Brighton Fringe 2026
Percy Nyx: Prince of Dreams
Percy Nyx
Genre: Cabaret, Experimental, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Queer Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Ironworks Studios. 30 Cheapside, Brighton BN1 4GD
Festival: Brighton Fringe
Low Down
The whole show was rather like a dream. You know how dream situations seem SO real, and then suddenly that particular sequence ends and you’re somewhere else. But often there’s a connecting theme that somehow links the elements together – and that’s what you remember when you wake up.
Sometimes it’s a journey, or a quest – that was certainly the case for ‘Percy Nyx’. Alex’s long and tortuous quest to discover their true nature.
Review
Slippery things, dreams. Names, too. ‘Alex’ can be used for a boy or a girl – it’s the short form of ‘Alexander’ or ‘Alexandra’. ‘Lexi’ is another shortened version: it’s the name of choice of the show’s creator and solo performer – Lexi Pickett.
Of course, ‘Alex’ could also be written as ‘A-Lex’ – ‘without rules or fixed meaning’, and that would sum up a lot of the ambiguity of Lexi’s production.
We first saw them bound onto the Ironworks stage all in blue. Blue jacket and shorts, blue eyeshadow, luxuriant blue hair. Introduced themselves as – ‘Percy Nyx, Prince of Dreams’. Wow! – that led straight into asking us about OUR dreams (especially the weird ones …) and name-checking old Sigmund Freud. Seems that Percy Nyx can get into people’s heads as they sleep, and influence their dreams. They were especially concerned about the dreams of a young girl called Alex, who looked to be having a troubled adolescence.
Fascinating juxtaposition of names – Percy Nyx. Percy was the helpful green engine from the Thomas the Tank Engine films; while Nyx is the Ancient Greek Goddess of the Night, able to bring sleep – or death – to humans. What a combination – one half light and jolly, the other one dark and powerful. Percy Nyx showed us their ancient, valve-driven radio: it’s called ‘Styx’. A machine built to harness the airwaves has the name of the rippling river barrier between the land of the living, and the Underworld. We sensed that Lexi Pickett was leading us into some deep waters . . .
Sorry if all this makes it sound academic – the show was anything but !! Lexi is a stunning performer: a huge presence on stage. There was energetic dancing, powerful singing, and a constant stream of wisecracks and asides that kept us audience members riveted to the action.
A great array of costumes, too, as Pickett took on different personas to move the action forward. I’d last seen the actor as Electra in Conor Baum’s staging of Sophocles’ tragedy, and in that production Lexi seemed like some feral creature: Electra screaming herself almost hoarse as she cursed the House of her mother Clytemnestra, and uttering anguished cries of lamentation for her murdered father. It was hair-raising to watch such suffering.
Although ‘Percy Nyx’ isn’t classic Greek theatre, there was a sense of an Odyssey – as young Alex undertook the long journey to discovering her true nature. We were told how she’d had ‘feelings’ for a girl in school chemistry class . . . but closets come in different forms, and it was left to a video projection of Thomas the Tank Engine‘s Henry, ashamed to come out of his railway tunnel because he was embarrassed by his appearance (and probably his sexuality), to make the point. They’d built a wall at the entrance, and as the engine was finally freed, the video screen splashed up JUSTICE FOR GAY TRAINS.
Wonderful – but Pickett’s imagination didn’t stop there: the sound track led straight into Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, and Lexi handed out actual bricks (foam rubber, thankfully) for us to throw at the stage. Unforgettable.
The production wasn’t afraid to use the video screen A LOT. Who remembers ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ ? The creature ate and ate, of course, and finally transformed into a beautiful butterfly.
Transformation. Surely an example for people like Alex – and Percy Nyx had persuaded the young woman to go to pre-War Berlin, to The Kit-Kat Club of Isherwood’s novels. ‘Cabaret’ – where (to steal a line from ‘Chicago’) – the gin is cold, the piano’s hot, and the genders are VERY fluid . . .
This sequence featured epic lighting states from the Ironworks technical team, and let Lexi indulge in some very erotic dancing, as well as an exotic costume change that made us gasp! In another scene they’d worn a fur coat that hung well on their body – here the performer just appeared … well-hung.
There was more. Much more. Such creative imagination in this show! So many scenes, so many references – Alex’s journey took in everything from Tank Engines to ‘The Slender Man’. A really creepy costume for this one: white mask, and festoons of black tape at waist and wrists. Creepy dialogue, too – “You seem very mature for your age …”. If you know The Slender Man (I didn’t, so thanks, Lexi) you’ll know it ended badly, and the performer did yet another quick costume change to appear in the victim’s bloodstained dress.
At the close, it wasn’t just Alex who’d embraced their true nature. Lexi the actor pulled off the luxuriant blue wig to reveal their own short reddish-blond hair underneath. A stunning transformation. They came to the front of the stage, into the spotlights, to tell us that we all have dreams to dream, and that – “I choose joy !” A truly remarkable show – the creativity of the writing, and the sheer energy of Lexi Pickett’s performance, made ‘Percy Nyx’ surely the most memorable (and challenging) thing I’ve seen this Fringe.
Great sound design, too, from Robyn Banxx, who overlaid this part of the performance with a vox-pop track of young Trans people telling how liberating it was, to finally be what they really are. “I love it when people get the pronouns right” said one.
As I hope I have, in this review.
Strat Mastoris
