Work in Progress

August. To some, just one of Taylor Swift’s best songs. To the multi-hyphenate creative freelancer or otherwise pretentious made-up job title, the most important weeks of the year. Whether you’ve remortgaged your parents’ house and made the pilgrimage to Edinburgh, or opted for the smaller and more financially sensible Camden Fringe, this month means a lot to us theatre kids. It’s the only time an actor/writer can safely say 'I'm really busy at the moment’ and not be lying through their teeth.

However, the Edinburgh festival is becoming increasingly elitist, with accommodation and venue fees rising to eye-watering heights and accessibility initiatives being slashed. The ‘Keep it Fringe’ fund was cut by 93% last year, reducing artist bursaries from 180 allocations to only 12. Now, more than ever, artists are struggling to showcase their work and launch their careers. Which is why scratch nights, open mics, and arts charities are vital for supporting emerging artists and their work. I’m only able to perform this year because of one of these grants, from the charity and comedy collective, Felt Nowt.

I’m performing with Soup of the Week - a comedy group formed out of alumni from The Durham Revue, an award-winning sketch troupe born out of Durham University. Past members include comedy giants Ed Gamble, Nish Kumar, and Stevie Martin, as well as actors Charlotte Riley and Ambika Mod. My last fringe run was paid in full by my university: the production contract, the space at the Underbelly, our accommodation and daily stipends for personal costs all came from their arts fund. This time around, we don’t have that luxury. We’re crashing on couches, sharing single beds and using annual leave from our day jobs to make dick jokes to strangers in a back room of a pub, and it’s still magical. This is the only place where you can sip a pint next to your favourite comedy panellist and see a woman in latex swallow a lightsaber in a medieval courtyard at 2 in the afternoon

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I arrived yesterday, after a 4-hour train ride from London King’s Cross, sandwiched between American tourists clutching merch from Westminster Abbey, and a French clown who struggled to fit his hula hoop on the overhead luggage rack. I held my breath as we raced through my old uni town (I have some weird unresolved trauma response to that bloody cathedral), and emerged at Edinburgh Waverley. Walking through New Town, I spied the Wing Stop that I threw up in, the corner where I cried on the phone to my mum because I was so tired, and the hundreds of venues where I saw great shows, and not so great shows. And that’s the beauty of these festivals — places where you are allowed to fail. To try, and try again. Crucially, that is what is at risk at the moment. So I’m aiming to catch some of these works in progress, in both London and Edinburgh, to catch some stars before they shoot off into the sky… (that may sound like hyperbole, but remember, Fleabag started off in a living room).

My first show at the Fringe was Em Humble’s Lady of the Lakes — a character comedy retelling of Athurian legends. Stylised and quirky, Humble’s characters ranged from Gollum’s cousin, Callum, and a tired Knight of the Round Table denouncing unions. It was a charming show, funny and moving with multiple asides and modern culture cameos. The best part of the show for me, were the visuals. A highly skilled animator and illustrator, Humble created incredible stop-motion scenes and projections introducing each character, with original sound-scaping to match. A truly lovely show to start the festival: Catch Lady of the Lakes at the Pleasance.

Next on my list is Jessie Cave’s WIP. I’ve been a fan of Cave for years after catching the Soho run of Sunrise about 8 years ago. The show mixes confessional theatre with stand up in heartbreakingly honest tone. I actually went on to use a piece from the play for my drama school auditions, and I credit Cave’s writing in helping me win a place at LAMDA. She also has an amazing Substack… jessie cave

Another Durham Revue alumni, Rosalie Minnet, is debuting the sequel to her Fringe hit character comedy Clementine. I think I’ve seen every iteration of this show, from its birth on the comedy circuit in pubs, to a run at the Vaults Festival (another fringe venue we have lost, RIP), to her sold-out runs at the Soho Theatre and beyond. I am SO excited to see what Clementine has been up to since we last spoke…Another amazing blend of heartfelt storytelling, period dramas and hilarious characters. Catch Rosalie here!

Aside from Edinburgh, the fringe events in London are also worth your time. On Tuesday 4th August, I headed to the Greenwich Theatre for their weekly scratch event, See New Next Tuesday. At £5 a ticket and £2 a beer, the GT studio is the perfect space to test out new material without the fear that often accompanies such vulnerability — because performing your own material is inherently vulnerable. The crowd is almost entirely other performers, trying to pay attention to the opening pieces while planning their upcoming entrances and running lines in their heads. The tech is a little clunky, the chairs are uncomfortable and the air is thick. Like most fringe theatres up and down the country, this strange little corner of the city is transformed — not by fancy sets — but by the people there. On this particular night, I bore witness to the full spectrum of London’s scratch scene. From spoken word to awkward bus-stop acting and a wet dream about Gary Lineker, the event really displayed the breadth of work in progress in London.

The highlight of the evening came in the second half with a rehearsed reading of Knotweed, a new play in progress by Eve Cowley. I haven’t seen many rehearsed readings, but I struggle with the medium at points. How much are the actors supposed to commit to an action or direction? How do you set the space? Are props too much? Do you have to sit the whole time? These questions left my mind when Knotweed began; the writer guiding the performance by reading the stage directions, like a theatrical conductor. The story follows Angela, a mother-of-two caught in the fray when her husband is arrested in the middle of the night. We don’t know the crime, but her sister-in-law does. As the children grapple with their father’s absence, the teenager taking to TikTok to garner support and raise money, we see Angela begin to unravel. Kristen Misthopoulos did well as the lead, revealing glimpses of fear underneath a mother’s determination to ‘carry on as normal’. Her skilful delivery and thoughtful characterisation grounded her performance in a setting so foreign from her own.

The script follows a similar path to that of Happy Valley and Adolescence — arguably some of the best television to come out of the UK in the last decade — but rather than zooming in on the jaded police officer, Cowley attempts instead to stage the tragedy from the perspective of the family home. With details about the mechanical timers on the lamps, the hum of the fridge, and the ever-unlocked back door, Knotweed almost personifies the feeling of home, before destroying it with a brick through the window, shattering the proverbial kitchen sink.

So there you have it, a love letter to fringe theatre and all of the creatives juggling their day jobs and their dreams. Here is your call to action: go to the scratch nights, leave reviews, spread the word and support the arts.

If you are able, do consider a donation to Felt Nowt who has helped our show get in front of an audience, and has brought me back to my artistic funny dreamscape homeland <3

AND COME SEE OUR SHOW:

Keep the Faith

xxx