Brighton Dome has set out an autumn of theatre, dance and circus across all three of its venues, led by a new play from Inua Ellams. Christmas brings Duck Pond, Circa's circus retelling of Swan Lake, to the Concert Hall.
Brighton Dome has announced its autumn programme of theatre, dance and circus, spread across the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the Studio Theatre. The headline booking is Once Upon a Time in Sokoto, a new play by Inua Ellams, which runs at the Corn Exchange for five nights in November.
It is the first production from Touring Together, a new national initiative set up to move bold new work around England rather than leave it in London. Ellams tells the story of a friendship between an enslaved woman and the man who once owned her, set against the events that led to the creation of Nigeria.
The Corn Exchange also takes Woodhill, which puts documentary theatre and dance together to trace the deaths of three real men at HMP Woodhill and their families' fight for answers. The text is drawn from what the families themselves said, and the production carries five-star notices from The Guardian and the Evening Standard.
Dance runs through the rest of the season. East Sussex choreographer Ben Duke brings his company Lost Dog Dance with Juliet & Romeo, a duet that picks Shakespeare's couple up after the story everybody knows. Thick & Tight, who mix choreography with mime and drag, cross a variety bill with a biology lecture in Natural Behaviour and look at what counts as natural through a queer lens. Cabaret artist Fatt Butcher writes a set of new hymns for Congregational, which sets house and trance beside gospel and classical.
The Studio Theatre picks up work straight from the Edinburgh Fringe. Crush is an hour about two Somali teenagers who meet in the waiting room of an eating disorder clinic. Man or Bear, called "frank and fierce" by The Stage, takes a viral meme as its way into three generations of women facing down threat. Fire Fire, which premieres in London in September, puts two people from opposite sides of the same fight in a room together. It is a busy autumn for Fringe work finding a second audience, with a run of other Edinburgh shows transferring to London over the same months.
Two further pieces take that room in different shapes. Nation, a "vivid one-man show" according to The Guardian, will see the Studio Theatre set up in the round for the first time for a brutal fable about national identity. Louise Orwin's FAMEHUNGRY plays to two audiences at once, one in the room and one online, and asks what it means to make art when an algorithm decides who sees it.
Spoken word returns with AFLO. the poet's Status Flo nights, which hand the Studio Theatre stage to award-winning poets, to newer voices from the city, and to audience members who want a turn. October's event marks Black History Month and is headlined by Maureen Onwunali, the Dublin-born Nigerian poet and two-time national slam winner. November's marks Men's Mental Health Awareness Month and is headlined by the writer and visual artist Kareem Parkins-Brown.
One production leaves the building altogether. Brighton company Hydrocracker, described by the Financial Times as "one of the UK's most exciting and experimental theatre groups", stages Charles Dickens's railway ghost story The Signalman in a disused tunnel under Brighton Station, which becomes a performance space for the first time. Performances run from 15 October - 8 November.
Christmas belongs to the Concert Hall, where the Australian company Circa bring Duck Pond, a family circus retelling of Swan Lake with aerial work, acrobatics, a duck army in flippers and a burlesque black swan. The Corn Exchange has Ceilidh the Musical, a new immersive show built around one of Scotland's oldest social traditions and a family story about love and legacy.
Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival is a charity running a year-round programme across the three venues on the Royal Pavilion Estate. The Corn Exchange and the Studio Theatre, both listed buildings, reopened in 2023 after a refurbishment.
