centuries across the Indian subcontinent. Using puppetry and music, Mashi invites a new
generation to unearth the richness in these legends. Age 6

NEST
Sun 7 & Mon 8 May, 10am, 11.15am, 12.30pm, 2pm, Brighton Dome Founders Room
An immersive performance for pre-walking babies and their carers. Unfolding in a custom-built performance tent, NEST takes audiences on a sensory journey through the seasons, using playful poetry, sound, live instruments, song, captivating movement, and tactile and sensory play. Gentle, surprising and magical.

26 LETTERS (Our annual celebration of words and pictures for young people)

The Bolds by Julian Clary and David Roberts
Sat 13 May, 3pm, Sallis Benney Theatre
The Bolds can get a bit wild and love to laugh. Why? Because despite their impeccably human lifestyle in suburban Teddington, they're hyenas with a nose for trouble and a hankering to help. Created by one of the UK's best loved
entertainers, Julian Clary, and the award-winning illustrator David Roberts, The Bolds is a series of tales packed with fun, adventure and laughter. Julian reads two stories, The Bolds On Holiday and The Bolds to the Rescue, while David draws live in this hilarious and creative event. Age 7

The Odyssey told by Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton
Sat 13th May, 6pm, Sallis Benney Theatre
The story of Odysseus'ten-year journey from Troy is a terrific adventure story shot through with moments of insight, humour and horror. This gripping performance by two of Britain's leading storytellers is suitable for adults and young people over twelve.

Nick Sharratt: Sausages, Spaghetti and Sharks in Parks
Mon 15 May, 5.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
It's amazing how often food finds its way into Nick's picture books. In this food-themed spectacular (with the odd shark thrown in), the much-loved illustrator shares tasty favourites and stories that are new on the menu. You'll also meet the cake-loving characters from his very first chapter book, The Cat and the King. Those who would like to draw along should bring paper, drawing things, and something to rest on. Age 5-8

Young City Reads Big Event
Tue 23 May, 1.30pm, Brighton Dome Concert Hall
This city-wide 'big read', brought to you by Collected Works CIC, is designed to spread a love of books to the widest possible audience of young readers throughout Brighton & Hove. The title chosen this year is AF Harrold's Fizzlebert
Stump The Boy Who Ran Away from the Circus (and Joined the Library), and here the author will take centre stage for a live and interactive talk with illustrator Sarah Horne.