New chief executive offers her first Brighton Festival - its 60th edition

Adding to the significance is the fact that this is chief executive Lucy Davies’ first Brighton Festival programme of her own.

Lucy joined Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival as chief executive in January 2025, having previously been executive director at the Young Vic Theatre, executive producer at the Royal Court Theatre and founding executive producer at National Theatre Wales.

“When I joined Brighton in January last year, at that point last year’s festival was already locked in so I had the lovely unpressured honour of shepherding it through which was amazing for all sorts of reasons, just to be experiencing the festival from the inside.

“And that taught me a huge amount. Pretty much immediately I hit the desk, I started thinking about the festival for this year. Coming from a producing theatre background you start thinking about these things as early as possible. But seeing the festival last year was so teaching for me. I learned a lot of practical stuff but the real take-away was the audiences in Brighton, the fact that the audiences are just so magnificent at rising up to the incredible events that we had. You really felt the appetite in the city for these great events. It is a place that really loves the arts and loves performance and that is really empowering to see. It was so great to see what the audiences can bring to the performances.

“But seeing the festival last year also taught me lots of practical stuff about the balance of the festival, what the journey through the festival should be, what the hotspots are and how you open a festival and how you close a festival, the whole shape of the journey through it.

“Also I knew that last year was the last year for the guest director model. There was a lot of listening to people and there was a feeling that the guest director chapter had been very significant but there was an appetite for change. We have a very strong programming team here and I wanted to see how we could work as a team much further ahead and to be thinking about multiple years rather than just the next year coming. It was really instructive watching last year's festival knowing that there would not be a guest director this year.”

Also crucial was the knowledge that this year's festival is the 60th: “Things can just slip away and you remember them nostalgically, but the fact is that this festival has endured and not just endured but really flourished for so long.

“None of us wanted to be nostalgic when we were thinking about the anniversary but we did look back at when things were beginning, the kinds of artists and just how radical the festival was when it began. We wanted to honour that energy in this year's festival without being backward looking. I think the whole body of work at this year's festival speaks to that memory.”

As for the festival's longevity: “I think there are all sorts of factors. Audiences and artists still summon it into being. There is such a demand and hunger and love for a festival in Brighton in May. Brighton in May is real brand in itself!

“And then there's the huge investment from the individuals and the corporates and the people that just turn up. There is also a huge passion among the staff in the building. It is all glued together with a huge amount of love and will and ambition. Brighton as a city was always destined to have a radical multi-arts festival. It has got all the ingredients, the landscape and the radicalism and all the artists that flock here.”

It also has a fabulous range of venues, particularly the Corn Exchange which has been back in action for the past few years: “It is one of the most beautiful creative spaces in the country. And we have put together a programme of work for that room. We can do some of those things in our year-round programme but the festival allows you to be really ambitious and really international. That's what festivals do: they really allow you to stretch beyond the everyday.”

And illustrating precisely that point, the 60th edition of Brighton Festival signals a new era, the first time original work produced in house is being presented. Again the Corn Exchange will be key.

Opening this year’s programme is the world premiere of Kohlhaas (May 1-5), the first original work to be produced by Brighton Festival. It is a bold and contemporary adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s 1810 novella Michael Kohlhaas that delves into the psychology of protest and resistance.

It is also the 40th edition of the Children’s Parade and the tenth edition of Our Place – Brighton Festival’s annual programme developed in partnership with local community steering groups and originally inspired by former guest director Kae Tempest. It will be celebrated with a free Family Fun Day at Brighton Dome (May 4), while artists in residence collaborate with residents of East Brighton and in Moulsecoomb & Bevendean.

Other events include: Soft Machines (large scale artworks on Hove Promenade throughout the Festival, free to attend), carnation (world premiere of a new circus show from Welsh company NoFit State at Blackrock in Brighton, throughout the Festival), and Record Breaking Table Tennis (Brighton Table Tennis Club open day at the Corn Exchange on May 25 – attempting to break some world records, free to attend).