When stand-ups talk about the toughest places to gig, the usual suspects always pop up. Liverpool comes top of several surveys as difficult to please (and Shazia Mirza and Holly Walsh agree). Stewart Lee dislikes Maidstone. Dara O’Briain says the place doesn’t matter, it’s the time of week. (Don’t gig on Sundays or Mondays.) And Milton Jones says the place and time don’t matter, just never ever do a corporate.
There is one place that is never going to appear on the list of bad gigs, though, and that place is Brighton. I have never heard anyone bad-mouth Brighton as a place to perform. It is the one place you can mention and see a little, self-satisfied smile play around the lips of anyone who has ever told jokes there. Brighton is generous. Brighton brings out your best side. Brighton is your gay best friend singing “I Am What I Am.” Brighton loves everyone.
What is it about the audiences there that makes them so lovely? Without wanting to seem too obvious, it has to be the sea air. If you live in Brighton, you can kind of behave as if you are on holiday most of the time, even when you’re not.
Brighton has the diversity of London without the stress and the urban rage. And there is always – always – a hippie somewhere in the audience, usually in the front row. If the hippie leads the laughter, you’re home and dry. And hippies always lead the laughter. This is at least part of the reason why Brighton Fringe is growing so fast, with over 3,000 performances at 176 venues this year.
There is one difficulty with Brighton, however, that threatens to make you want to eat your bodyweight in Mr Whippy. It is the one place where if you die, you know you are truly and utterly worthless because a gig in Brighton is populated by the nicest people in the universe and, frankly, if they don’t like you, then no-one is going to like you anywhere.
If you can’t win over Brighton, you don’t have a pulse. Maybe – perversely – that makes it the toughest place of all. Take extra Mr Whippy money just in case.
Catch Viv Groskop’s new show Say Sorry to the Lady at the Brighton Fringe on Fri 29 May, Sat 30 May and Sun 31 May at 10pm at Lamb Comedy at Nowhere Man, 53 Upper North Street, Brighton BN1 3FH. Tickets: £6.50 (£5):
