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The Brighton Beach Boys in a a word we’re awesome. I’ve never experienced harmonies like it, rolling in like the perfect North Shore Set and boy do these guys play with passion that radiates like California sun from every instrument. To celebrate their 10 year anniversary the boys dove head first into an impressive back catalogue of hits, breaking from their normal whole album format and even threw in a few from The Beatles. I was mesmerized by the warmth of it all. My only disappointment was that I was one of the youngest in the audience. What a shame my generation did not get to witness the Beach Boys first hand, but lucky for me, these guys are as close to the real thing as you can get and a perfect tribute to the brilliance of The Beach Boys.

Komedia, 4 November
Rating:
Tom Scrace

To turn the sensational sex scandal of the 1960s into a non-event is quite an achievement but is what this play does. The script is leaden, the acting little better and the set looked like a stripped down version of Are You Being Served. Paul Nicholas as Stephen Ward exudes so little charisma that it is hard to imagine why even the most stupid of girls would be taken into his seedy world of whores and politics. The occasional appearance of dancing girls did little to lighten the mood and I left feeling that on the whole they all got what was coming to them. A wasted opportunity leading to a wasted evening.

Theatre Royal Brighton, 7 November
Rating:
Andrew Kay

Despite losing half of tonight’s bill to rail disruption, buoyant host Sami Stone made the right call by pushing on with her regular Monday comedy tonic. Nick Cooke threw his set out the window and deconstructed his stand up role instead, while Adam Smith stayed focussed on being the most deadpan man in Brighton. Headliner Rosie Wilby knitted together surrealism, sexuality and science in an wayward manner that allowed her to get away with some rather wicked audience-baiting. With the performers battling haunted electrics and a rather oddball crowd, this truncated evening just succeeded in triumphing over the odds.

The Quadrant, 7 November
Rating:
Stuart Huggett

Dodgy are known for their anthemic summer songs of the ’90s, from ‘Staying Out For The Summer’, to ‘Good Enough’ and ‘Melodies Haunt You’, so it was with some trepidation that the Concorde 2 filled with those enchanted by a certain indie nostalgia for this double set performance. The first set was made up of the reformed band’s new album, out in January, ‘Stand Upright In A Cool Place’ and incorporating sounds from Simon & Garfunkel, The Beach Boys and a certain folksy psychedelia reassured all that this was definitely a good idea. Maturing with detail and talent, it was a gorgeous set. The second half was filled with floor-filling Dodgy classics, including a much-demanded rendition of ‘Grassman’ and closing with new song, a quieter but enriching ‘Happy Endings’. Soul-nourishing.

Concorde 2, 4 November 2011
Rating:
Victoria Nangle