AWAY from octogenarian mods and rockers, it’s glorious clowns, oddballs, and dreamers who electrify Brighton for the month of May.

Brighton Fringe is the UK’s second largest, after Edinburgh, and benefits from its continued proximity to London (asteroid strikes allowing), the city where young writers and performers still feel they have to live in order to pursue a career in the arts.

Edinburgh’s August jamboree is increasingly unaffordable for working-class artists, especially the madness of a traditional full month’s run. For Brighton, the tendency is to do two or three shows, then get the moped, Harley Davidson, or Thameslink back to the capital.

The Fringe is an open-access festival, which over the past few years became overly dominated by a handful of lowest-common-denominator promoters. Two of the worst offenders, Half a Camel and Artista, have been banned from this year’s Fringe, while one of the more interesting spaces, Caravanserai, returns.

The latter’s Junk Poet’s, a 50-seater bandstand space, has an excellent programme, with highlights including Rob Duncan’s genius-in-the-banal surreal comedy show Printer of the Year; nonsense sketch and high energy musical comedy from Will & Noah’s Dinner Dinner Chicken Winner; up and coming clown nonsense from Lady Bolognese and Plowman And Cummins; and Work In Progress (WIP) turns from two stars of the current alternative scene, Luke Rollason and Christian Brighty.

Meanwhile Brighton stalwarts The Actors put on a showcase of queer comedy, cabaret, and theatre above an LGBTQ+ and BIPOC community friendly pub once known as the Marlborough. Their weekly Monday showcase is well worth checking out, and individual shows of note include Alex Franklin’s Kiss Me X, an explosion of trans joy; Verity Sharpe’s witty takedown of the housing crisis, Landlord’s Wet Dream; and RATMAGEDDON, a WIP sketch explosion from escapees of Soho Theatre’s Comedy Lab programme.

Indeed, one general tip for Brighton Fringe is to embrace the works that are still in progress. Partially formed doesn’t necessarily mean partially funny, and there’s something beautiful about watching artists figuring out what works and what — hilariously — doesn’t in real time, and being part of that process.

So: go see Low Effort Sketches’ We Have A Problem; enjoy nascent stand-up odysseys from the forthright leftie Kate Cheka and FOC (Femmes of Colour) It Up founder Kemah Bob; or revel in Jonathan Oldfield’s well-observed turns as he works towards his debut character comedy hour.

Also working it out as they go along are Rosalie Minnitt, with her parody-Austen creation Clementine, and Anna Leong Brophy, with Born Sexy Yesterday, an innovative meditation on ageing and the male gaze. This Fringe is also an early opportunity to catch Lil Wenker’s latest genius, grotesque creation, Boyking.

Perhaps due to that last train back to London, Brighton doesn’t match Edinburgh for super, super-late chaotic surreality. There’s not much chance of watching a man gluing a series of spoons to his private areas to a Celine Dion soundtrack at 3am, because even the “late” shows finish at eleven.

But Brighton wouldn’t be Brighton without cabaret, and there’s plenty of lunatic mixed bills to enjoy. Wundabarn at the Speigelgardens is the place to go for this kind of thing: Late Night With Terry Wogan (actually 9.30pm) will be a riotous parade of fake celebrity guests; Cabaret Impedimenta is the John-Luke Roberts-hosted impossible variety show; C’est Magnifique offer a more traditional paean to cabaret; and superstar clowns Stepdads bring together many of the best oddballs working today for The Stepdads Les Mis.

A final word, too, to a Brighton-based cabaret star: everyone go see Beaverhausen at Brighton Komedia, as this character is the queer, Chaplin-inspired drag king whose optimism we all need in our lives nowadays.

For tickets and venues see: brightonfringe.org