Brighton Comedy Festival is here!

The cream of comedy comes to Brighton. So we asked some of them what they liked best about our city

David Baddiel

“I like Brighton because: it’s got a pavilion, but not a cricket one (don’t like cricket); if you add Rock to it you get one of my favourite novels and indeed films; it has a comedy festival; it has a pier, one of the best and most eccentric of inventions, a thing that could only have been born in the surreal world that is the English seaside; and it has three synagogues, but is also, according to some poll or the other, one of the least religious places in the UK (as an atheist Jew this makes me think I should live there).”

David Baddiel: Fame – Not The Musical, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Thursday 10 October, 9.30pm, £17.50

Pappy’s

“Brighton is brilliant because it’s the sort of place where nothing ever goes out of fashion. Remember Goths? So do we! They all live here now! You’re just as likely to see a mod with a Paul Weller haircut on a vespa tooting his horn at a crusty who’s teaching his kid how to do Poi as you are to see a cyber punk toppling off her florescent yellow platform trainers because she’s picking up a purple and black striped glove that an asymmetrically hairdoed emo has just dropped. And, as far as we’re concerned, that’s as a positive thing.”

Pappy’s Last Show Ever, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Thursday 17 October, 9.30pm, £16-£14

Doc Brown

“A decade ago when I was a wannabe rapper pushing my wares onto unsuspecting members of the public, there was only one place that proved consistently receptive. Perhaps it was the fresh sea air, the tolerance of alternative lifestyles or the vociferous support for free and independent enterprise, but Brighton always seemed to love me. From a little corner dive called the Pressure Point, to the Concorde, I always seemed to be guaranteed a rapturous reception. I was even signed to a Brighton based label [Janomi Records] for a couple of years. Basically, my memories of Brighton are overwhelmingly good, hence the love being forever reciprocal.”

Doc Brown: Of Mic And Men, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Saturday 12 October, 10pm, £14

Lucy Porter

“I have a love/hate relationship with Brighton. I love it, because it’s where my earliest seaside memories come from. At the first hint of sun we’d bomb down from Croydon and spend the day eating fish and chips and going on the rides at the end of the pier. I hate it because over the years, loads of my mates have decided to move to Brighton when they have kids. Just as salmon in Alaska swim upstream to spawn, everyone I know seems to migrate down the M23. I’ll soon be left flapping around and gasping for breath all alone in London.”

Lucy Porter: Northern Soul, Studio, Brighton Dome, Saturday 19 October, 7.45pm, £12.10

Steve Hughes

“I always had one reason for liking Brighton: in the 10 years I and many other comics spent on the comedy circuit, whenever we would play in Brighton at Komedia we would stay at an old boarding house run by Bill and Agnes. They only ever had comedians or musicians staying there as they liked the company of interesting, eccentric people who liked a drink or several, and we would spend many a drunken night talking and laughing away into the wee hours that it made the long train ride down from Manchester all the more worth it. They weren’t young either but they were old school and put many a lightweight to shame when it came to a night on the sauce and other assorted nibbles so to speak. They have moved away now and I haven’t seen them for many years but they were intelligent, hard partying evolved eccentric souls whose company will always give me fond memories of Brighton.”