The Funny Hole offers glorious colour, exquisite detail and oddball characters

Three distinctive artists present a thoroughly idiosyncratic exhibition bursting with colour, gaiety, and imagination and a spectacular cabaret makes for an evening of preposterous entertainment staged among the artworks.

Leading UK producer of queer-led intersectional performance, Marlborough Productions, presents the acclaimed talents of Boogaloo Stu, Jane Dinmore, and Ladypat for a vibrant and whimsical free exhibition at the Old Court House on Fri 20 June – Sun 22 June, in the heart of Brighton. Displaying their distinctive art forms, including collages, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, film and sound work, the trio presents a collective imagination bursting with glorious colour, exquisite detail, and oddball characters in The Funny Hole.

On Sat 21 June, the exhibition will be brought to life by The Funny Hole Show, a riotous, immersive performance staged among the artworks. This dazzling lineup includes the multi-talented and iconic performer Boogaloo Stu, Blackpool’s live art Liberace Harry Clayton-Wright, Penge’s Poet Laurette Barbara Brownskirt (the comic creation of the acclaimed artist Karen McLeod), Crumble Lady and Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist Lorraine Bowen, and multidisciplinary live artist and circus superstar Symoné, with heart-thumping sounds supplied by DJ Albert Twatlock and Jane Dinmore, accompanied by vibrant visuals from Ladypat.

Hosted in the main space of the historic The Old Courthouse opposite the famous Royal Pavilion Estate, this atmospheric Victorian venue is set to be transformed into a perfect showroom for queer-led arts, blending jaw-dropping performance and unforgettable events, with this celebratory, uplifting show leading the way.

Boogaloo Stu

Born from the loins of the early nineties Brighton club scene, some thirty years later Boogaloo Stu is still one of the most glorious entertainers the UK has to offer. With a thoroughly distinctive style, balancing geniality and end-of-the-pier bawdiness with offbeat charm, Stu inhabits his own visually rich world which is irresistibly inviting, filled with an optimism that sparkles as brightly as the vintage lurex threads in one of his bespoke fashion looks. From his roots in fashion design, cabaret performance and DJ-ing, Stu subsequently sharpened his skills as a theatre-maker.  

With his audience always at the heart of his work, he developed other characters and toured nationally with a number of unique and innovative shows. Stu has also released three pop albums, finding his musical niche overseas, his discography also includes a ‘best of’ compilation released in Japan. He has also worked as a voiceover artist for various broadcasters including the BBC and Sky Arts. Since 2020, Stu has been honing his talents as a visual artist, creating beautiful dioramas and ceramics.

Jane Dinmore

Jane uses the freedom of non-representational abstraction in her work. Awkward clashes of witty amorphous lines and solid anthropomorphic forms create balanced compositions with a Wabi-Sabi sensibility. The work is an endless dialogue of vivid colour, shape, consciousness and the absurd transformed with a subliminal sense of omnipotence. Nonsense and familiarities are turned into landscapes, which have an energy and sense of optimism. Comical titles allude to mischief.  

Recognisable shapes like mouse holes and the characterful re-arrangement of standing stones are a favourite for Dinmore. These works are imagined places with the trace of human presence: the objects we leave behind or hide behind. Paintings and drawings are created by layering buoyant forms, spontaneous gestures and heavy definite marks, to transform the incidental and obscure. The works' visual language has cartoon notions, particularly evident in the abstract non-existent sculpture drawings. Within the compositions, the equality of shapes from the ephemeral to the ancient is gathered together with Dinmore’s nostalgia for mid-century line and colour. Assembling fragments of memory, the aftermath of parties, remodelled truths, and fleeting moments become playful mythologies. The result; humorous and eloquent lawless abstraction of fragmented narrative and the metaphysical.  

Jane Dinmore studied Fine Art Painting at Hertfordshire University, graduating in 1995. She continued her studies at Goldsmiths, London, graduating in 1999. Dinmore moved her London studio to the East Sussex coast in 2006. Dinmore has recently collaborated with artist Jack Jelfs, creating spontaneous drawings to his sound pieces.

Ladypat

Beginning in 2001, Ladypat has always utilized technological advances as mediums to develop his twisted DIY pop-art tropes. Their ‘queerodivergent’ arts career has included 100+ homespun music videos, a staggering 4.7 billion GIF views, Snapchat filters, a pan-European gigography as a top festival/club VJ and now as a plus-size fuzzy-felt textile artist. Ladypat artwork forms the basis for community workshops and, in 2022, Ladypat and Boogaloo Stu presented the Arts Council funded Queer Hearts Awards: A year-long cultural exchange between Isle of Wight and Brighton. Following a surprise fuzzy-felt artwork commission for Fatboy Slim (which can presently be seen at his Big Beach café), Ladypat ended 2023 with an unapologetically queer window installation at Eastbourne’s Volt Gallery.

Ladypat partnered with Brighton Pride - the UK's biggest Pride festival - and brought a fresh look to their 2024 Fabuloso fundraiser and 'We Love Because They Can't' LGBTQIA+ human rights campaign and isalso the 2024 limited edition Brighton Gin artist. Presently, Ladypat exhibits his fuzzy-felt textile art upending galleries across the UK.

The Funny Hole comes to Brighton’s Old Court House on Fri 20 June – Sun 22 June 2025

The Funny Hole Show takes place on Saturday, 21 June (7pm – 11pm). Find Pay What You Can Afford tickets here.

www.boogaloostu.co.uk  

www.janedinmore.co.uk  

www.ladypat.com  

www.marlboroughproductions.org.uk

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