This Is How I Got Arrested Brighton Fringe 2026 arrives at The Actors Theatre this May — and the full title tells you everything you need to know about its energy.
This Is How I Got Arrested… after smuggling drugs across the border but never actually getting caught with any drugs plays The Actors Theatre on 2, 3 and 4 May 2026 at 4:30pm.
The Show
Sophie is a young working-class woman with an increasingly elaborate story — and the more she tells it, the more the audience is forced to interrogate what they believe and why.
This Is How I Got Arrested… is a tightly structured, fourth-wall-breaking one-woman dark comedy that plays explicitly with storytelling, exaggeration and theatrical misdirection. Framed as a coming-of-age narrative, it uses humour to unpack class, identity and female performance under pressure.
Fast-paced delivery. Direct audience address. Sharply observed character work. The kind of show that feels like stand-up but operates like theatre.
Azaelia Slade
Trained at East15 Acting School and Manchester School of Theatre, with further development through National Youth Theatre. Her background spans physical theatre, stand-up comedy, classical and contemporary stage work and touring productions.
Her performance style has been compared to Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Ellie Taylor — combining confessional energy with precise theatrical craft and controlled chaos.
The show previously ran at Edinburgh Fringe 2025 at The Laughing Horse at Bar 50, where it received strong audience response throughout its run. Brighton is part of a wider UK tour ahead of Edinburgh Fringe 2026.
This Is How I Got Arrested Brighton Fringe 2026: Why It Stands Out
What makes This Is How I Got Arrested Brighton Fringe 2026 different from a typical Fringe comedy is its structural ambition.
This is not a show that simply tells a funny story. It is a show about the act of telling a story — about how we construct narratives around ourselves, how credibility is performed and how an audience decides what to believe.
Sophie’s account of events becomes progressively more elaborate and more unstable. The comedy comes from that instability. So does the discomfort.
For Brighton audiences, this is the kind of work the Fringe exists to platform — a performer with something to prove and the technique to prove it.
Why This Show
Brighton Fringe consistently surfaces performers before the rest of the circuit catches up. Azaelia Slade is exactly that kind of performer — technically precise, genuinely funny and working with material that has something to say beyond the laugh.
This Is How I Got Arrested… is a proven Fringe piece with a clear audience and a performer ready to scale. Catch it at The Actors Theatre before Edinburgh.
Written and performed by Azaelia Slade.
Practical Details
📍 The Actors Theatre, Brighton
📅 2, 3 & 4 May 2026
⏰ 4:30pm 🔗 brightonfringe.org
For more Brighton Fringe 2026 shows, see our full Brighton Fringe guide.
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