As the Camden Fringe prepares to bring more than 300 shows to London’s smaller stages, I caught up with co-founders Michelle Flower and Zena Barrie.
For more details on the Camden Fringe programme, head to their website, and look out for their print brochures flying into the wild very soon.
The Camden Fringe runs from 29 Jul – 25 Aug 2024 and is a bustling, exciting showcase of new work.
Read my reviews and previews from previous festivals.
Camden Fringe has a very exciting programme yet again. How do you go about curating the festival?
The joy of The Camden Fringe is that it is not curated, anyone can take part and that is why we always end up with a fairly wild programme, with all sorts of weird and wonderful things taking place.
Fringe theatre should be creative and experimental and we don’t believe in being gatekeepers. That can and will happen further up the ladder.
Creatives need a chance to try things and fail and learn and sometimes do brilliantly well, so instead of curating, our job is to find out what they want to do and try and help them to make it happen, whatever that might be!
How has the London and UK fringe changed since you started, and do you feel it is in a healthy place right now?
London has a really busy and vibrant all year round fringe scene. A few venues have fallen by the wayside but new venues have popped up.
There seems to be a lot less sketch comedy than when we first started, and a lot more impro.
It’s always difficult, venues have sky high running costs and creatives struggle to access funding, it’s a delicate balance.
But then there are more fringe festivals than ever. New ones pop up every year, and they all seem to be very busy, so there is a need for these creative breeding grounds.
Running in August you are on the same time as Edinburgh Fringe. Great for lovers of new and emerging work down south, but do you find it impacts on audiences and engagement?
There are enough audiences to go around, and August is a great time to have a festival. Lots of people visit both and perform at both and write about both!
Can you say a bit about the venues you use for Camden Fringe?
All really individual and run by beautiful bloody minded individuals who soldier on despite all the difficulties that come with having commercial premises and using those commercial premises to house all sorts of non-commercial events.
If you’re looking for Riverdance you won’t find it in a Camden Fringe venue… but you might find a dance troupe in body stockings doing some interpretive dance to a recording of people talking on a bus.
The beauty of the venues that we use is that they’re so open to letting people try stuff and they will help them make it happen.
We couldn’t do any of what we do without these brilliant venues and the people that run them.
Are there any shows you particularly want to highlight this year?
The best thing you can do is choose a day when you have some free time and then choose something you know nothing about in a venue you’ve never been to before.
Have a drink, enjoy the show.
Take a flyer from someone in the venue.
Get chatting to them about their show, decide to go and see it.
Ring your mate and get them to come along.
Go and see it.
You loved it!
Chat to the performers afterwards.
Have another drink and see what’s on next.
Put the next venue into google maps and walk off those chips you just had on the way to the next venue.
Repeat until exhausted.
Take lots of pictures on your Camden Fringe travels and share on social media.
Do it again as soon as possible, tell your friends.
Start going to these venues all year round because they’re so ace.