Brighton Festival 2024, England’s largest multi-arts festival, begins this Saturday with a packed weekend of interactive installations and soundscapes, art exhibitions, theatre, dance and live music.
The three-week, city-wide celebration reflects the belief of this year’s guest director, award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, that finding hope, magic and wonder in the everyday can help people imagine a better world.
From Saturday, the Royal Pavilion Gardens becomes home to free, interactive installation 100 Miles of String which runs for the duration of the festival.
Designed by local artists Leap Then Look and supported by Southern Housing New Homes, people of all ages are invited to weave and wind thousands of metres of string together to create a temporary, ever-changing interactive artwork in the heart of the city.
At Phoenix Art Space, free exhibition Ooze Machines (May 4 to June 30), from artist and scientist Dr Libby Heaney, combines unlikely artistic inspirations slime and quantum physics. Featuring "oozing" glass sculptures, immersive multi-channel video, 2D works and a gaming experience, Heaney considers the sliminess of the body, other life forms and even the so-called slimy nature of big tech to offer a glimpse into the possible future of quantum technology. The show is suitable for all the family.
A free sound art exhibition, Neolithic Cannibals: Deep Listening To The Unheard (May 4 to 19), commissioned by Brighton Festival, has been created by artists and social activists Class Divide in collaboration with young people in Whitehawk and East Brighton. It is centred around a recreation of the Whitehawk Hill Neolithic Camp and invites audiences to discover the playfulness, joy and hope of contemporary East Brighton through a combination of soundscape, archaeology and activism.
Other free events include the UK Premiere of An Elevated Platform (May 4 to 26), an interactive installation where visitors take to a stage in front of an invisible crowd that will react to every movement, growing restless if not suitably entertained. The piece is devised by choreographer Yael Flexer and installation artist Nic Sandiland.
Bird Bath (May 4 and 12) will fill a church with spring birdsong from local nature reserves, creating a restorative space for everyone to stop, rest and soak in the sound and Days of Wonder (May 4 to September 1) celebrates the magic of early cinema, with an exhibition of new work inspired by the film and media archives of Hove’s Museum of Creativity.
Across the opening weekend in the newly refurbished Corn Exchange, Perfect Show for Rachel (May 4 to 7) puts learning-disabled Kylie fan and care home resident Rachel in the director’s seat with a custom-made tech desk for a funny, joyful show where no two performances are the same. A touch of a button can trigger music, lighting, theatrical scenes or choreography, brought instantly to life by a company of willing performers who are entirely at Rachel’s whim.
Brighton’s own off-grid eco building Earthship is the setting for a locally sourced three-course meal, in Ground (May 4 to 26). The immersive experience seeks to explore the complex history of the food on our plate through the voices of Indigenous communities from around the world, creating a theatrical dining experience where each ingredient has a story to tell.
On Friday, May 3, DJ Norman Jay MBE kick starts Brighton Festival early with club night Norman Jay’s Norman Soul. On tour for the first time, the night is a blend of black music from the 1930s to the present day, from the celebrated co-founder of Notting Hill Carnival’s legendary Good Times Sound System and London dance music station KISS FM.
On the morning of May 4, more than 5,000 children from schools across Brighton and Hove will gather once again to parade through the streets with colourful floats and costumes for The Children’s Parade, marking the official opening of Brighton Festival. Inspired by Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s chosen theme of Dream Again, artists from community-led arts maestros Same Sky have collaborated with students, teachers and volunteers to make magnificent sculptures, choreograph dance routines and compose parade chants, in an event that brings the whole city together. Supported by Brighton Girls.
Elsewhere across the weekend, there are classical concerts from London Symphony Orchestra and acclaimed harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. Music and dance combine in Where The Veil Is Thin, a show inspired by Gaelic mythology and in multimedia performance Some Times, J Neve Harrington explores neurodivergent ways of processing information and experiencing relationships. Caroline Lucas speaks to Frank Cottrell-Boyce about her new book, Another England, and You’ll See is a family-friendly adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses that features an intricate pop-up book, a storyteller and an original score.
Cottrell-Boyce said: “This festival is a chance for Brighton to share its fun, gags, bright ideas and beauty with the rest of the world. To give us all a bit of that Brighton bounce. To give us hope. So come and see, or better still come and get involved”.
Brighton Festival takes place from 4 to 26 May 2024.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel