Brighton Photo Biennial gets an above-Parr treatment

American GI home from 120-day stay in Afghanistan, 2004

Brighton Photo Biennial launched

The fourth Brighton Photography Festival (BPB) has been launched amid dramatic economic hardships, but my money is on it being a roaring success. It will put Brighton on the map as somewhere other than a gay clubbers’ delight and a hen-party hub. The reason for my confidence? The guest curator, Martin Parr. He's a Zelig-like character who spends his life dropping into every photo festival around the world and is the best-known UK photographer on the international stage today, his reputation made through his controversial high-colour documentary photographs and the touring exhibition Parrsworld, which is fed by his collector’s bug.



The Miserable Rich, St Giles in the Fields

Brighton's best-educated band show they are more affecting than affected

If you thought Chamber Pop was dead, think again. The Divine Comedy are back with a new album, Rufus Wainwright is playing Meltdown, and The Leisure Society are gradually building up a cabinet of awards. The genre may sometimes come over as the musical equivalent of David Mitchell in Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen’s clothes; but over-educated young men, it would seem, will not be easily be distracted from expressing their ironic observations.

The Lion's Face, Opera Group

'A frighteningly convincing portrait': Dave Hill as Alzheimers sufferer Mr D, with Rachel Hynes

Dementia is given the operatic treatment

An opera about Alzheimer’s disease might seem an idea calculated to send the most community-minded audience rapidly to the nearest exit. Yet there's a longish history of theatre – musical and otherwise – about loss of memory and the failure of language, from Wagner to Bartók to Beckett to (even) Michael Nyman; and if Elena Langer's new piece for The Opera Group, The Lion's Face, ultimately fails to measure up dramatically to that tradition, it may be because, in approaching the subject from a clinical angle, it imprisons itself in the inescapability of the condition itself, without hope of change or catharsis.

theartsdesk in Brighton: Festival Beside the Seaside

Commuting between this year's Festival and Fringe

With Kim Noble handing out pots of his own semen in the main festival and the twin-set-and-pearls brigade queueing up for a fringe show at The Grand, this year the line began to blur between the Brighton Festival (now on its 44th outing) and the un-curated, often chaotic but ceaselessly creative Fringe.With Kim Noble handing out pots of his own semen in the main festival and the twin-set-and-pearls brigade queueing up for a fringe show at The Grand, this year the line began to blur between the Brighton Festival (now on its 44th outing) and the un-curated, often chaotic but ceaselessly creative Fringe.

I Am a Warehouse, Newhaven Fort, Brighton Festival Fringe

Anna-Maria Nabirye taking on the role of the bombed Gaza warehouse

Drama about the destruction of a Gaza warehouse in an evocative setting

Just say "Gaza" and it's like throwing a bombshell marked "Darwin" in among the Creationists. Only in this case it's not always clear who the antagonists might be. Several seemingly liberal theatre venues in Israel, where this project originated as a clear statement of the UN Relief and Works Agency's humanitarian role, cancelled at the last minute; more recently, supposedly enlightened sponsors suddenly withdrew substantial support. None had seen or read the content. It seems that telling the plain tale of a warehouse destroyed is inflammatory stuff. Odd when the warehouse in question, the protagonist of this drama, goes out of its way to tell us that it takes no sides and holds no weapons.

Philip Glass Ensemble, Koyaanisqatsi, The Dome, Brighton

Philip Glass performs his classic film soundtrack live at the Brighton Festival

One of the hottest tickets at this year's Brighton festival is Godfrey Reggio's 1983 film Koyaanisqatsi accompanied by live soundtrack performance from the Philip Glass Ensemble. Sold out for weeks beforehand, there are touts outside but most of the middle-aged Bohemian audience seem to have bought their tickets well in advance. The reason it's such a draw is that Koyaanisqatsi is a cult whose enthusiasts are multifarious.

Brian Eno - Pure Scenius, The Dome, Brighton

Brian Eno delivers a five-and-a-half hour musical lecture in the year 2069

It's 4.00 in the afternoon and Brighton Festival curator Brian Eno is fast-forwarding us to the future. Perched onstage behind an array of consoles, he tells us we're in for "something special for the end of term". The conceit is that the audience are students in the year 2069, indeed the event programme takes the form of notes for a university course on "Cultural Reconstructions". Rather than a single "lecture", though, there are three, and they will take us through to 11.00 tonight.

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