Brighton Festival’s 60th edition presents exciting new productions & acclaimed shows from world class performers

To celebrate the landmark 60th edition of Brighton Festival and the start of a new era, this year the first ever Brighton Festival Production opens the theatre, circus and dance programme alongside a series of critically acclaimed shows and the world premiere of brand-new, large-scale immersive circus.

Celebrated theatre-maker and winner of the Best Director award at the 2026 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, Omar Elerian has developed Kohlhaas (2-5 May) especially for the beautifully renovated Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, which will be a hub for theatrical performance this Festival. Brighton Festival’s first production of original work, the play is a bold stage adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s 1810 novella Michael Kohlhaas starring critically acclaimed actor Arinzé Kene. A brooding journey into the psychology of protest and resistance, Kohlhaas is urgent and fiercely contemporary, asking what justice really looks like when systems are broken and rights are denied.

Also in the Corn Exchange is Time Keeps The Drummer (8-10 May) from acclaimed performance company Fevered Sleep. A collision of theatre, dance, music and visual art, the show invites audiences to step off the treadmill of work, school and life and experience time in a different way. With a cast of 12 local children and one adult drummer, each performance is entirely improvised, unique and unrepeatable. Interweaving mesmerising choreography, stunning live lighting and music across 5 hours, audiences are encouraged to slow down and linger, or come and go as they please.

Fresh from five-star runs in Edinburgh and Manchester, award-winning, international theatre company Fix+Foxy’s Dark Noon (21-23 May), produced by Glynis Henderson Productions, uses the Corn Exchange in an entirely different way. This absurdist, satirical take on the US frontier era pulls audiences into a raw, immersive ride through history that confronts power, race and displacement.  

Elsewhere in the city, a brand-new, large-scale production from leading UK circus company NoFit State and award-winning director Firenza Guidi has its world premiere at this year’s Brighton Festival. carnation (2-25 May) is an immersive spectacle that blends circus, live music and cinematic imagery to create a charged vision of collective defiance, diving headfirst into rebellion, resistance and hope with humour, heart and real risk. 

Cross-disciplinary theatre artists KlangHaus present two shows at Brighton Dome’s Anita’s Room. Darkroom (2-23 May) is an immersive, multi-sensory installation for just six audience members at a time and held in complete darkness. Expressed through virtual reality for the ears and eyes, it is a profoundly affecting climate change wake up call. Last Haus on Earth (2-23 May) is part gig, part installation, part dream as audiences experience a site-responsive, fully immersive sensory performance using live music and projections. Free to sit, stand, lean or move around the performers, they are surrounded by music, lights, projection and objects.

Emma Rice Company’s renowned adaptation of Malory Towers (19-23 May) stops off at Brighton Festival as part of a UK tour, bursting with high jinks, high drama and live music as Darrell Rivers navigates friendship, feuds and fearless adventures. Critically acclaimed performance artist Harry Clayton-Wright (7-9 May) explores Blackpool’s rich entertainment heritage in tongue-in-cheek theatrical extravaganza Mr Blackpool, an end of the pier show at the end of the world blending variety, dance, drag, magic and sideshow.

In The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady (16-17 May), audiences take to the floor with a company of outstanding dancers and a 12-piece live band, as performance company Clod Ensemble and cutting-edge musical ensemble Nu Civilisation Orchestra join together to celebrate Charles Mingus’ iconic 1963 masterpiece of the same name. Across the closing weekend, Akram Khan Company’s final touring production, Thikra: Night of Remembering (23-24 May) sees past and present converge in a journey through tradition and honouring our ancestors, imagined as an annual gathering of a tribe of women who come together for one night only to awaken the spirit of those who came before them. With an all-female international cast of Contemporary and Bharatanatyam dancers, Thikra weaves a narrative that is at once universal and deeply personal, inviting reflection on the rituals that have shaped our shared humanity.

​​In caravan assembly (10-12 May), a partnership between Brighton Festival and pioneering cultural organisation Farnham Maltings, a three-day showcase of contemporary performance made in England includes performances from artists such as theatre maker Victoria Melody, dancer Sung Im Her and performance artist Krishna Istha.