“I’ll show you what I’ve been hiding, for thousands of years”

You're big, bigly big, an elevated luminary of the town, but you need your “comforts”. Come down into the deep dark underworld of Victorian Brighton. Betsy awaits, to ease your burdens from your brow, cater to your every need. But Betsy has a story of her own, one of sex, seduction, survival. As your bodies, and tales, intermingle, you come to realise that you may have been... indiscreet. Now, it's time to clean up the mess, to leave no trace. As echoes of Trump, Andrew, Epstein reverberate back down the centuries, we'll dig up the past, with you in mind.

Winner, The International Fringe Encore Series Award 2022 Nominated, Best Female Performer Brighton Fringe 2013 Shortlisted, Brighton Fringe International Touring Award in Association with The Pebble Trust 2022, Shortlisted,UnBarred Best Local Artist Award, Brighton Fringe 2022 Performed by Isabella McCarthy Sommerville, Best Actress BHAC 2017 Written & Directed by Jonathan Brown Best New Play, New Writing South 2012 Best New Play (shortlist), New Writing South 2013 “writer Jonathan Brown knows how to drive a plot… ” Lyn Gardner, The Guardian. A Tale of Sex, Seduction and Survival. Journey into the murky, sordid and dangerous depths of Brighton’s Underworld, an evocation of memories and past lives.

Outstanding Show – “Writer/director Jonathan Brown’s protean imagination and craft…it’s wonderful to see one of the most darkly-visioned of all return…feel your way down a candlelit tunnel only a little over five feet high, into a traverse space where candles lit on ledges are gradually snuffed out: save one…McCarthy-Somerville unleashes  further voices of lost women – prostitutes dying or abused, giving birth to a litany of names… names like an aural cenotaph for the truly forgotten. McCarthy-Somerville possesses a fluidity of movement that’s remarkable: from jagged in-yer-face to oceanic immersion and poetic surrender to other forces….enormous fluency, a capacity to terrace the different accents and voices so her polyphony of characters spring believably…..” Fringereview 2019. 5 Stars! “This incredible piece of writing by Jonathan Brown is the confirmation that the fringe is the place for new theatre and talent. This one woman drama is a feat of almost unbelievable measure….Actor Isabella McCarthy Sommerville (emerges) from the flickering candlelit cellars of the Old Ship Hotel …, pulling on her draws, lacing her boots,…confronting her audience. This exquisite performance is colourful, unrelenting and at times brutal. The characters portrayed along the way are brilliantly realised, the sense of place tangible, the stench of poverty balanced by the sweet scent of privilege becomes real in our minds. So too the explicit raw sexuality and the degrading violence – it’s totally shocking and often repellent but despite that this is utterly compelling theatre of the highest order and deserving of a much wider audience. This is the kind of work that should remind us all of the real need for live theatre. Why do I only have five stars to award?” Latest 7, Brighton 2019.   14 - 23 Dec 7pm (9pm on 16th & 23rd )

( NB: Betsy's award-winning prequel, “The Silent Stream: Wisdom of a Brighton Whore Part 1” also plays SoHo Playhouse 15-30th Dec)

15 Vandam Street Map
(21-2) --691-1555