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Quasi’s indie veteran drummer Janet Weiss made a quick return to Brighton following her show with the Jicks by banging her way through a set fraught with technical problems. There were some great moments, such as the Southern blues swagger of ‘Never Coming Back Again’ and Sam Coombes’ Aladdin Sane-meets-The Research keyboard playing, but the pauses ruined the impetus. New song ‘Little White Horse’ was classic spiky punk but the psychedelic ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ required a restart when the mic failed. The sound delays meant a one song encore ended a raucous but frustrating evening.
Freebutt, 25 May
3/5
Steve Clements

A series of short, sharply written and wryly monumental stories about what happens when we die, David Eagleman’s Sum: 40 Tales Of The Afterlives was one of the cult hits of 2009 (Canongate have just brought out an audio version featuring the likes of Nick Cave and Jarvis Cocker). And in Brian Eno’s exclusive Brighton Festival staging, the author and neuroscientist himself took to the stage – one of 12 readers sat at isolated desks on the Dome stage as if in a sort of purgatorial classroom. Auditioned from community volunteers, the readers varied in skill. Jimmy Cairney of The Bobby McGees did brilliantly with the saddest of the pack, Metamorphosis, in which we all die twice – once corporeally, and once when our name is spoken for the last time on earth. Eno’s omnipresent electro noodling provided a vaguely ominous sound bed, but the thin live concept, fleshed out by an admirably inclusive spirit, was no match to simply reading the book.
Concert Hall, Brighton Dome
3/5
Bella Todd

The voices and characters are all there: from Sinatra’s somewhat clipped delivery, through Sammy Davis Jr’s freewheeling antics, and Deano’s slightly sozzled charm. That, coupled with the heady air of PC-baiting elements like heavy smoking, heavy drinking, gags involving Sammy’s race, religion and eyesight, and the almost purely decorative presence of a trio of dancing girls, allow you to transport yourself to a bygone age of uniformly classic songs. Particularly great is the banter between the Rats which looks genuinely improvised. It makes you miss the old days, even if you weren’t there first time around.
Theatre Royal, 24 May (Until 29 May)
4/5 Andrew Allen

Like watching one of those frenzied foreign soap operas as filtered through the great thematic mind of Chekhov, this double bill from Argentine writer/director Daniel Veronese had an addictive domestic electricity only Enda Walsh has come close to on the British stage. As two families gathered to discuss their futures in the same tiny flat, fags were stubbed and fists pounded on walls in a cascade of simultaneous emotional unloading. This did mean there was no hope of keeping on top of the surtitles. But I found galloping through Veronese’s blazing script, not entirely secure in my saddle, an exhilirating rather than frustrating experience.
Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, 23 May
4/5
Bella Todd