Chris H.
Yelp
Snooper's Paradise gets a lot of press, most of it deservedly: yes, it is indeed Brighton's biggest second-hand shop, and stocks almost anything you can think of. It is easily Brighton's best prop shop, as well as a great port of call for that one particular item, but that's about it. For a place called Snooper's Paradise, there's so much junk that snooping is more tiring than fun. Maybe it's called Snooper's Paradise because snoopers can sell all of their tat here, and still get something for it!
On the plus side, buying nearly anything means that Snooper's Paradise is a very good first-place-to-look for nearly any item you simply must have. I do mean 'item' specifically here: objects you've always wanted will invariably be here in some capacity. This makes it the ideal place to start a props hunt for a night or event or theatre show, although I often then go elsewhere to get an item in better repair, and there's the biggest problem Snooper's Paradise has: in the end, most of this stuff is rubbish.
Not just any old rubbish, mind: it's all the sort of tat that could be described as 'somewhat useful', or 'in an OK state', the sort of stuff you find being bounced around the backrooms of Ebay, losing value every time it gets sold on. Who wants any of this stuff? Shopaholics? In which case, you're welcome to it; anyone with a brain can see that most of the stuff in here isn't even worth the shelf it's placed on.
Brightonians seem to love it here, and I just don't get it. What's so good about a shop that sells tat? We could all clean out our attics and open a shop like Snooper's Paradise, which, behind all the tat, is basically in disrepair. No, no, not the mecca some people seem to think it is. Look out for them, they're the ones wandering the aisles, a big grin pasted to their face, looking for that 50p pen topper from the 70s that will make them apoplectic with joy for all of 30 seconds, by which point they've left the shop and are halfway down the road... Whatever floats you boat.