Most of this news I’ve already written during my Brighton Fringe coverage, but it’s worth repeating it here. There are two notable festival fringes which have got on the scene.
And by “fringe”, I’m talking about the real deal here. It’s in the spirit of the famous fringe that everybody claims they’re emulating but not everybody does: anybody who wants to take part can. With small fringes being an important feeder to the bigger ones, it’s vital that these routes in are is open as the festivals they feed into, otherwise it undermines the artistic freedom of the bigger festivals. I don’t know how so many people have become convinced that the sky will fall in if you hold up a sign saying “all welcome”, but rest assured, plenty of small fringes have run this way and the world has not ended.
Two fringes have been set up, but very different circumstances for the two. Here’s what we’ve got …
Scarborough Fringe
21st June – 30th June
So this is the brand new one, and I was one of the first to report this when I interviewed Julian Caddy in his final Brighton Fringe, and his departure from Brighton is actually connected to this new one.
He has moved on to The Scarborough Fair, which is a three-year project funded by North Yorkshire County Council and encompasses a lot more than a fringe. The most prominent event that’s happened so far was Scarborough Lights last Christmas. We (me and family) visited that last December and were impressed with something working on what must have been a fraction of the budget of Durham’s Lumiere. As far as I can tell, most events throughout the year were stipulated by North Yorkshire County Council, but Scarborough Fringe was Julian Caddy’s idea.
And – crucially – they’ve let him do it his way. I won’t go into a digression of Durham County Council too much, but my own dealing with them is that they’re really fixated on vetting art (not too bothered about who vets it but GOD DAMN somebody has to). Not sure how County Durham’s attitude compares to elsewhere – but regardless, North Yorkshire has embraced Brighton Fringe’s spirit and chosen to be inclusive. A valid argument against? Open-access festivals can push up upfront costs and price grass-roots local acts out. However, Scarborough Fringe has thought of that and offered bursaries for local acts to offset the (already cheap) registration costs. Combined with many venues that are cheap or even free, Scarborough Fringe is doing a good job of being an inclusive as can be – both in principle and in practice.
How does it compare for size? Well, this is where it gets a bit complicated. Scarborough Fringe overlaps with Scarborough Art. This is actually not too different to Brighton Artists Open Houses running during Brighton Fringe – many of whom registered with the fringe. However, Artist Open Houses was only either one of many pieces of a festival. If you’re measuring the size of a festival by the registrations, Scarborough Art is bigger than Scarborough Fringe. Scarborough Art and Scarborough Fringe combined is 104 registrations – if you don’t count the Art Registrations (and to confuse things further, that covers a bigger period than Scarborough Fringe), it’s 43. 43 is still not bad for a first year.
As is normally the case with new festivals, there’s not really much I can say in the way of recommendations. Some acts I recognise from the listings of other fringes, but nothing yet that I’ve seen before. (Except me. But that would be cheating.) One notable act, though, is Esther’s Revenge. This, I understand, is something carried over from Brighton Fringe: at Brighton Julian pushed heavily for “seasons” of various international work, and this was one of the African plays that was at Brighton Fringe last year. This is a play about a real murder case in Nigeria 1953, where Esther Johnson murdered her husband Maurice Hall, apparently after he revealed himself to be a bigamist. This runs throughout the fringe is Scarborough Market Vaults at 7 p.m. Any Suggestions Doctor also looks to be a big one, as a well-known improv act at Edinburgh Fringe (plus side-project from one of the members Stanley Brooks: I Can Make Me Rich).
The main point of interest, however, is venues. Unlike many small fringes (and even Brighton fringe at various points), there does not appear to have been any push with any particular venues; instead, it’s been more a case of seeing who comes forwards and gets taken up. One small but notable thing is that a couple of Stephen Joseph Theatre events on the list. They would probably have taken place anyway, but it’s surely good publicity for such a famous theatre to be associated. The surprise name as a fringe venue, however, is Scarborough YMCA. I’m not sure how this came about, but Scarborough YMCA has a theatre, and this – together with a theatre bar and other function rooms at YMCA – has taken acts accounting for over a quarter of the fringe. So remember this name – if Scarborough Fringe does take off, this venue could become as influential to Scarborough Fringe as Underground Venues is to Buxton Fringe.
The big question is whether Scarborough Fringe can reach a self-sustaining model in time. The Scarborough Fair is a three-year project, which may or may not continue after those three years are up. But it could be that after 2026, the funding stops and the support from North Yorkshire County Council ends. This is a threat to almost all new fringes: there is almost always public funding, sponsorship, or some very determined founders who make these new fringes possible – but neither money nor the unpaid time of founder-volunteers lasts far ever. If and when it ends, you want enough acts coming in and enough venues finding it worthwhile to carry on to make the fringe stand on its own two feet. Edinburgh, Brighton and Buxton have all succeeded in that challenge in their past. It remains to be seen whether Scarborough can do the same in 2027.
But I hope this does succeed, because the north east and Yorkshire badly needs an arts festival this. For some reason, these region of England seem the most resistant to the spirit of inclusivity. The north-west has Buxton Fringe (technically not north-west region but easily reached from the Manchester train), but there’s nothing inclusive in the north-east. I was given the choice of costly fringe visits to other parts of the country or being sidelined, and it is not fair that other artists are still forced to make this choice. Scarborough Fringe is currently our best hope of an inclusive region – so I really want us to keep it.
Tunbridge Wells Fringe
26th June – 14th July.
Tunbridge Wells Fringe isn’t quite few, but has risen in prominence this year after The Rotunda – now in strong contention as Brighton Fringe’s most prolific venue – chose to set up as a venue there. Now in its fourth year, it has a quite impressive 141 registrations, not far behind Buxton Fringe.
Should Buxton Fringe worry about being overtaken? Probably not. It would be symbolic, but not much else. Buxton and Tunbridge Wells both heavily draw on local audiences and performers, and there’s no overlap in that respect. To be honest, I’d be quite happy with a Buxton-sized fringe in every region of the UK, and I don’t think it will really matter which one is the biggest. The only thing that Buxton might have to worry about is competing for London acts. A lot of London acts choose Buxton as their preferred preview spot before Edinburgh. But even then, my guess is that everybody has their favourite festival, and acts who choose Tunbridge Wells as their favourite will be largely separate from those choosing Buxton.
Unlike Scarborough Fringe, there doesn’t appear to be any particular driving force behind Tunbridge Wells Fringe, just a group of volunteers trying to get it all together. They don’t seem run any of the venues themselves (at least, not under the jurisdiction of TW Fringe), but my experience is that this is probably a wise decision. My own observation is that if you rely on volunteers to both oversee the festival AND run all of the venues themselves, that’s when you overstretch yourselves and you’re asking for trouble. No, I’m firmly of the view that if you give venues the freedom to run themselves how they like, you get a lot more flexibility, and open the door to visiting venue managers taking on the hard work for you.
(And yes, there is the snag that if the Rotunda’s presence at Tunbridge Wells becomes permanent, it will come at the expense of Buxton Fringe. But this was one fringe poaching a venue from another – I will return to this when I start my Buxton Fringe coverage.)
Now, the geography fans amongst you way have noticed that Tunbridge Wells Fringe is only 30 miles away from Brighton Fringe. Is it sustainable to have two open fringes so close together? Normally I would say no – people will gravitate to whichever one does it better. However, I think the difference in size between the two gives Tunbridge Wells a crucial niche that Brighton Fringe can’t offer nearly as well: affordability. If you are local to Edinburgh or Brighton, there is the big advantage of saving on accommodation – still the costliest part for most visiting acts. But there’s still a lot of overheads associated with a big fringe: the registration fee; publicity; large amounts of time flyering. Is that necessary? If your goal is good reviews, networking, or being taken seriously by arts organisations, it probably is. But if you’re trying to learn the craft under fringe conditions, or simply want to have fun, it’s not such a good bet. Maybe a local alternative that’s cheap is a good option.
There is one snag, though. Yeah, I get it, everybody wants to do fringes in places there are nice to visit. But Tunbridge Wells is so nice to visit, the accommodation costs a fortune. Brighton isn’t cheap either, but it’s not quite as bad (and quite reasonable if you can get entrants’ accommodation). This means that Tunbridge Wells Fringe is cost-prohibitive for anyone out of day-travel distance unless they’re either determined or (in my case) working it into a summer holiday. The big question for this Fringe: dpo they see that as a problem. Set up a network of entrant accommodation providers like Buxton and Brighton do and you could heavily mitigate this. Or you could simply tell long-distance acts that this maybe isn’t the right fringe and Brighton’s a better bet. But I’d still pick one or the other.
Now, since the Rotunda is coming here, I can mention a few acts I recognise and recommend. There is the usual in-house shows from the Grist to the Mill at the Rotunda, which I’ve spoken of many times, and this time there is The Empress and Me, The Ballad of Mulan, and the bit hit that earned Grist to the Mill the respect it has today, The Unknown Soldier. You might also like Pretty Witty Nell, a monologue from Nell Gwyn, which I’ll try to finish reviewing next week, and Stephen Catling’s Beehavioural Problem Something Something Autism, which is both ideal for people with right sense of surrealistic/pedantic humour, and also what open festivals do best and allowing a voice without gatekeeping. Away from the Rotunda I also noticed Tales from an English Country Pub from Christopher Stainton-Clark who imperssed me with A Year and a Day at Brighton, and also Brighton favourite Aidan Goatley, renowned for the wholesome 10 films series with his new show Looking for Edith (Edith being a name on a tattoo he doesn’t remember getting – just who is this Edith).
And that’s it, I think. If you’re nearby – or if you fancy taking in both on a grand tour – have fun.
Chris Neville-Smith's blog on theatre 