Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Intimate Encounters part two...... spoiler alert if this show gets put on at Edinburgh or something

With the blindfold securely in place and unable to see a flippin' thing, I was led by the hand through some curtains and handed over to another invisible woman who embraced me tenderly. Curiously I found my automatic response to being hugged by an invisible stranger was to reciprocate in kind. I would have thought a more analytical process would have taken place where I would think "this is a performance, I am the audience, I am just supposed to receive it, and in any case groping women I haven't even spoken to is a shortcut to a knee in the goolies". And so if somebody stroked my hair, I stroked their hair, and if they placed my hand on a naughty part of their chest, I just left it there. Come to think of it, that latter action wasn't my first instinct.

There seemed to be a number of women (and the occasional bloke, identifiable by a slight case of halitosis and a lack of lady parts) wandering in and out of my "zone", sometimes just brushing against me, sometimes touching me quite firmly, sometimes deliberately tickling me. There was slow, close dancing, there was silly jumping up and down, there was me sitting on a chair with someone sat on my knee while somebody else draped themselves over my back. It was continually surprising and extremely enjoyable. A strange mixture of emotions ran through me while all this was going on, a subliminal one of which was how nice it was that a bunch of people I didn't know were prepared to touch me. Day to day life tends not to incorporate much touching outside of sexual partner intimacy and a brief hug of your friends, which is not something I'd given much thought to. And yes, one can book a massage and a stranger will touch you but that's a professional relationship and not much more intimate than the one you have with your dentist. Unless you have a secret yen for your dentist or you have some kind of tooth fetish. I still have no desire to go to a cuddle party though. Google it and be afraid.

Occasionally there would be respite from all this when I was led into a tiny tented area, made to kneel and the blindfold whipped off. There was one other person in the tent - once it was a young lady stroking herself coquettishly and speaking in what I could only assume was Esperanto, a language I have since decided must be the language of lurve. Another time there was a girl who seemed to be having a bad trip and mumbled haltingly desperate incomprehensible pleas for me to do who knows what. Ultimately someone sneaked up behind me and replaced the blindfold and I was dragged back towards more touch feely people, where sometimes someone would suddenly blow in my face or whisper something endearing in my ear.

And then after about 45 minutes I was plonked in a chair, my blindfold removed for the last time, and there I was alone in a curtained-off space with my shoes in front of me in a basket. Feeling a tad drained and slightly elated, partly from the intensity of the experience and from having to endlessly second guess what my next reaction might be. Marvellous and totally unlike anything else on at Brighton Festival this year, or any other year. And yet nobody reviewed it.

N.B. Actually I now find that there are a couple of reviews out there but at least one of them didn't get posted until after the festival was over. Since speaking to a man who knows I have found that the point of these reviews is to feed the PR machine to get important people to like you, not to let Joe Soap know what might be a good show to attend. I am an innocent abroad.

Cheeky Tim

Don't touch me there

Now that the Brighton festival hoo hah has died down there's time to take a moment to reflect on what I thought was the very pinnacle, nay, the veritable nub, of the whole circus, a show called "Intimate Encounters". Nobody else seems to have reviewed it, which is strange (or a criminal omission actually) but perhaps not unexpected given that (a) most reviewing is undertaken by students who would have to pass too many pubs on the way to the New Venture Theatre to make it a physical possibility and (b) it sounds a bit scary because people you don't know are going to touch you and we're British dammit, we just shake hands and then only very firmly. The Fringe brochure is now lining someone else's cat litter tray so I don't have the exact blurb to hand, but they did promise a "personal" one on one experience, and though this turned out to sometimes be a two, three, or four on one experience, they were not really fibbing.

When I showed up at the venue I was given a form to complete, with such items as which genders of person you were happy getting their hands on you and whether you suffered from diarrhoea. Maybe not that last bit. I was led by an epauletted doorman into a small space in the auditorium that had been sectioned off with black cloth. A lady in therapist's white garb asked me to sit on a chair and remove my sandals, after which she sprayed my feet with something (DDT? Chanel No. 5?) and moved behind me to administer a shoulder and neck massage. There was some shoulder-related chat and then she tied a blindfold round my head.....

Part 2 in a few days time. What a tease I am.

Cheeky Tim

Warning: may contain facial hair

Dr David Bramwell's Brighton Fringe Festival solo performance of an epic tale (don't worry, he doesn't do much dancing) 'The Haunted Moustache' has another 3 nights to go, so in the unlikely event that there's said to be any tickets left you could easily go. And be amazed and enthralled by this unlikely but completely true story. I have seen it, and he's surprisingly good for such a bookish withdrawn self-effacing man.

It's Upstairs at The Three and Ten on may 10th, 11th and 18th. It's a lovely intimate venue and the door staff are quite promiscuous so it's always worth chancing your arm.

Cheeky Tim

The slumbering giant, erm, minnow, awakes

Well, having disgracefully ignored this blog for several millennia, it has been decided that there will be updates, information, idiocy, contentiousness, and perhaps tears. Any second now. Wait for it.

There may also be some ongoing stylistic amendments so please bear with us while we adjust your television set.

Cheeky Tim

New Cheeky Guide to Brighton

Hi Cheeky fans, Dr Bramwell here again. Hope you're both well, how's Maureen?
Anyway enough about you, Tim and I have been slogging away at the new Cheeky Guide to Brighton (fourth edition)and it will soon be out (we reckon third week of July) in all disreputable bookshops, Amazon and Buddies Chip Shop for your delectation, disgust or disapprobation.
Our lawyers look forward to hearing from you

Cheeky David

Welcome to the Cheeky Guides

COME AND SEE THE CHEEKY GUIDE TO BRIGHTON CHRISTMAS SHOW THIS WEEK!
Only £8/6!!
Hysterical laughter guaranteed!!! Leo Sayer castrated live on stage!!! Exclamation marks galore!!!!

Bigger, funnier and cheekier than ever, the Cheeky Guide to Brighton show takes an affectionate but scurrilous look at every aspect of Brighton life, from the city's sordid history, gay scene and C-list celebrities to hen party invasions, New Age loonies and Nazi traffic wardens. This is Cheeky's first stage outing since their sell-out Christmas-themed show two years ago when, in protest at Brighton still being the only city in England never to have a municipal Xmas Tree, they paper-chained themselves to Brighton Town Hall and promptly got arrested. They won't be doing that again in a hurry.

Starring Cheeky Guide author, David Bramwell, Radio 4 comedy writer Brian Mitchell, highly acclaimed actor/comedian Ian Shaw and the RSC's wonderful Emily Pithon and with special guest appearances from Channel Four's Eric Page and Joker Basement's Guy shark killer‚ Venables.

Komedia Gardner Street, Brighton, (01273) 647100
Wednesday 21st to Friday 23rd December - 8pm kick-off

£8/6 conc www.komedia.co.uk
Tickets available from Komedia box office