The last two months have been fantastic and we’ve loved bringing live performance to Brighton beach. Here are some of our favourite moments.
The Warren Outdoor Season was opened by Privates: A Sperm Odyssey whose creators won our Otherplace Award last year. The Late Show followed them, which ran weekly throughout the season and bought us some fantastic comedians including MC Dave Fensome, Laura Lexx, Mark Simmons, Jen Brister, Jayde Adams, Sean Mcloughlin and Maisie Adam.
During the summer holidays we were host to some wonderful family shows with our younger audiences enjoying music from Pop Divas, story time with Mama G and some fantastical sea creatures in Blue Planet III. They were blown away by magic tricks with Tom Brace and Kane and Abel, and enjoyed beautiful puppetry from Little Grimm Tales.
Our friends at Komedia brought us Krater Comedy Club with names including Kerry Godliman, Seann Walsh, Paul Sinha, Milton Jones and Simon Evans, bringing us all some much needed laughs. Is there anything better than having a giggle, while the sun goes down over the sea? We can’t think of anything.
“the new Warren stage has a stunning backdrop… the theatre offers a socially distanced space to enjoy entertainment in the sun” (The Guardian)
The Warren favourites Shit-Faced Shakespeare returned to the delight of our audiences, with their inebriated antics. Their version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream may not be completely true to the original, but it certainly makes for a good night out!
Music fans enjoyed West End On-Sea, which brought together West End stars to sing some musical favourites. We also had musical tributes to Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse, Carole King and James Taylor.
“The Warren Theatre is excellently managed for these times with strict but sensible rules, well spaces tables and well trained staff” (Latest Brighton)
It wasn’t all music and comedy, Now That’s What I Call Bingo with Alfie Ordinary gave us a bingo extravaganza like no other, while The Cheeky Chappie told the story of Brighton’s best loved comedian Max Miller.
“The Warren Outdoor Season has something for everyone in its varied line-up, and the organisers have gone to great lengths to make the experience safe and fun for punters. It deserves to do well.” (The Arts Desk)
There really was something for everyone at The Warren Outdoors and we’re not exaggerating to say we were truly honoured to be the ones who got to bring it all to you.
We’d like to thank our incredible team who brought together something truly spectacular in the strangest of times. Thank you to all our wonderful performers and their bookers, producers, directors, agents, marketeers and writers - there are a lot of roles in the theatre world and none of this would work without each and every one of you. We’d like to thank our sponsors, partners and suppliers for making The Warren Outdoors the experience it was. And finally we’d like to thank you, our audiences. Theatre has long been the place people turn for answers, distraction and contemplation in the darkest of times, we simply wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your support.
We aren’t out of the strange times yet, but we hope we made your summer a little brighter. Keep going to the theatre if/when you can, keeping watching things on line, keeping engaging with arts companies and artists who are making work. We all want and need the arts to be here when we get to the other side, let’s do our best to
make that happen.
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