THEIR sketches may only be 10 minutes long but an award winning Brighton show is now celebrating 10 years.

The Bite-Size shows started in the city a decade ago and has become a festival favourite both here and in Edinburgh, doing a selection of the short comedy sketches.

Their performances have included sketches on internet dating, gay Shakespeare and a monologue by Boris the Rottweiler.

In another sketch a couple get marriage counselling as they are both reliving the same year in the 1940s.

To celebrate their longevity the Bite-Size troupe are inviting the public to a Brighton-exclusive, snack-sized preview of their Big Bite-Size Lunch Hour: Best Bites.

As usual the show will be made up of a number of sketches.

In keeping with their ten-year tradition, there will be drinks and nibbles to complement what has been dubbed the ‘Tapas of Theatre’.

Artistic Director, Nick Brites, remembers how it all started: “We’d written a few 10-15 minute plays for fun before 2006, and entered a ten-minute play competition in Sydney, Australia in 2005. We made the finals and I went to see my play ‘Waiting for Number Four’ come second.”

While he watched the other entries, Nick had an idea: “A few of them were strong enough to make a Brighton Fringe show, so we brought them back here with the writers’ blessings and created a show called ‘Bite-Size Theatre".

The result was a fresh, easy to enjoy, stimulating and inspiring collection of contrasting themes, stories and characters.

After his sell-out success for his daily show at The Sanctuary Cafe in Brighton, Nick decided to take the show to Edinburgh, only to find out there was only one slot left: 10.30am.

The ‘Bite-Size Breakfast’ was born, served with strawberries, croissants, and fresh hot coffee.

Food, funny theatre and friendly actors are vital ingredients for Fringe success, and 10 years later the ‘Bite-Size’ phenomenon had grown from a last-minute show for 40 hungry punters to a press acclaimed “Edinburgh Fringe Festival institution” attracting over 4,000 people last summer to their Good Morning Edinburgh Big Bite-Size Breakfast series.

This summer they are returning to Edinburgh for a more substantial meal of dramatic shorts, soup and sandwiches, with their ‘Big Bite-Size Lunch Hour: Best Bites’. Drawing from their decade-long catalogue, the troupe will perform from an eclectic menu of public-voted festival favourites.

The celebration event will take place this Thursday (July 28) at the Verano Lounge, Western Road, Brighton with doors opening at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

DELICIOUS HIGHLIGHTS OF 10 YEARS

  • At an Edinburgh show they performed a play in which the characters acted out the role of an ageing urinal air-freshening block.
  • They incorporated a new Shakespeare-inspired mini play into the breakfast collection for the Bard’s anniversary: Ten Reasons why Hamlet was Totally Gay by Grant MacDermott l At their first Edinburgh Fringe they were too late for the programme so had to do some extreme street flyering to fill the show. True to their logo, Take a Bite, many of the team were actually bitten by the public on the Edinburgh Royal Mile.
  • They have just developed a Speak and Inspire masterclass programme for people who want to develop real presence and persuasiveness in their presentations, using some of the secrets of great theatre performance.
  • Director Nick Brite made the Sydney Telegraph with his story of the Pom who travelled 10,500 miles for seven minutes of theatre when he travelled to Australia to perform his quick show.
  • Last year the troupe did a super speedy summary of Pride and Prejudice, finishing the story in 10 minutes flat.
  • A couple of years ago, the team performed a preview of one of their plays in the ladies' toilet of the Hotel Du Vin.
  • Having a singing, flute-playing, talking poo in the children's Bite-Size play Down the Toilet created for Southern Water.
  • They came up with a strawberry logo as a symbol of the fact that the show featured short, delicious "snacks" of great theatre – served up with a strawberry for fun.
  • Performing at Glastonbury Art Café in 2008 and guesting at festivals in Finland and Australia.