Brighton Fringe 2026
Evangeline
Nia Willaims
Genre: Biographical Drama, Contemporary, Costume, Feminist Theatre, LGBTQIA+, Live Music, Musical Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: The Lantern Theatre, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Fringe
Low Down
Written and directed by Nia Williams – script, music and lyrics – and acted by Guy Brigg, this is a heartwarming and talented piece performed consummately. It plays at the Lantern main Studio till May 8.
First-rate Fringe music-theatre. Artistic content, particularly songs and verse, as well as direction and acting ensures this will clearly travel. Do see it.
Review
Nia Williams’ Evangeline is a small gem.
Evangeline was in once Evie – at least she was when abandoned at a health centre. When she was sold first then kidnapped back. A gesture it takes Evie, Eva and eventually Evangeline all her life to answer when she’s primed to fail and trained to high-kick through bruises and booze. And half a lifetime to find her voice. Which rhymes. Written and directed by Nia Williams – script, music and lyrics – and acted by Guy Brigg, this is a heartwarming and talented piece performed consummately. It plays at the Lantern main Studio till May 8.
First the score’s memorable spiky and witty. The piano part played by Williams herself is innovative with an extraordinary array of off-key harmonies: unmistakably the kind you’d see after Prokofiev or Les Six, perhaps visited by a young Sondheim in the 1950s. Dated? No: they’re some of the most individual harmonies I’ve heard in music theatre. They’re piquant, gallic and still whip-sharp. The script too is full of delicious rhymes and wittily-pointed verse.
Evie’s discovery by Madame Dorabella, ballet dancer turned teacher and being herself turned into a dancing prodigy flits by. With the help of Dorabella’s friend Larry Barrymore – an old agent friend – Evangeline soon treads boards: and even plunges through scenery to fame. Taken up by director Fabian Scott she’s kept for years in 47th Street. Evangeline keeps her head down after a slap. Till – after noticing she’s about to be supplanted – Evangeline bridles. And after another slap makes a stand on stage. That has consequences.
This is first rate storytelling, with witty lyrics and original melodies. Brigg recites a gallimaufry of characters flirting in and through his voice. Williams wields a deft shading with the smallest key-change and the tale of someone in the slide is appropriately bitter with a side of sweet regret. But all held up with a bright-eyed optimism that doesn’t always spell drink.
The tale bites its own tail. The climax is enormously affecting.
Lighting design by Dan Knight is lithe, augmenting the storytelling. Direction is taut, delivery as tight and with a presence and starry heft that makes you believe Brigg. Whose range of expression – especially broad Glasgow – is as complete as Evangeline herself. This is first-rate Fringe music-theatre. This take of someone who finds their voice no matter what the professional cost sounds with morning-sour truth yet a sweet core. But at some level and for some people Evangeline doesn’t even know, it liberates too. Artistic content, particularly songs and verse, as well as direction and acting ensures this will clearly travel. Do see it.
Photography Hannah Veale. Publicity Design. Libby Holcroft.
