Celebcity with Jo Brooks: All the fun of the fair
The Inbetweeners’ Simon Bird, Pride drag queens & a new haunt opens attracting local celebs
This weekend sees the opening of Brighton’s most glamorous new night-time venue and we’ve been lucky enough to land guestlist! Local VIPs including actor Jazz Lintott and interior designer Olivier Heath are set to make an appearance, alongside a host of yet to be announced names. FunFair is set to be the hideaway for Brighton’s debauched debonairs.
The details of the club continue to be top secret but there have been whisperings of hidden doorways, Victorian vaults and even a bed of nails! As if this wasn’t enough, the entertainment lined-up for their many club nights promises breathtaking and unique spectacles, from trapeze artists to snake-charmers – a far cry from your usual night-life staples.
The weekend sees a whole host of fascinating diversions with Thursday’s ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, Friday’s ‘Fortune’ and Saturday’s ‘Magic’ introducing us to the best of Brighton’s underground entertainers. The thrill-seeking lovelies of La Bordello Boheme will be showcasing their dark and twisted circus skills, while the colourful gang from Fred’s Flying Circus fly take to the air. And, in case you still weren’t completely enthralled, there will be razor blade eating, sword swallowing knife juggling, hula-hooping and snake charming, phew! Visit www.funfairclub.com.
Back to school
Brighton college made an interesting new “fwend” last week when The Inbetweeners star Simon Bird – who plays glasses wearing, briefcase sporting Will in the E4 comedy series – gave a talk at the school’s speech day. Taking to the stage at the Brighton Dome, Simon spoke on a topic which both him and his television alter-ego share a certain expertise on: the plight of being an awkward teenager.
The talk came around after headmaster Richard Cairns personally invited the TV star – whose brother Alan Bird happens to be head of Sixth Form at Brighton college. Let’s hope Alan hasn’t witnessed any of Will’s on-screen antics, or it’ll be straight to detention for him!
Full of pride
I hung out with the most fabulous drag queens last week as Pride handed over their first donation to local LGBT group, The Rainbow Fund. The first donation was a whopping £5,000 and comes as a result of the commitment made by Pride Brighton & Hove, a community interest company, to ring fence £1 from every ticket sold for the benefit of local LGBT causes. This will then be distributed by The Rainbow Fund to support local LGBT/HIV frontline services and community groups within our proud city.
New Mayor Bill Randall also helped present the check to Paul Elgood – Chair of The Rainbow Fund – as it was a bit more than Lola Lasagne was used to handling. Mr Elgood said: “The Rainbow Fund is delighted to be part of Pride and see it truly return to its community roots. The grants process will close just a month after Pride in early October with decisions in November. The process will be independently overseen by the Sussex Community Foundation and we want to see this money get to the community groups who need it most as quickly and fairly as possible after Pride”.
Trevor Edwards, director of Pride, added: “As we enter our second stage of ticketing I would encourage people to buy their tickets early, so that we can present more cheques like this faster than planned.”
Tickets for Pride Brighton & Hove on Saturday 1 September are currently on sale at www.pridebrighton.org priced from £8.50.
