Brighton Year-Round 2026
Lunartic
Lucy Pearman
Genre: character comedy, Clown, Comedy, Solo Show
Venue: Brighton Dome Studio
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Impeccably selected moon-based intro music sets the scene for Lucy Pearman’s final performance of Lunartic. Created in 2025 and having toured nationally it at last rises over Brighton. Revealing tricks and treats from a Moon costume and with minimal staging, it’s a show that works with the audience to travel the universe. Joyfully daft, oddly poignant.
Review
The moon has gone through many, many cycles since Lucy Pearman’s first solo show Maid of Cabbage (2016) a quest by a hapless maid for the perfect cabbage. It propelled her through Edinburgh Fringe and around the country with a heady mix of ridiculous storyline, gentle audience involvement and fabulous use of props, namely cabbages. It’s a delight to have her back on stage after such a long gap, though appearances on Harry Hill’s Clubnite (as a giant egg, a bunch of grapes – you get the idea) and some TV and radio comedy shows have kept her busy.
Now she is back, as the moon, which affects tides (think wild-swimming), time (always ticking) and periods (watch out), so of course it’s female, wearing DM’s, blue-eyeshadow and looking for love. Moon has a Brummie accent, I like to think as nod to the Lunar Society of Birmingham, founded in the 1700’s. But whatever it’s an endearing and calm voice with which to invite participation, unless she’s cross. “Look away!” she bellows at hard-working Planet Earth, who gamely clambers over seats to help with props and intricate Alien manoeuvres involving a stretchy tongue. She gives someone a ‘traditional tickle’ with a rubber banana instructing her to breathe, not cry. Along with Earth, we have Saturn gyrating a hoop and naughty word-play on Uranus. The moon is reflective (especially when the spotlight hits her) and throughout fields calls from the Sun, giver of light and a bit of a bully, who threatens an eclipse.
It’s a show that relies on the audience to make the games and the narrative work, techniques similar to those of other peerless female clowns like Julia Masli and Lucy Hopkins. It takes enormous confidence to put yourself in others’ hands – on both sides of the stage – and whilst this is a smaller crowd than ideal (having been postponed from last year) and a difficult space for interaction, everyone gives their best and manages to not be upstaged by a clockwork laughing dog.
Cleverly interweaving Hey Diddle Diddle The Cat and the Fiddle into the moon-based scenarios and eventually landing a man on our Moon (aka Tim on a hanger sliding down a dog lead) Lunartic is a joyfully daft and oddly poignant 60 minutes of scripted and improvised larks, culminating in a sing-a-long of Blue Moon. Shine on, Lucy Pearman. What will you be next?
