Before Your Very Eyes
The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, Friday, March 7

Five years ago Anglo-German company Gob Squad recruited seven Flemish youngsters with no formal theatrical training to help them devise a production for adults about ageing.

With some of the children now in their late teens, the project is coming to an end.

That’s the charm of the piece, of course, because children change rapidly as they get older and there’s a radical developmental difference between seven and 17.

“The show has been extremely successful and we feel it’s time to give them their lives back,” explains God Squad’s Sarah Thom.

“They have toured so much – at least one weekend a month they are away.

“But they’ve loved it and they’ve had the chance to see the world.”

For the first time in its history, no Gob Squad performer is on stage. Instead, seven children live their lives in fast-forward. The audience are voyeurs staring into a living room with the children inside.

The children peer into the future at themselves as adults, and look back at their recent past.

“It’s a mirrored box the children have come to see as home,” continues Thom.

“They are used to having this little room and space, which allows them a freedom and security, and it allows us as viewers to view them in their natural habitat as it were.”

If it sounds a bit like a social experiment, that’s because it is.

“There is that in it. We are the voyeur in the theatre, whether there is a mirror there or not. The audience is always the one with the gaze.”

In fact, the theatre is one of the only places we are given permission to freely gaze.

“But in this case the kids have a certain perspective in that they can’t witness it. They are not being tricked – they know the audience are there.

“But it’s meant to make you feel uncomfortable sometimes.”

Staring at ourselves through the mirror must lead us to question the passing of time – especially as we try to stop the process of ageing and preserve youth as long as we can, while these children prepare to leave childhood behind forever.

“There is a whole lot of content in one very simple act.

“When we see a kid performing the part of a teenager, or a middle-aged person or an old person, it confronts us with our own selves, our own ageing, our own mortality.”

  • Before Your Very Eyes is at The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, on Friday, March 7. Starts 8pm, £12. Call 01273 699733

Ruff
The Basement, Kensington Street, Brighton, Saturday, March 8

Split Britches, New York’s premier lesbian performance troupe, presents Peggy Shaw’s performance about life and art following her 2011 stroke.

Ruff, a title which refers to a three-stroke rough (a phrase you learn when you take up playing the drums) is a medley of stories, songs and confessions performed by the 68-year-old on the “green screen of her mind”.

She unpicks the mental restructuring which occurred after her stroke to uncover memories, songs and tales of inspirational family members and movie icons.

That Shaw has had a stroke is never hidden. In fact, it’s central to the piece. Three teleprompters that keep her on track are important props, and her interactive performance, written in partnership with long-time collaborator Lois Weaver, features video projections.

  • Starts 8pm, £10. Call 01273 699733 or visit www.sickfestival.com

Confronting Mortality?
Fabrica, Duke Street, Brighton, Tuesday, March 11

Clive Parker – an advocate for the power and social value of art – directs this debate about assisted dying and how we might take control over the manner in which we die.

Performance artist Eva Meyer-Keller will take to the stage first to perform her cherry-killing Death Is Certain show, with the fruits despatched one by one, getting more and more brutal as she advances.

Then the debate bringing together artists and health professionals will confront the issue head-on with thoughts from people who deal with death in their practice and work.

Philospher, poet, novelist and cultural critic (and previously physician and clinical scientist) Professor Raymond Tallis and consultant clinical oncologist Dr Sam Guglani will debate with film-maker Steven Eastwood and Brighton-based photographer Murray Ballard.

  • Starts 7pm, free. Call 01273 699733 or visit www.sickfestival.com

You’re Not Alone
The Basement, Kensington Street, Brighton, Thursday, March 13

Kim Noble is not always an easy watch. Some audience members felt compelled to phone the police after watching the Perrier Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated art-comedy maverick tackle mental illness, warts and all, in Kim Noble Will Die.

You’re Not Alone, his latest show, blends performance, comedy and video as he tries to connect to other humans through his job at B&Q.

What follows is a journey through tower blocks, supermarkets and Facebook as Noble fights to break the alienation of modern living.

The fine art graduate, who has appeared on The Mighty Boosh, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, uses unorthodox methods, including the fastidious documentation of his neighbours’ sex lives or X-rated chats using a faked profile, to do so.

  • Starts 8pm, £10. Call 01273 699733 or visit www.sickfestival.com