This year’s Odditorium talks, performances, films and other events of high weirdness as part of Brighton Fringe have been announced for this May in the Spiegeltent and Bosch Theatre.
The 2024 programme includes Nat Sharp’s Marra, COUM Flakes, tQ editor John Doran on Aphex Twin and weird Cornish culture, Simon Costin of The Museum Of Witchcraft And Magic, Katy Soar, and former Chief Druid Philip Carr-Gomm.
Nat Sharp’s Marra (May 19) is an amazing "deep interrogation into the dialect and ceremonies of West Cumbria, endangered voices and esoteric rituals from auctioneers to gurners" in the form of a highly entertaining mix of performance art, dance, experimental film and new weird improvisation. Anyone who has seen Sharp’s previous works Body Vice and Trifle will know to expect something uncategorisable and touched with brilliance.
The Quietus’ own John Doran is bringing his audiovisual lecture Selected Ambient Walks: Aphex Twin, Cornish Mythology And Modernism to Brighton for the first time (May 12). Expect to hear about the real Logan Rock witch, the occult history of the Cornish pasty, the giants of St. Michael’s Mount and the heterotopia of the Gwennap Pit, as well as West Country acid.
Stone Club oversees a "deep dive into the folklore of standing stones" (May 15) with the help of Odditorium and Adventures In Nutopia’s own Dr David Bramwell; Simon Costin, the founder and director of the Museum of British Folklore and the director of the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall; Katy Soar, editor of Circles Of Stone: Weird Tales Of Pagan Sites And Ancient Rites and contributor to the Hellebore Guide To Occult Britain; and Philip Carr-Gomm, author and former Chosen Chief of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.
Nothing Short Of A Total War! (May 28) is a "unique evening of startling and transgressive performance art that looks to the future but also pays tribute to the legacies of sound pioneers Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P.Orridge, Fist-F***, the anti-art happenings of Coum Transmissions, the occult and sex magick themes of Coil and the sigil-loving ‘modern primitives’ cult of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth" featuring Andrew Finch, Mike Sefton, Jill Westwood and Foxtrot Echo of COUM Transmissions.
Finally, David Bramwell’s The Haunted Moustache (May 29) is an award-winning monologue and supernatural coming of age story, sparked by the inheritance of a century old moustache in a box leading to a history of occult, outsider, countercultural Brighton.
Brighton Fringe will take place from May 3 to June 2, 2024. Find more information here.
