Camden Fringe Festival Founders Michelle Flower and Zena Barrie tell us more about the event’s 18th year, taking place across North London from 29th July until 25th August
London’s alternative to the world famous, month long arts festival Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Camden Fringe Festival invites anyone and everyone to stage new works, whether established or newly established – their ethos being that everyone is welcome to participate. Now in its 18th year, the festival welcomes over 320 productions staged across 23 North London venues from 29th July until 25th August, the festival promising a mixed programme of stage up, musicals, physical theatre and more. Recipients of the ‘commendation for Outstanding Achievement’ at the London Pub Theatre Awards 2023, Camden Fringe Festival founders Michelle Flower and Zena Barrie tell us more about what to expect from this this year’s line up.
Hello Michelle and Zena, the Camden Fringe Festival has returned for its 18th year. How are you both feeling?
As we reply to this we’re towards the end of Day 3 of the festival, so everything is beginning to settle in and calm down. So the prevailing feelings are probably tiredness and relief.
The Camden Fringe Festival takes place at 23 different venues across North London from 29th July until 25th August, and includes a line up consisting of stand up comedy, musicals, physical theatre, new writing and dance. What can audiences expect from this year’s festival?
It’s best to expect the unexpected at the Camden Fringe. We’re open to all ideas and applicants here. We encourage experimental work and first timers to have a go, so there is allsorts on offer. We have shows about spiders, a séance for Stephen Sondheim and a Sex Chat Granny. And those are just the ones that begin with S.
As well as encouraging theatre makers to try something new, we’d love audiences to do the same. Come and see something completely random, you never know what you might discover.
Prior to founding the festival, you both produced live shows in Edinburgh from 2002-2006 and ran North London based fringe theatre venue The Etcetera Theatre from 2004 for 8 years. What inspired you both to form the festival?
In 2006 we were facing our usual August conundrum of trying to find some productions to fill the Etcetera Theatre whilst we were heading to Edinburgh to produce shows and spend a lot of money on theatre spaces and accommodation up there.
Staying in London and doing a festival wasn’t the obvious solution it seems to be now, because the prevailing thought was that “everyone is in Edinburgh.” But we tried it out on a very small scale (just at one venue) whilst we were at Edinburgh Fringe having, to be honest, a pretty crap time. We learnt there were lots of creatives who hadn’t gone to Scotland and plenty of people in London who still wanted to see some theatre or comedy. And thus the Camden Fringe was born!
The festival encourages everyone to apply to stage a show, welcoming experienced and new performers with works in progress and more polished works perform to supportive audiences. An important factor allowing for artists to access theatre venues across North London, what feedback have you received from artists in response to the platform?
During the Camden Fringe many of the venues programme short runs (of 2-3 performances) which is much less daunting and cheaper for a company to book, which is definitely appreciated by the participating companies. We find the Camden Fringe gives artists encouragement (and a deadline) to produce their first work. It’s a fairly safe environment in which to do it – you have the support of the venue, of us, and other groups taking part. Plus we’re very lucky that these days we have a good relationship with a number of reviewers who will provide constructive feedback on the shows. It’s great to see how many acts return to us each year, and how many move on to do other festivals.
What does it mean to you both to be able to provide this important platform?
It means a huge amount to us to support new artists. It must do as we’ve been doing it for 18 years! We’re very proud of the creative community we’ve nurtured.
What have you both learned/taken away from running Camden Fringe?
We’ve learnt a lot about endurance and sticking with an idea – 18 years is a long time to be doing the same project. Hopefully we’ve also learnt to move with the times and make changes where they are needed (although, as we get older this gets trickier.)
For prospective artists looking to take part in next year’s festival, how do they apply?
We start taking applications in January via Eventotron. If anyone is, at this point, thinking about next year then we’d definitely recommend seeing a few shows at a few different venues this year and getting a feel for where you’d really like to perform. We’d also recommend having a listen to our podcast where we speak to all sorts of people from across the fringe and performances world – writers, technicians, other festival organisers, PRs, agents, venue managers as well as producers and performers. All of them have loads of great insight and ideas that can be learnt from.
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