The idea of a Fringe festival is one that we all recognise, shaped by our experiences in Edinburgh every August.
Think again though.
Fringe festivals exist across the world and the creative minds behind the Dundee Fringe are bringing Fringe back to its original intentions – a place where the completed finished works can rub shoulders with works-in-progress.
That can happen in Edinburgh of course, but it tends to be big name stand-ups trying out material for a forthcoming multi-city tour.
Here, JD Henshaw is passionate about providing a level playing field for work of all types and at all at stages.
With a background of running Sweet Venues in Edinburgh and Sweet Productions, which has taken to shows to Edinburgh as well as Fringes in Brighton and Prague, Henshaw finally realised his ambition to create a Fringe in his home city in 2021.
Dundee Fringe to be ‘year-round’ support for artists
He recognised the strength of Dundee’s theatre offering for finished professional productions and for the talented amateur companies, but there was a dip in the middle ground, for productions that wouldn’t be suitable for the existing theatre offering.
“There hasn’t been the space for experimentation in new work. It’s also important to me that this Fringe is absolutely bound into the geography of Dundee.
“It’s about community and it’s also about working beyond a two-week festival. We want to make something that is a year-round support to artists,” he says.
This year’s programme is broad enough to include home-grown talent who are based in the city, home-grown talent taking the opportunity to return to Dundee, and productions who have perhaps just finished a run in Edinburgh or elsewhere.
Flat pricing structure for audiences
There is a flat pricing structure to the Dundee Fringe. Tickets for shows that are completely stage-ready and have been out in front of an audience are £10.
Tickets for a work-in-progress, which is almost there and just needs some little edges knocked off are £7, and for the rehearsed readings, where the team is getting this new piece of work ready, they’re £5.
It’s also a great opportunity to see a show through its stages of development.
This year, the Fringe has a new home in the revitalised Keiller Centre, providing the performers and audience a new hub to see the new work.
“I was really heartened by the feedback the first year, which was ‘Dundee deserves a fringe. We like the Fringe in Edinburgh, but why do I have to get on a train? I should be able to see these kinds of performances in my hometown’.
“It’s really important that Dundee feels like it has an ownership of this, and the audiences play a part in shaping what it becomes. That’s the beauty of a Fringe, it can shift and change from year to year.”
Henshaw says that this year there is more finished work than before, but there are still many shows in that exciting stage of being created and changing, again shaped by how an audience reacts.
“It’s so important that audiences to not to think of it as passive consumption. They really are part of the process.
“You can know that your fiver at the rehearsed reading stage allowed them to cover some costs. It also meant they were inspired to keep going on.
“They appreciate you being there – it’s not just about money and ticket sales. However, in the end they getting to share what they create with you. That’s a big deal.
“Buying a ticket as a wonderful exchange and it’s simply paying people for doing their job.”
Plays, comedy, poetry and more…
This year local talent ranges from the spoken word of Fever Peach, with two shows, to the alternative rock of Arms Against. From Oh Dear Me! – The Inspirational Mary Brooksbank to Elfie Picket Theatre’s new show After The Apocalypse – both rehearsed readings.
A newcomer to Dundee, Monica Lucia Madas aka Monooka will perform old haunting Transylvanian folk songs in The Ones I Sing About, interwoven with her own tunes and reflections on personal experiences of neurodivergence.
“We’re bringing in some incredible work. There’s the multi award-wining one-woman Jekyll and Hyde and also Grouch – The Lady Macbeth, a feminist, myth-centred examination of the bereaved and abused girl who would become the Lady Macbeth as an act of revenge for the death of her father.”
There are ingenious shows such as Photon Starblaster & The Suicidal Starship based on the playwright’s own childhood experiences, and the generational fallout of suicide, through to the family-friendly delight of Double Bubble Trouble, where Poppy Bubbles is back and helping her nephew with some bubble trouble!
It is a Fringe and it wouldn’t be complete with an element of stand-up comedy from Richard Pulsford and Icebreaker Comedy’s Luis Alçada.
Plus Dundee’s ‘Brothers Grimm’ Jack and Finlay Avison are bringing their fairytale-inspired Godfather Death to the Dundee scene after a run at Edinburgh Festival.
There are also workshops top improve performance skills and a chance to see brand new work, fresh from that very day.
JD is looking for the Fringe to have a positive effect on the creative community of the city year around and has teamed with the Playwright’s Studio for a Creating Space Dundee: Scratch Night.
Eight local writers will work alongside directors, spending the day working from page to stage.
“The long-term goal is to have more of these,” says JD. “For me it’s exciting to give people who have never had work reach the stage before to get that opportunity.”
Dundee Fringe is at the Keiller Centre from September 15-24.
