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All Alternative Comedy Festival, Swans, Not Scones, Opens in Brighton

8 Nov 2025

Brighton’s first all-alternative comedy festival, Swans, Not Scones, will feature 13 shows over the weekend of 14 to 16 November at Sweet@The Yellow Book. It celebrates all comedy outside of stand-up, including sketch, physical, character and musical comedy, clowning, improv and anything that is just a bit different.

Silly, joyous, and profound ways to distract from everyday life.

The festival is a three-way joint venture between Brighton-based alt-comedy performers and promoters Rebekka Turner (Clogg Comedy) and Simon Topping (Extra Topping Comedy), with producer and Sweet Venues founder and director JD Henshaw.

The programme presents award winners, mavericks, innovators and Brighton comedy institutions. It is arranged in three genres. In Musical Comedy, JoJo Maberly, whose accolades, in addition to being on BBC One, BBC Three and BBC Radio 4, include Bristol Comedy Comp Winner 2025, BBC New Comedy Awards heat winner 2024 and Musical Comedy Awards Best Newcomer 2023, performs her debut full show, Angst and Angstability, an innocently unhinged show of intense infatuations.

For the Clowning category, Loz Dodd has created This Can’t Be It, a show that delights in losing its own thread, derailed by distractions, tangents and spontaneous song that blends the unpredictability of performance art with the openness of contemporary clowning.

Leslie Bloom can usually be found hosting Sweet@The Yellow Book’s monthly alternative night, Extra Topping, but for this festival, in Character Comedy, he presents Leslie Bloom Solves a Murder, an hour of joyful laughter that celebrates the detective in us all, a combination of crafted comedy, pure silliness and whimsical improv.

Speaking about the inaugural Swans, Not Scones, festival co-organiser Simon Topping said: “We are delighted to realise our vision of bringing a selection of the finest up-and-coming local alternative comedy talent to Sweet Venues@The Yellow Book. With a constant barrage of dystopian news and a cost-of-living crisis, people want to embrace a bit of respite. This is where Swans, Not Scones comes in. In their own uniquely different ways, our acts provide silly, joyous and profound ways to distract from everyday life. Expect plenty of laughter, fabulously skewed ways to see the world, and comedy aplenty that will refresh the soul.”

JD Henshaw, artistic director of Sweet Productions, said: “We are so excited to be bringing this weekend of ‘the different’ to Brighton. Here at Sweet Venues, we have always been huge supporters and believers in alternative comedy. We specialise in bringing our audiences the new, the challenging and the joyous, and the acts we have lined up for Swans, Not Scones are all that and more. We are so lucky to be welcoming back some brilliant performers alongside staging artists who have not graced our venue before. Swans, Not Scones is a weekend of comedy that will be a firm favourite every November and will keep the flag flying for all the strangest and best things that make Brighton the fresh, creative and comedy-filled city that we all love.”

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