Brighton Fringe 2026
Custard Club
Whole Headache
Genre: Comedy, Feminist Theatre, Historical, LGBTQ+ Theatre, New Writing, Political
Venue: The Lantern @ ACT
Festival: Brighton Fringe
Low Down
A 75-minute raucous eye into female queerness across time, accompanied by homoerotic custard mania and sapphic hits.
Review
It’s odd to sit in the chair of a queer hairdressing salon and talk to a stranger about the Fringe show you watched the previous night. It’s even odder to realise you’re both talking about the same show. Of all days, of all venues, of all queer salons in this city?
That’s the effect ‘Custard Club’ had on its very sapphic demographic this Brighton Fringe. With excellent character development and a stellar writing combination of wit and empathy, it strengthened an excitingly fresh storyline showcasing the events following five very gay – but very different – women at a dining table.
These characters, originating from different decades in time, highlight their frustrations of their queerness, as well as the heartbreaks, humours and love they experience as gay women between the 50s-80s, and have now come together to support the young, modern-day Nancy at the pinnacle of her self-acceptance. It’s hilarious, it’s absurd, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s perfectly showing in the ‘camp’ heart of Brighton – Kemp Town’s Lantern Theatre.
The use of the simple set and in-the-round seating, accompanied by Donna Summer’s ‘Hot Stuff’, created an intimate, sexy and fun energy for the performance to follow. The one thing that surprised me was the glistening papaya fruit resting on the stage floor under a spotlight – an obvious reference to women’s genitalia that sets the tone for the night – but later confirmed by two cavewomen sharing the fruit… and then sharing each other’s mouths to ‘I Kissed A Girl.’ The sapphic tone continues on with the great use of music – “I Touch Myself” and “Don’t Delete The Kisses” – playing throughout pivotal scenes, excellently breaking awkward sexual tension with humour.
Throughout the performance, I was impressed at the range and accuracy of dialects from the acting ensemble. Only an American Republican from the 50s would describe an 80s commune as a bunch of “lentil-eating commies.” And only a Northerner would call someone “daft,” or a Surrey girl would describe Oliver Twist as “that Oliver chap.” One rarely crosses a show where all members of the party are strong as an ensemble, and equally strong as actors in their own right.
Nancy’s ‘gay stuff’ is an irritation to her straight friends, but to follow up with shots of vodka off each other’s breasts is such a ‘Girls will be Girls’ moment. Writer, Alice Harris-Deans, wants to slam the tongue-in-cheek irony right in audiences faces. Where are the lines drawn in female relationships nowadays?
We, as viewers, are thrown back in time to be introduced to gay women across decades. Betty-Lou, played by Alix Addinall, is the perfect 1950s housewife, and she’s pushed into foreign territory to navigate her unnameable affection in a painfully homoerotic lust for the fiercely spirited spinster, Jackie (played by Harris-Deans). Chris and Hilda – Esther Welbrock and Eliza Harrison – are introduced to the audience as gay “lady-farmers” of 1984, something which repeatedly becomes a hidden joke for lesbians throughout the play. So obviously the butch/femme dynamic stereotype, the no-filter dialogue is hilarious, and Welbrock & Harrison’s chemistry is fantastic. Moments like “I thought this was a gay sex party, not a Christian think-tank” and “she’s very… second-wave” credits Welbrock’s comedic timing and Harris-Deans’ writing ability.
And to complete the quintet is the double-denim, West Country custard-business owner, Leslie, played by Lucy Miller. Les for short – which went down a treat with laughter – pores over the male requests for women of certain curvatures and appearances. She’s funny, she’s matter-of-fact. She’s unbothered. Only for audiences to be gutted when Leslie reveals, in her final line, how “nice” it would be to have someone. In the only moment where the fourth wall is broken, Miller executes the monologue with ease, holding the audience by her pinkie finger as she reels us into the humour of late-60s dating on the Lonely Hearts adverts, and crushes us at the final hurdle.
The women across time are collected together for a fraught dinner party in aid of community-building, but tensions rise over the politics of gender, relationships, freedom, love and choice – or a lack of, depending on when in time you exist. With a guttural scream of Housewife Rage from Betty-Lou, the scene that follows can only be described as a homoerotic custard-fuelled mania to “I Touch Myself”.
Director, Emma Gibson, did very well to identify the pace of this show, this really felt like a pivotal moment of storytelling. Covered in custard, angry and slightly turned on, the Custard Club reveal secrets, stories, and heartbreaks. We see the raw vulnerability of being queer in all its attire.
I thoroughly enjoyed this performance through all it’s hilarity and moments of sadness. An important look into queer identity, social pressure and freedom of choice, I look forward to seeing what else comes of Whole Headache productions and Alice Harris-Deans’ future writing.
