ART: Laboratory Life
Lighthouse Tues 1st – Mon 7th
The final week of February saw more artists and scientists than you could fit in a mansion-sized test tube descend on the Lighthouse to create five new projects in an open laboratory. DNA tattooing and astrobiology are among the exotic offerings being promised when the results are unveiled to an unsuspecting public here. A talk on the 3rd and a public forum on the 5th will also discuss and debate the role of technology in medicine. (BM)

EVENT: Art Junky
Phoenix Sat 5th – Sun 6th
Brighton’s most dazzling indoor art flea market just gets bigger. The fourth year of the Art Junky juggernaut expands to a two-day fest, with more than 50 stalls offering as many quirky canvasses, old Doc Martens, tramp wedding dresses and handmade toothbrush holders as you can stuff into a felt-crafted handbag. Running wild through the mighty Phoenix, it also features live DJs, a cracking café and face painting, with all proceeds going to the gallery. (BM)

THEATRE: The Well
New Venture Theatre Sat 5th – Sat 12th
In Woodingdean in 1862, where this play by Jonathan Brown is set, people didn’t have to worry about the erratic reliability of the number 22 bus or whether they’d ever get a decent pub. Instead, the focus of one man lies with digging the world’s deepest well at the behest of workhouse planners, a seemingly pointless exercise which leads to revelations about the prostitute mother found dead under the pier during his childhood. There’s more than water beneath them there hills. (BM)

DANCE: LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO
Dome Tues 15th – Weds 16th
What is a male ballerina called? What about a group of them? Maybe the world has yet to find words to describe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, which makes them all the more intriguing. A 17-strong pack of tutu-clad satirists simultaneously destroying your romantic notions of ballet and making it humorous, as well as being technically highly skilled – this show fits nicely into the categories of ‘cultural,’ ‘witty’ and ‘very, very Brighton.’ (JMM)

COMEDY: Philip Jeays & Friends
Upstairs at Three and Ten Thurs 17th
Forget about staring at your feet and fiddling with your smartphone while the support act bores you into drinking the bar dry for this one. Having cornered the Gallic-tinged cabaret market, ace singer-songwriter Philip Jeays went on tour with brainbox entertainer to the masses Robin Ince, and Ince will be returning the favour here. Even if the Time Out award winner and Stewart Lee co-conspirator fails in his bid to make science sexy, he’s funny enough to make a deadly duo with Jeays. (BM)

DANCE: Big Bag of Boom
The Basement Fri 18th
If you’ve ever considered taking a cheese grater to your forehead or shoving daggers into your eyelids while watching some excruciating half-baked cod-dance cack, the New Art Club duo are here to reward your suffering and slice through the pretence. During a decade of gong-scooping stupidity they’ve contemplated garden gnome sex, campaigned for opposable thumbs and indelibly imprinted images of men in leotards taking a slash onto our sorry souls. Celebrating 10 years, this revue sums up the Morecambe and Wise of dance. (BM)

ART: Actuate My Void
Phoenix from Sat 19th
Light in the dark for this three-artist exhibition of installation experimentalists. Angie Atmadjaja is a York sonic sorcerer who likes to turn spaces into “white voids” and configure noise so that it works in tune with the speed at which you stumble through the gallery. From Halifax and Leeds to Norway and Belgium, Theo Burt has travelled the world infiltrating venues with shimmering chinks of light from custom-made computer systems as he goes. They’re joined by sound artist Peter Worth. (BM)

THEATRE: The Catastrophe Trilogy
Dome Sat 26th
Lone Twin deal in blood-and-thunder Brechtian displays of dance, drama, music and heartbreak, which you really should witness if you’ve got any interest in the power of performance. This hat-trick starts with Alice Bell, the fairytale rollercoaster of personal hope and despair for which they are perhaps most roundly adored. Second piece Daniel Hit By A Train is the vaudeville testimony of souls who suffered sacrificial deaths, and finale The Festival deals with the small concepts of love and the extraordinary. (BM)

FILM: KINO CLUB
West Hill Hall Sat 26th – Sun 27th
A monthly series of community-focused film and music weekends. Saturday night’s riot grrrl celebration includes live music from queer punk/folk groups Trash Kit and Woolf, a screening of cult US punk movie Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, and the premiere of Huggy Bear flick February 14th, assembled from footage of a 1993 show at the Richmond. Sunday evening’s theme is ‘Land’, headed by historical docu-drama Winstanley, plus related shorts and folk music from Robert Stillman. (SH)

DANCE: STOMP
Dome from Tues 29th
After being set up in Brighton 20 years ago, Stomp have truly set the world alight – redefining what’s essentially an elongated drum solo into unique entertainment. In 2002 their first West End show was broadcast to critical acclaim, they’ve played on Broadway over 5,000 times, and it doesn’t look like slowing down. Returning home in all their bin lid-bashing, plastic barrel-toting glory, this stellar cast will create a fresh, fast-paced and funny performance, with loads of everyday objects thrown in. And yes, there’s also the kitchen sink. (JC)

COMEDY: The Return of Boothby Graffoe
Komedia Thurs 31st
How to explain the allure of Boothby Graffoe? If your dad got hammered at a wedding and started muttering terrible jokes before grabbing a dusty guitar and rattling off an arsenal of bizarre songs, all the while necking wine and employing the mannerisms of Alan Partridge, you’d be close. The lanky northern lunatic is the definition of cult classic not bestseller, but his ability to hit the comedy g-spot is flawless. The long overdue return of a hero. (BM)

Words by Jake Cunningham, Stuart Huggett,Jessica Marshall McHattie, Ben Miller