Brighton’s seafront entertainment strip has seen several high-profile closures over the past year, leaving many locals concerned about the future of the city’s nightlife landscape. The recent closures of Marine Parade staples—most notably R-Bar and the 25-year-old Charles Street Tap—sent shockwaves through the local community, creating a void in the evening scene. However, a new cultural space is now opening inside one of the city’s historic buildings.
Launching with a schedule of performances and collaborative workspaces, Brighton Playhouse is establishing a new hub at 77 West Street. Accessing the venue is straightforward: guests enter through the main street doors at 77 West Street before taking the stairs to the upper floor. Occupying a vaulted upper room, this venue moves away from traditional theatre seating to introduce an interactive workspace – a hybrid of daytime creative sanctuary and evening performance space where guests can participate rather than just watch.
🏛️ Balancing Heritage with Cultural Recovery
The arrival of the Playhouse comes at an important time for the local hospitality industry. Following the recent seafront losses, the operators behind the closed bars partnered with ten other institutions (including Club Revenge, The Birdcage, and Bar Broadway) to form the Brighton LGBTQ+ Business Group. This collective is currently lobbying for city investment and licensing reform to protect the city’s remaining nightlife quarter.
The Brighton Playhouse balances this modern artistic project with significant history. Long before the space became a bar, the Grade II listed 19th-century building was a double-fronted Regency mansion. During the Regency era, the house was occupied by socialites Henry and Hester Thrale. The Thrales used the coastal retreat to host prominent literary figures, including Dr. Samuel Johnson, compiler of the definitive Dictionary of the English Language, and the novelist Fanny Burney.
The room’s exposed timber trussed roof links back to these early creators. For long-time Brighton clubbers, the space also holds plenty of modern nostalgia. Before its recent run as the intimate, cocktail-focused Rum Attic, this room spent the 90s and 2000s operating as The Standard, playing host to major clubbing brands like Hedkandi. Go back to the late 80s, and it was the busy Swifts Cocktail Bar, which grew out of mid-century culinary spots Genghis Khan’s Restaurant and The Queen Anne.
🍸 The Curated Pre-Show Drink Guide
The Playhouse location bridges the gap between grassroots art and the city’s hidden cocktail scene. The surrounding streets hide some of the top mixology spots in the city, making them ideal stops before a show:
- Enigma Stock Exchange Bar (75 West Street): Located directly next door, this venue features a novelty concept where drink prices constantly fluctuate on digital screens based on live crowd demand, mimicking a stock market index.
- The Bootlegger (78 Middle Street): A two-minute walk to neighboring Middle Street reveals this candlelit prohibition-style bar. It is an underground jazz den hidden behind an unassuming storefront, pairing classic cocktails with live swing music [🎷](https://bootleggerbars.com “The Bootlegger Brighton”).
- Twisted Lemon (41 Middle Street): Tucked away down a narrow alleyway, this converted building serves custom cocktails in an intimate, secret garden-style room.
While Brighton is already home to established comedy venues like the North Laine’s iconic Komedia, the performance space at The Lantern Theatre, and premium beachfront comedy nights at Rockwater Hove (which recently hosted a stand-up night with TV favorite Mike Gunn), the Playhouse intends to stand out by functioning as an open, multi-disciplinary everyday home for creators.
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👥 Meet the Curators
Behind Brighton Playhouse is a creative duo working to change how local audiences experience live performance:
Bex Roberts: As a creative producer and director of the UK Improv Society, Bex has spent years operating as a nomadic force in the performance community. Having run pop-up workshops and drop-in jams across the region, Brighton Playhouse represents her first permanent brick-and-mortar headquarters – a fixed home base for the city’s independent creators.
Simon Topping (and Leslie Bloom): Simon is an award-nominated character comedian, actor, and the builder of the monthly comedy night Extra Topping Comedy. Simon is introducing his comic alter ego, Leslie Bloom – a self-described neighbourhood busybody, beat poet, and over-65s parkour instructor – to lead the venue’s daytime launch events.
📅 The Inaugural Showcase: Launch Day Curations
To celebrate the launch, the venue is opening its doors for a full day and evening itinerary, providing a snapshot of its regular programming:
- 12:00 PM – The Comedy Brunch: An interactive welcome session hosted by the character Leslie Bloom.
- 2:30 PM – The Creative Tasters: the room becomes an interactive playground for three completely free 45-minute tasters. You can dive into wordless improv with Bex Roberts, explore body percussion with Brighton Circle music, or try your hand at a unique creative collage workshop hosted by A for Antoine. London readers might already know Antoine’s work—when he isn’t hosting arts workshops, he is a brilliant London-based mixologist holding court at El Siete and leading sought-after cocktail tours across the capital. (You can track his latest liquid masterpieces over on Instagram at @aforantoine).
- 7:00 PM – The Evening Showcase: A double-bill featuring Make It Beautiful Theatre Company’s The Dream Machine alongside Brighton Fringe favorites Yes Anderson, who craft improvised narratives set inside the stylized universe of filmmaker Wes Anderson.
The Cultural Radar After-Hours Tip: 🍸
Looking for the perfect spot to discuss the shows over a post-performance drink? Brighton Playhouse founder Bex Roberts let us in on her absolute top recommendation for the city. Skip the rowdy seafront strips and slip away to The Golden Pineapple on nearby Ship Street. Widely regarded by locals as the best cocktail bar in Brighton, it’s the ideal spot to keep the creative conversation flowing long after the curtains fall.
🎟️ Join the Society
Whether you want to find out about permanent creative memberships or attend the initial showcase, tickets and registration links are available via the official Brighton Playhouse Eventbrite Portal.
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