What's on at Brighton Dome: shows & events this spring

From our brand-new Live at Brighton Dome comedy night featuring the likes of Tim Key and Catastrophe’s Rob Delaney to a special live play through of cult computer game Dear Esther, and a whole host of events to mark our ever-growing annual celebration of International Women’s Day, Brighton Dome presents an eclectic selection of events for all this spring.

Over 40 years after playing host to ABBA’s famous Eurovision victory, our historic Concert Hall is to stage BBC2’s Eurovision: You Decide 2018, co-hosted by 2015 Eurovision Song Contest winner Måns Zelmerlöw and Mel Giedroyc (7 Feb). Culminating a huge national song search for the Eurovision Song Contest, six shortlisted acts will be battling it out to be the next UK representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018, alongside some special guest performances.

Eurovison: You Decide
As one of the south coast’s leading comedy venues, new comedy night Live at Brighton Dome will bring you a regular mixed-bill of talent. The inaugural show will get the ball rolling with star of the hit Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe Rob Delaney, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Tim Key, comperèd by Nish Kumar, one of the UK’s top political comics (3 Feb).

BAFTA award winning Brighton-based video game composer/creator Jessica Curry's score for the pioneering game Dear Esther is being performed live in an innovative cross-art form event, with live narration from actor Oliver Dimsdale. Audiences will watch and experience the game as it is played in real-time, on a cinematic scale. (2 Feb)

Dear Esther Live
We continue our partnership with Brighton Women’s Centre and Brighton Museum to present an annual celebration of International Women’s Day. Sara Pascoe is enjoying a year-long, one woman stag-do in LadsLadsLads (7 Mar) and Sophie Willan returns to Brighton Dome with Branded (8&9 Mar). Touring the UK for the very first time, Canada's most cutting-edge contemporary ballet company, Ballet British Columbia, present a programme devoted exclusively to the work of three internationally-celebrated women choreographers: Emily Molnar, Crystal Pite and Sharon Eyal (9 Mar). The day itself (Sat 3 Mar) will see Brighton Dome host a specially curated programme of inspiring speakers, activists and innovators, workshops, arts & crafts, causes and campaigns, with fun for all the family.

Sara Pascoe
Kodo, the masters of taiko (a traditional Japanese drum) return with their latest production Evolution, which blends lavish spectacle and intricate routines in a visceral, rhythmic show (30 Jan). Tipping Point is the exhilarating new show by masters of aerial theatre Ockham’s Razor (5&6 Apr). Performed in the round with the audience drawn in close, five performers transform metal poles into a rich landscape of images. Created to mark the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1984/5 British miners’ strike, renowned choreographer Gary Clarke presents COAL, a dance theatre show which takes a look at the hard-hitting realities of life at the coal face (28 Mar).

Kodo
No Such Thing As A Fish is an award-winning podcast with 1.5 million downloads a week, and their live show sees the team serve up their pick of the most bizarre and hilarious facts known to man (1 Mar). Jonathan Pie will attempt to host a serious current affairs discussion while simultaneously attempting to smash the system from within (3 Mar), while Rob Brydon returns to stand-up for the first time since 2009 (17 Mar). Russell Brand (22 Apr) and Jon Richardson (13 Apr) return after sell-out winter shows, and internet nerds Dan & Phil will be performing at both 2pm and 8pm on 28 Apr.

We will also be flinging open our doors to community events such as Let’s Dance 2018 (19-22 Mar) – which sees over 2,500 children and young people grace their stages from around 75 schools and groups from across Brighton and Hove – and GCSE Poetry Live (25 Jan) which offers schoolchildren an audience with some of the nation’s greatest poets. This year’s line-up includes Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard and many more.

Earth
As work continues on the Corn Exchange and Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome shows continue to pop up around the city, including the return of new Spoken Word night Trope (16 Feb) in The Basement (a partnership with Apples and Snakes, which has been inspired by Kate Tempest’s Guest Directorship of Brighton Festival 2017). As part of World Poetry Day, the Emergency Poet offers consultations inside her ambulance and prescribes poems as cures in Jubilee Square (21 Mar). Spoken Word performers Deanna Rodger and Gemma Rogers are on a mission to prove that they are the best candidates for the first human voyage to Mars in Earth, via The Basement (2 Mar), following a three-day residency.

Highlights from the contemporary music programme include the contemplative piano of Nils Frahm (20 Feb), pop titans such as Seal (17 Feb), Erasure (19 Feb), Apocalyptica performing the work of Metallica using four cellos (27 Feb), as well as Franz Ferdinand (25 Feb), Jake Bugg (13 Mar), Belle & Sebastian (15 Mar) and Public Service Broadcasting (7 Apr). Czech National Symphony Orchestra will perform John Williams’ classic score for Jaws live, in sync with a screening of the classic blockbuster (12 Apr).

Snow Mouse
For younger audiences, A Square World uses simple design and object manipulation to create an imaginative world where anything can happen (12 Feb). Following a sell-out run at The Barbican, the Founder’s Room will also host Snow Mouse: a winter’s tale for the very young, featuring a magical forest full of play, puppetry and music (16-18 Feb).

Gabriela Montero - Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
In one of a series of concerts to mark Brighton Festival Chorus’ 50th birthday year, the Chorus and Youth Choir are joined by the world renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to perform some of the most emotional and moving works in the choral repertoire, including Duruflé’s Requiem, Crucifixus and a world premiere of a new arrangement of Britten’s Missa Brevis (31 Mar). Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra celebrate the music of Ravel (including his popular Piano Concerto in G) (10 Mar) whereas London Philharmonic Orchestra showcase full-flowered Romanticism in Rachmaninoff’s Hollywood (14 Apr). Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra will run the orchestral gamut from Haydn to Arnold in their Sunday concert series and the Coffee Concerts will be brought to a thrilling finale with one of the most celebrated pieces in the chamber music repertoire: Schubert’s Trout Quintet (25 Mar).