Brighton Fringe 2026

C’est Magnifique

C’est Magnifique Ensemble

Genre: Absurd Theatre, Adaptation, Cabaret, Contemporary, Costume, Fringe Theatre, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Short Plays, Theatre

Venue: WundaBarn (formerly and still branded Bosco), SpiegelGardens, Victoria Park, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Fringe

Low Down

Review

“Ladies and gentlemen, gays and theys” Conor Baum cracks his inclusivity whip. Really there’s no need for a review because it’s carried in the title and there’s so many 5-stars out there you’ll trip on what was the Bosco (now after 120 years the WundaBarn, but you can’t see that when it still says “Bosco”) to get in. Well eight-star reviews aren’t unknown but these ones leer at you. Even from behind a drum. C’est Magnifique is directed by Emma Edwards and choreographed and produced by Nathan Potter. Both feature in the show. C’est Magnifique returns to the Fringe for an intermittent run till May 29. That is: it’s back on May 8 and 9 at 8.45, 14^th at 8.30 and 29 at 8.45.

Shows last 60 minutes, with encores. Don’t be mad like me to miss it till now. Edwards directs with circus-whip savvy and within the confines of the old Bosco (I can never think of it as WunderBra or whatever lame pun it pretends to be now). Potter has brought some equally wonderous moves. Both ensemble numbers and solos are tight, saucy and then suddenly fling out as the aisles of the Bosco are ramped up and down with flying performers. And audience members stroked, seduced or otherwise importuned.  Think it’s why we come but (cry cry) I was in the front row and no-one flirted with me. I think they knew….

This is first-class choreography, and with both director and choreographer singing the speed, dissolve and the briefest of lights-down for scene changes make this zip by without a hint of pause. Props – boxes, crates or things that look as if they might be sat on and enjoy it, are whisked off by cast members. Costumes are detailed, wacky and delicious.

So this year’s theme seems to be all too topical. Money money money: relished particularly by three whooping sirens: Babette (Jodie Harrop, and wait for her ‘Material Girl’) Zelda (Emma Edwards wait for that stratospheric soprano) Goldie (Hannah Semple, and her ‘Money Money Money’ comes straight away: should I say that?). Harrop is a lyric soprano, and Semple a coloratura with whacky top-notes, contrasting with Edwards’ rich and classically mesmeric soprano: here, Cyril alleges, to be about mid-career when the Bosco was built in 1906. I suspect Edwards has a hand in that. What am I saying?

So we start with a suite of fiscally-ruled lyrics, straight out of Cabaret – did I say compere Cyril (Conor Baum) makes you think of Joel Gray as he’d really want to be? Well here he does, fetching in his bodice and quite a development from his petulant Achilles in Troilus and Cressida (Troilism and Cressida sandwiches perhaps), or his Shakespearean One Fell Swoop project, his stint at the Globe or scooping awards with directing his eponymous company. You get it. The inner Baum is a tenor in tights with a burnished tenor range and on-point solos. Mainly though these are given out to others and Cyril introduces.

Each soloist is introduced, beginning with Magnus Holm Sorenson on Keys and Will Davis on Drums. After we sashay through the women, characters appear. Bert (Jack Thomson) the only straight man in the village, who at one point tries fleeing (silly boy) but returns with ‘Let’s Start Tomorrow Tonight’, the ensemble dancing with suitcases. There’s a hint of eternal troupe-on-the-road and a touch of refugee-dom about those trad old Sam-Brown suitcases, subliminally 1930s. Thomson also ends the evening (the official one that is) with exercising his ardent, direct tenor lines with Baum, clean and cut-through as they begin ‘Something About This Night.’ Which then expands with the whole sextet.

Most of all Gaylord (Nathan Potter) is characterised as the man who became a sailor so he could be surrounded by seamen… Here’s a persona with pathos and kohl-eyed jokes, whose plangent journey of rejection and loneliness recaches an apogee in a strikingly devised version of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It begins semaphored with phone lights (what else) for that opening chorus. It’s also intermitted with ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘I Want to Ride My Bicycle’ both here inciting classic “I want” songs from the start of a musical. Cleverly kerning lyrics the Rhapsody is repurposed into a song of love deferred, feelings of alienation and sheer loneliness. It’s delicious for being entertaining and wise, and the routine here as devised by Potter and Edwards  is innovative. Freddie Mercury would have applauded.

It’s saucy, and at the start just dips a toe on the dangers of a far-right world but shrewdly signals to us, doesn’t labour its points (ha ha). If not quite as saucy as I’d been led to believe (I felt it far more fun than a “dark tale of Dalston lesbian bars” at the defunct London Bridge Vaults, which I found tame by Brighton standards), it’s maybe I’m twisted.

Though currently 60+ minutes, all the Fringe (and one’s drink) allows, it was 90 last year and off-Fringe is 2+ hours. But this is C’est Magnifique distilled and boasts some of the very best singer/performers in town, anywhere. You’ll never feel quite so uplifted as at the end of this evening. And all without pharmaceutical aid.

I’m featuring this review with some London shows I’ve seen this week, because C’est Magnifique deserves it. It’s on its way to be-coming a classic.

Published May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Simon Jenner