Tape 177: “Are You Doing The Fringe?”
Well, it was inevitable. Readers who’ve been subscribed to this newsletter from the very beginning will probably be able to predict my Fringe-centric entries with a certain regularity by now, like old folks rocking on the front porch sensing an oncoming storm through their knees. “Joz is going to write about the Fringe again, and he’s probably in favour of it this time,” they’ll say as they sip their cloudy lemonade. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve written about it, and also of how many times I’ve effectively changed my mind about whether it’s a good thing or not.
For more recent subscribers, perhaps some context – I have a long and chequered history with the Edinburgh Fringe, the world’s biggest arts festival which is an annual rite-of-passage particularly within the comedy industry. I’ve taken seven solo shows to the Fringe over the last 12 years (as documented in my most recent post about how a changing approach to poster design can also mirror your own creative development) and over the years my attitude to it has shifted a lot. I’ve been someone who was completely emotionally enmeshed with the festival, to the extent that I sometimes felt like the entire purpose of my life was to go up to Edinburgh every year with whatever I happened to have come up with that year. And I’ve been someone who felt completely burnt out and exhausted by the festival and by how much it exploited artists and burdened them with huge financial risks in order to dangle the prospect of a successful creative career in front of them.
These days, my approach to it is a bit more pragmatic – it’s a festival that exists to showcase great work. If you have some great work to showcase, it’s a place you can go with it. You don’t have to, but you can. If you choose to go, you’d better be prepared to work hard and play by its rules. It is unfair, and it is exploitative. But it’s still the best place in the world to present certain kinds of work. There used to be a mindset in comedy (and perhaps there still is in some circles, but just not the ones I move in any more) that comedians had to “do the Fringe” every year. “Are you Fringe-ing?” they would say. It became an adjective. Comedians would decide they were “doing the Fringe” first, and then they would try to work out what they would do there. “Got my venue booked, now I just need to work out what the show is,” we would say. That attitude looks mad to me now.
These days, I see the Fringe as a place I’ll take work to if I happen to have found myself making something that I’m proud of and that feels like a Fringe show. If I don’t have that, then I won’t go. If I do, then I’ll go. Simple, really. I wish I’d clocked onto that mindset a decade ago, maybe. It might have saved me one or two years of real burnout and soul-searching.
You may notice that I’m talking about all this in the week following the on-sale date for the latest batch of Fringe shows to go public. And if you’ve noticed that, then congratulations, you’ve spotted my ulterior motive in writing about this! For the first time in three years, I’m taking a show to the Fringe for the full run, and it’s on sale now – via the Pleasance website here and the EdFringe website here.
The show is directed by Jon Brittain and produced by Queenie Miller, with creative support from script consultant/art director Miranda Holms and creative collaborator Christian Brighty. The amazing Flick Morris is in charge of PR, and the beautiful photo above is by Oliver Holms, although I’ll show off more of his amazing press shots in a separate post soon.
I spent a lot of 2023 scrabbling about for an idea good enough that it felt like I had to work on it, and struggled to find one. I was doing a lot of scripted development, which plodded along at its own pace, and every time I tried out a live idea it felt lacklustre and struggled to grab me. Then at the end of the year an idea occurred to me which actually felt like it could be the engine for a show, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For the first time since the middle of 2021, I’d found something that I actually felt excited to build a show around, and it kept growing from there. Over the last year I’ve performed the show at festivals in Leicester, Machynlleth, Berlin, Glasgow, Edinburgh and more, and I’ve loved the feedback it’s received. It feels like it has all the makings of being my favourite show I’ve made yet, and I’m excited to give it its first full rollout at what is, despite its faults, still one of the best festivals in the world.
If you’d like to see it and are planning on going to the Fringe this year, I’d love you to book ahead! It really does ease the old anxiety to know that some people are going to be there at the very least.
To celebrate it going on sale, here are three of the shows I’m most excited about at this year’s Fringe, and I’d love to hear – what are YOU most excited about? What’s on your radar?
ADA AND BRON: THE ORIGIN OF LOVE – Ada and Bron are dear friends and true heroes. If you’ve come to any of mine and Miranda’s Eggbox shows then you’ll be familiar with their amazing film work! This show is their live debut, and it’s a strange, ethereal, otherworldly creation that feels unlike any other sketch show I’ve seen. It’s wondrous.
ADAM RICHES AND JOHN KEARNS ARE BALL AND BOE FOR THREE NIGHTS ONLY – The greatest show of 2024 comes to the Fringe for only three nights, in the Pleasance Grand of all places. This show began as a dumb in-joke between Adam and John, and I love the fact that it has snowballed to the point of playing a 750-seat venue. They’re two of comedy’s greatest geniuses, and this show could so easily have just been the two of them messing around for an hour, so the fact that it’s a coherent, tight, proper show with a satisfying arc and an actual script with really good gags is a bonus, really. I love it so much.
JOHNNY WHITE REALLY REALLY: am/pm – Johnny has one of the most distinctive and disarmingly funny voices in comedy (I’m using “voice” in the literary sense, though I guess he has quite a funny spoken voice too). His previous shows have been rightly lauded, but often feel like cult hits on the Fringe’s fringes, and it would be great if this show broke out in the way he deserves to. He’s one of the very very best.
What about you guys? What have you seen in WIP that has been exciting? What have you heard reliable recommendations for? What won’t you be missing?
A Couple of Plugs – As part and parcel of going back to the Fringe, I’m hitting the promo trail pretty hard, so have decided to guest on every podcast known to man. This week I recorded a Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown with Harriet Kemsley, and guested on Jokes With Mark Simmons and Danny Ward. I have never guested on so many podcasts all at the same time before, and am petrified of reusing an anecdote. It’s surely only a matter of time.
Also, the new show is coming to MachFest in just under a month and there are only about ten tickets left, so do book ahead for that if you’re planning on coming!
A Cool New Thing In Comedy – Well loads of Edinburgh shows went on sale, I guess, but I already plugged a few of those. So…they’re doing a UK version of Saturday Night Live? Is that this week’s big comedy news? Might be good, I guess. I think it should just be word-for-word covers of the original US sketches. Rowan Atkinson doing “More cowbell!” David Tennant doing David S. Pumpkins.
What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – Sami Abu. Wardeh’s portraiture routine at Pinata last night. It’s so funny.
Book Of The Week – I’ve just started All Fours by Miranda July and I can’t remember the last time I fell in love with a book so fast. Two pages in I was gasping at passages because of how brilliant they were. Read it.
Album Of The Week – Who Believes In Angels? by Elton John & Brandi Carlile. The collaborative album with Brandi Carlile comes to all ageing music icons, like a rite of passage before death. It came for Joni Mitchell, and now it has come for Elton. This album’s really fun.
Film Of The Week – A Minecraft Movie. I didn’t love this. It was fine, I guess. I know it’s doing gangbusters business among young people, which is great, but the sad thing is that there’s a more interesting and inventive film about creativity in here struggling to break out. It’s nodded to here and there and there are some genuinely fun moments, but it felt to me like a vastly inferior version of The Lego Movie, which was that film.
That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it! Take care of yourselves until next time, and all the best,
Joz xx
PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.
PPS Took a pic of that nice street where they film old stuff in London:
