The Mumble talked to one of the
Main spirits behind PBH’s Free Fringe
Hello Luke! So where are you from and where do you live these days?
I’m originally from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire but have lived in London for 35 years now.
You are the capo di capo of PBH free comedy, how did that happen?
I became head of the Free Fringe kind of by accident and also because nobody else really wanted it. Well, they might have wanted the idea of it, but nobody else was daft enough to devote so much of their own time to actually make it all come together. Although I have to say that Peter is still capo de capo. It’s his baby and his name on it, and I’ll always defer to him on how it’s run.
So what is your personal background in comedy?
My background is more in cabaret than comedy. I’ve been performing in cabaret more or less since I left college, although did more theatre work earlier on. I started doing comedy sets around 2007/8 with appearances at the then Pink Poodle Club at The Village and Soho Comedy in Leicester Square. However all my solo shows in Edinburgh have been cabaret and as a singer and musician that’s where I’m happiest. I’m a sentimentalist at heart and comedy is generally more hard-edged. Yes, let’s say hard-edged.
What was your experience of the Free Fringe before you got involved?
Before I’d heard of the Free Fringe I brought a ticketed show to Edinburgh. It was the wrong show in the wrong venue and I spent money on all the wrong things! Also I’d lost my voice about two days before the first performance but I was told The Scotsman were coming on the first night so had to go through with it. Oh, then my boyfriend who was also in the show, broke up with me the night before, admitting he’d been seeing someone else. It wasn’t a great year. But that year I also discovered the Free Fringe through Kate Smurthwaite (we still always share a flat at the fringe to this day) and the following year had a great time in Fingers Piano Bar (where I still do my solo shows). Then when I came again in 2012 (having taken a year off to get married to the boyfriend who’d broken up with me. Spoiler: it didn’t last. If only there’d been a sign…) I happened to chat to Peter Buckley Hill who was looking to expand into cabaret, so I offered to book it for him. And that my friend is how I became, in the words of another comic, “an organiser”.
With the original Fringe having evolved into something of a corporate behemoth, the Free Fringe seems to be the true bearer of the Fringe spirit, am I right in thinking that?
In fact that’s almost word for word what Sean Lock said about us. We have inspired many organisations to change their work models, with many more PWYW shows out there, but none of them really get what we are, which is a performers’ movement to make the fringe affordable and more supportive for the performers and audience.
The original fringe was created by a handful of shows who reacted to being excluded from the original festival by putting on performances anyway. The Free Fringe reacted to the hegemony of bloated venue hire fees and ticket prices by putting on shows that were free to performers and free to audiences. A side effect of that turned out to be working with existing Edinburgh bars and other businesses and so contributing to the local economy.
We are however in trouble. We received none of the Resilience Funding that was handed out to other organisations with far more money, despite the fact we give opportunities to the more economically disadvantaged performers, a good proportion of whom are based in Scotland. In the current economic climate it’s also very difficult to find any funding at all, advertising rates for our brochure have plummeted and people do not attend fundraisers in the way they used to. Every year since Covid, and the absence of that funding that was given to all the big boys, we have scraped through and said it could be our last year. 2024 really could be it, and believe me there would be a lot of people who like to sell tickets and make money out of performers and fringe-goers that would be happy to see us fail.
The original spirit of the fringe evolved from people who did things off their own bat, who didn’t follow the rules, who thought the audience should decide what shows they’d like to see. That is what The Free Fringe is, and if we die, that spirit will be all the weaker for it.
What notable performers began the climb to fame by you giving them an obscure room somewhere in Edinburgh one year?
Edinburgh is a cumulative achievement so I would never say they began that climb with us; we were just part of their journey. Some of them might not even have had the best time in that obscure room but full refunds on the zero pounds paid are always available. However, a lot of people did a lot of work for free on their behalf, so it’s nice when performers do acknowledge the opportunity given them if nothing else.
Free Fringe venues are typically diverse, and some seem quite improvised. What are some of the more interesting performance spaces you’ve seen created by Edinburgh’s pubs, clubs and bars?
I guarantee anything I say here could be topped by someone else. I remember shows taking place in flats, toilets, even the back of a taxi. As far as Free Fringe goes, we’ve mostly stuck to bars, clubs and cafés, with a few walking tours and outdoor shows thrown in over the years.
With a few weeks to go is it all looking on every front?
Just one month to go now and the quality and variety of shows on offer is off the scale. A whole fringe for free! And as well as new venues in Old Town and New Town, we’re expanding into Leith this year now the trams can get you there in minutes.
& finally, what are the ingredients, for you, that make a good fringe show?
My favourite fringe shows are the ones that take me into their world, forgetting I’m in a cellar or back room of a bar. I want an atmosphere, whether it’s tension from a drama, silliness in comedy or warmth from cabaret (just examples!) and the best shows don’t need fancy lighting rigs or music systems for that. And that’s The Free Fringe.
www.freefringe.org.uk
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