It’s that time of year again. The evenings are drawing in and the streets will soon be awash with small children dressed up as Harry Potter or a zombie. Yep, it’s nearly Halloween. Of course with that comes Horrorfest, two weeks of mildly spooky stories and creepy comedy. This mini-festival of the macabre has been going on for a good few years now and is run by Sweet Venues, an old name in the Brighton entertainment scene. It runs between the 20th of October and the 4th of November.

Most of the action takes place in the room above the Poets Smokehouse in Poets Corner in Hove. It’s a bit like a mini fringe with lots of one-man/woman shows and the odd group comedy lineup. Highlights this year look to be ;

Griffin and Jones – An Audience With The Dead – A two-man Halloween magic show.

The Rotting Hart – The Crested Fools presents a multilingual, historical tragedy on how ignorance and hate can transform men into wild beasts.

The Space Wizard – New comedy from award-winning Andy Thomas (Des Kapital). 

The Horrorvision Song Contest – Spooky versions of popular songs.

Wasted – New from Twisted Angel Theatre – the creative team behind the sell-out ‘Kin’ – the gritty and contemporary ‘Wasted’ by Kae Tempest.

The best thing I have seen in it was a puppet show last year. It told the story of Christiana Edmunds, the Maynards sweet killer and was one woman, a couple of suitcases and a lot of props and puppets.