COMEDY: PAINT THE TOWN RED, STAND UP FOR LABOUR Dome Sun 3rd
Call Me Dave’s eventual election victory had one interesting consequence – Labour party membership numbers went through the roof, signing up the sort of people who wouldn’t previously have pissed on an ablaze Blair or Brown. In this slightly odd-sounding evening, Jo Brand and Graham Norton lead comedy and chat for a fundraiser promoted by the party. Even bankers might balk at the ticket price, so it’s a bit of a test of how desperate people are for a red resurrection. (BM)

FILM: GET LOW Duke Of York’s Sun 3rd
Unimposing but beautifully shot, Get Low was well received largely because of a star turn by Robert Duvall, playing a 1930s hermit who throws his own hedonistic funeral party while still alive. This take on a Tennessee fable is heavily informed by the Coen brothers and comes doused in liquid saccharine, but Bill Murray’s appearance as a bumbling grim reaper cements it as a slow-burning charmer definitely worth seeing on a Sunday. (BM)
COMEDY: FUNNY GIRLS/
FUNNY HA-HA
Caroline Of Brunswick Fri 8th/Mon 25th
Like lambs to the funny bone slaughter, we all know that April is merely the calendar page to be turned before the madness of Fringe month. Tick a couple of those days off with a multi-lass line-up featuring Sarah Archer, Hannah Brackenbury, Sam Savage and The Short & Girlie Show (8th), or watch sketch show army The Maydays headline a later edition hosted by the occasionally moustachioed Julie Jepson, overseeing sets from Richard Perry and Lou Conran. (BM)

EVENT: THE DUSTY GROOVE JUKEBOX SHOW
Brunswick Sat 9th
Based on a Saturday night Radio Reverb 97.2FM show where local bands are teleported into space to play for an audience of aliens, compere Desmond O’Connor presents a one-off mindblower featuring UFO can-can dancers, burlesque teasers and live rockabilly and surf courtesy of the Blackwater Valley Boys and The Squadron Leaders. Subtitled Return to Westworld, it aims for an anachronistic, old-time stage show feel, bravely setting up Hove as the latest challenger to Worthing’s hard-earned title as the Mecca of variety performance. (BM)

THEATRE: TIME AND THE CONWAYS
Marlborough Little Theatre Tues 12th – Sat 16th
The synopses of this 1937 JB Priestley piece – widely acknowledged as being one of his best works – reference Priestley’s mystically inspired belief that humans could surpass their rubbish ways if only they could grasp the transcendent truth of life, death and everything we experience along the way. The argument may never have worked with ticket inspectors on the last train back from Victoria, but in the context of a spooky play merging family past and future it makes for an atmospheric theatrical treat. (BM)

COMEDY: CRAIG CAMPBELL Komedia Thurs 14th
Craig Campbell survived supporting Frankie Boyle on tour, an achievement probably afforded by the rugged Canadian’s laidback style and affable sense of globetrotting wonder. It’s hard to imagine his languid wit being anything other than an antidote to Boyle’s relentless venom, but Campbell is a raconteur and impersonator with no shortage of natural wit in his own right. In a happy twist, he also resembles a lab experiment fusing the genetic make-ups of Crocodile Dundee, Billy Connolly and Grizzly Adams. (BM)

PERFORMANCE:
DOUBLE BILL The Basement Thurs 14th
A dirt-cheap double shot of hotly-tipped new thesps down in The Basement, starting with Made In China’s Stationary Excess, a lonely solo tale of an extraordinary man told by a woman imprisoned on an exercise bike. It’s followed by Being Here While Not Being Here, Sylvia Rimat’s attempt to retrace her experience when she actually passed out while performing eight years ago. Rimat turns the stage into a metaphor for entering and departing reality, deploying chalk signs and video snippets en route. (BM)

HOUNDS OF LOVE
Komedia Weds 13th
For those who witnessed it, seeing Kate Bush flouncing around on Top Of The Pops in a pink leotard will live long in the childhood memory. Rather like seeing the Sex Pistols, David Bowie or Boy George through innocent wide eyes, this fantastical visitation was a window into a world beyond our suburban imaginations. Amazingly, Bush has, somehow, only furthered this myth in the years since, meaning tonight’s tribute is as close as anyone can get, pink leotard or not. (BG)

FILM event: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
Duke Of York’s Sun 17th
The SPACE has been bringing Brighton special film events for a while now, the latest being a Raiders Of The Lost Ark 30th anniversary screening. The evening also features Briggy Smale interviewing its associate producer, Oscar-winning production designer and its famed stuntman (the bloke who hung precariously off the back of a speeding truck with his whip, while Harrison Ford sipped cool drinks in his trailer). (NC)

COMEDY: ED BYRNE
Dome Tues 19th
Despite his regular and presumably mortgage-easing slots on the nan-friendly laugh drizzle that is Live At The Apollo, Ed Byrne has managed to retain a credibility amongst critics and audience alike. With good reason – cats, cake, religion and newborn babies all loom large in this engaging show that proves observational comedy needn’t restrict itself to, “How about those peanuts on aeroplanes, eh?” (NC)

WORDS BY NICK COQUET, BEN GILBERT, BEN MILLER