And on the third day: Fringe Bulletin 11 July

Today is the day when the Buxton Festival itself starts and the Fringe monopoly ends. There are, however, about 25 Fringe events listed for today – and it is only going to get busier. Here are just a few of the highlights from shows and events that debut today at this year’s Fringe.

One of the greatest British pop albums is The Kinks’ ‘Arthur (Or the decline and fall of the British Empire)’. Recorded and released in 1969 the songs were originally intended to accompany a TV play about post-war English suburban life. The play was never made but thankfully we have the album. Buxton-based singer Will Hawthorne will be performing ‘Arthur’ in its entirety at 5.30pm today.

If musicals on a big-scale are your thing then get along to St Thomas More School at 7.30 for performance of ‘Les Miserables’. This will be a schools’ edition sung by a youth community choir comprised of children from across the High Peak.

In terms of drama the Fringe welcomes back Ginny Davis. Ginny has a loyal following for her plays about the Rich family. Think ‘Outnumbered’ and you are close. This year it is Ruth’s husband’s 60^th birthday and her son’s 18^th. A joyous family celebration is a must. What could go wrong? Find out at 9pm.

What with the World Cup and the Tour de France the fact that there is a test match going on has passed barely noticed. In ‘Godfrey’s Last Stand’ we have a topical and good-natured play from Talking Stock Productions who are on tour. Godfrey is a village green cricket umpire. He dreams of officiating in an Ashes test match. He has a big lottery win. Can his dreams come true? 6pm at Underground Venue. All profits from the show will go to Macmillan Cancer Support – they are the nicest of people at Talking Stock.

There is something of a science+comedy+magic genre developing. Finding humour in geekiness and nerdiness and testing audiences on their GCSE Sciences is almost fashionable. For three nights only the Fringe has Oliver Meech with his show ‘When magic and science collide: 2.0’. Oliver sold out in Buxton and Edinburgh last year and there are only 40 seats in the Pauper’s Pit. Be sure that one of those seats is yours.

For something completely different go to the Poole’s Cavern car park and follow a woodland way-marked trail. The Grinlow Art and Storytelling Trail could bring a little bit of magic and exercise into your lives. From 6pm today – all day Saturday and Sunday.

PS Betsy & Bern Budd flew in from humid Boston to fresh, clean Buxton. The are here for their show 'Mark Twain's Adam and Eve Diaries'. It is a joy from start to finish. Don't miss it.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Stage 2: Thursday 10 July - Buxton, via Massachusetts and Edinburgh

Well, Day 1 was a cracker and I've squeezed in 8 events so far. If nothing else do  go and hear the Clouds Harp Quartet - they are playing for free at the Buxton Museum next Thursday (July 17th) at 2pm. While you're at the Museum you'll also be able to enjoy three splendid art exhibitions. All for precisely no money!

But what of Day 2? 

It’s Stage 2 of the 35^th Buxton Fringe and there are some cracking shows opening today.

Bern Budd has visited the Fringe twice before from his beautiful home in Massachusetts. He charmed and delighted audiences then with his telling of stories by Mark Twain - “the first great American writer”. So it is exciting to see him back in Buxton. Bern and Betsy Budd are in town until 22^nd July with Mark Twain’s Diaries of Adam & Eve. It will be a warm and witty account – but not necessarily 100% true.

One of the plays that won many friends at Fringe 2013 was Spoonface Steinberg. Beautifully performed and directed the play presents the thoughts of an 8-year-old girl. She is autistic, has cancer, lives with a dysfunctional family and loves opera. It will make you smile and quite likely cry. Rebecca Fenwick delivers a bravura performance as Spoonface and there are just two performances – today and tomorrow at the Old Clubhouse.

There is the usual mix of comedy at Underground Venues. Russell Brand isn’t appearing – but Alastair Clark is. Brand provoked some controversy earlier in the year by suggesting that not voting would lead to a political revolution. Alastair takes issue with Brand – and promises to be funny at the same time. His show starts at 7pm.

Be at Underground at 6pm to hear Simon Feilder. You may have seen Simon on Channel 4’s ‘The Big Breakfast’. He is en-route to Edinburgh but will doing four performances of his new show All the things I’m not in Buxton.

One of the important things about the Fringe is the opportunity it provides for new and young artists and performers. Spotlight Theatre is a company of school students and they will be tackling Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons tonight and tomorrow. This was Miller’s breakthrough play and is based on a true story of how during World War Two an engineering company conspired with army inspectors to get defective aircraft engines approved for military use.

Late-night entertainment is offered by another American guest - Cameryn Moore - as she continues her run. Her show Phone Whore is not for the faint-hearted but is a frank (and sometimes funny) account of her life as a telephone sex worker.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Fringe Is Go!

Today is the first full day of the 35^th Buxton Festival Fringe and there are plenty of comedy and theatre shows tonight to shake you out of any mid-week lethargy.

Underground Venues at the Old Hall Hotel is the place to head to for laughs. Kicking-off at 6pm are His and Hers. Lovable diva Sharnema is joined by charming, but none-too-bright, sidekick Leo in a mixture of love songs, absurd comedy and vaudeville.

They are swiftly followed by a quartet enigmatically named Gein’s Family Giftshop. They are en-route to the Edinburgh Fringe in August and promise to bring a “warped world vision” as they “marry tragedy with hilarity.”

Hot on the quartet’s heels comes Joe Rowntree – from Sky 1’s Brainiac and Dave’s One Night Stand! In his show Morgan Berry Live we get an hour of character-based comedy.

Joe’s show clashes with Scott Bennett’s About A Roy – presumably they are playing in different spaces in Underground Venues. Scott has picked-up plenty of acclaim and notice in his career so far and in this show he draws on his childhood experiences growing up with Yorkshireman father Roy.

Quality drama is assured in an early evening show at The Old Clubhouse. Playwright Rob Johnston has won a hatful of awards and his new play An Extraordinary Light celebrates the achievements, and records the tragic life, of scientist Rosalind Franklin whose work on the structure of DNA helped Crick and Watson win a Nobel prize.

Starting a long Fringe run at the United Reformed Church is Dreamshed Theatre’s His Letters. This is a one-man play about the discoveries a son makes when he clears out his late mother’s possessions.

The Fringe website – www.buxtonfringe.org.uk – gives full details of every show and event and most shows will be reviewed and the reviews will be posted on-line within 24 hours of the first performance. Make sure to visit the Fringe desk at the entrance to the Conservatory next to the Opera House for all the latest news and chat about shows and performances.

The Fringe got off to a great start on Tuesday with the now traditional launch party at Underground Venues. We were royally entertained with music by Sideways Band and Darren Poyzer, comedian Joe Rowntree and stories from phone sex operator Cameryn Moore. You can hear more from her tonight at 10.30 - prepare to be challenged. She happily quotes one review: "Incredibly brutal, piercing and thought-provoking." You'll laugh as well.

Finally the 2014 Fringe beer mats are now around and about - though you'll have to enter licenced premises to find them. The Fringe beer goes on sale today - many thanks to Buxton Brewery for that. You should find it at all their usual outlets: Buxton Tap House, Old Hall Hotel, Underground Venues & The Queen's Head. Enjoy the Fringe to the limit and drink responsibly!

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

F Day Minus 1: July 8th

Buxton Festival Fringe 2014 (number 35 in the series) starts for real on Wednesday, July 9th. So here is a further taster about what to expect...

The Buxton Festival Fringe opens tomorrow, but tonight there is something of a party going on to get you in the mood. In the Barrel Room of the Old Hall Hotel some Fringe performers will be on hand to entertain you for free. Expect some games, a little party food, songs and sketches. The fun starts at 8pm.

Come tomorrow and parts of the town will be completely transformed as the Fringe gets into full-swing. Many events and shows are free to attend and some art exhibitions run throughout the festival. The Buxton Museum & Art Gallery is hosting three exhibitions. The Derbyshire Open is a sometimes controversial but always fascinating exhibition of work submitted on a Derbyshire theme. Around 50 pieces are selected for exhibition in the first floor gallery. Downstairs you will find Michaela Wrigley’s Landscapes for Dad; she has created sculptural pieces using clay and other materials that have been inspired by local landscapes. Kate Pheasey’s exhibition is called Taken from the Landscape and she uses mosaic techniques to create her pieces.

The Green Man Gallery has gone from strength to strength over the past 18 months and is hosting two exhibitions. Square Roots is the result of a challenge set to the Gallery’s own artists who were asked to use a kilometre square from Peak District Ordnance Survey maps as the inspiration for new work. Artists have submitted paintings, photographs, drawings, prints and textiles in response. Up to 40 Buxton & High Peak Artists have put together a separate exhibition; Within the Fringe.

At the Art Café in the Pavilion Gardens 30 High Peak Artists present works in response to the challenge to represent Sea Fever. A wide range of techniques and images will present us with seas in different moods and guises.

Some Fringe shows are presented just the once and, if you’re not careful, you’ll miss small treasures. Poet and story-teller Jim MacCool will be reading from his new book My Uncle Donald and Other Island Rambles. The reading takes place in Scrivener’s Bookshop between 1-2pm – and then Jim leaves the Fringe.

Other shows opening on Wednesday include Freerange Theatre’s double-header of plays Phillipa & Will Are Now In A Relationship and The Wake. This touring company are Buxton regulars and always deliver good quality work – this year upstairs in the Old Clubhouse.

On the music front CLOUDS Harp Quartet (if there is another harp quartet I've never seen nor heard it) give the first of four Fringe recitals – each in a different venue. On Wednesday they will be at the United Reformed Church.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Fringe Daily Bulletin - July 7th

OK the title isn't going to sell many copies necessarily - but it is honest. Every day for 21 days we'll try and give you a bit of a Fringe lowdown and rundown. If we can think of a truthful but more exciting title then we'll do that meanwhile....

This week sees the start of the biggest arts festival of its sort in England. The Buxton Festival Fringe began in 1980 and the 35^th Fringe runs from this Wednesday, July 9^th right through to Sunday, July 27^th. Over the course of 19 days there will be nearly 600 separate events and performances from around 150 different Fringe entrants. It is hard to calculate but something like 1000 artists, singers, actors, comedians, storytellers, magicians, dancers and musicians will be taking part.

Performances will take place in churches, parks, pubs, cafes, private homes, galleries, shops, theatres, on the streets and in the chilly Poole’s Cavern.

Many Fringe events take place in the cellars of The Old Hall Hotel. The Pauper’s Pit – a 40-seat theatre – and The Barrel Room are managed and run during the Fringe by Underground Venues, a small company spearheaded by Yaz Al-Shaater and Tom Crawshaw who met in Buxton more than 20 years ago. Tom and Yaz – along with another Buxton Community School friend, Michael Grady – wrote and performed plays together as teenagers. They set up Three’s Company as a vehicle for producing their plays. This will be Underground Venue’s 9^th Fringe – and, as ever, there is some uncertainty as to whether this may be their last year at The Old Hall. The planned re-development of The Crescent is likely to see the cellars closed for public use.

Apart from running Underground Venues in Buxton Tom and Yaz are also heavily involved in Oxfringe – which takes place in Oxford in May – and most years they take shows to Edinburgh in August. July is the time for their many Buxton friends to catch up with them again.

For Fringe 2014 Tom has written an adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days for the local REC Youth Theatre group which will be performed at the Arts Centre Studio between 16-19 July. Later in the Fringe Three’s Company will be putting on two new family-friendly comedies. In The Adventure Machine the audience will help guide our hero through a spoof fantasy world. Shakespearience is a Bardic mash-up which will be an entertaining presentation of our greatest playwright.

For full details of what is happening in the Fringe either pick-up a free 52-page programme – at Buxton railway station, the Tourist Information Centre in the Pavilion Gardens, at the Fringe Desk next to the Opera House at the entrance to the Conservatory – or go to www.buxtonfringe.org.uk. You can also follow the Fringe on Facebook and twitter.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

32 Visions of Buxton Fringe

Things get a bit Blue Peter at this time of year. This weekend will see some serious laminating (sorry, sticky backed plasticking) of venue number signs, and this week I have been mostly sticking pieces of A4 paper onto A4 card. To elaborate, the Green Man Gallery have had the lovely idea of doing a window display of all the entries from our briefing to third year illustration students from the University of Derby to design artwork for the 2014 Fringe programme cover and flyer. So that’s why I have been using a small stick of glue, various makes of which are available, to fix the designs onto handy card. Various makes of card are available but get this for recycling, I’ve been using old Fringe award nomination certificates backed onto each other!

Anyway… we love the design we chose for the programme, which is now on display all round the town and beyond, but it is also great to be able to show off all the other entries, 32 in total. And I love their different visions of the Fringe, ranging from futuristic to retro and joyous to slightly sinister – well we do have vampires in the cave this year...

So don’t forget to have a look at the Green Man’s windows once the Fringe starts and admire all that talent (there are also some great exhibitions within the gallery). Helen McIvor was our winner with her sunny depiction of Fringe Sunday. Hear her talking to Radio Derby about her experience http://youtu.be/_YozZHSxdGc. Runners up were (in no order), Jonathan Grey, M Robinson and Linda Scholes. Linda’s design ended up being used on our Fringe at Five poster. We are very grateful to all the students and course leader Richard Levesley for taking part and to Fringe designer Eric Tilley who oversaw the project. Mustn’t forget either that this is another example of the great partnership we have with Fringe sponsor the University of Derby.

What’s your vision of the Fringe? If you send us artwork or photos, we’d love to display them on our website.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Buxton Fringe - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

My daughter tells me that today’s blogs need lists, numbered if possible.

Well, I’m not going to give you a top ten of shows –  we leave that to people like Fringe Guru. But  having recently been into Buxton Community School to do a Fringe information desk workshop with our intrepid sixth form volunteers, I realise I might be able to give you, as I started to give them, a top ten of the kind of people who pass through our information area next to the Opera House. What I told them is that each of these people represent an opportunity for them to “sell” the Fringe, but hey, if I tell the world who you are meant to be and how you are meant to respond to our eager young volunteers in orange T-shirts, things might go even more smoothly. So here goes (in no particular order):

1. Toilet seeker – this is a generic breed but often tends to be very young or very old. If very young, the opportunity is there for our volunteers to produce a free balloon, badge and Fringe programme plus a beautiful smile while pointing the way to the toilets – through the conservatory and on the right to save you asking. If very old, well it stands to reason they will soon need somewhere to sit down – cue any number of Fringe shows – what about a harp quartet?
2. Opera Festival goer – yes they are here by mistake, but what a fabulous chance to introduce them to the opera, music and literature that is also a wonderful part of the Fringe? In a spirit of generosity it is also OK to direct them to the Festival’s portakabin where no doubt a Festival rep will be simultaneously redirecting a Fringe goer.
3. Celebrity – wow! Surely they need a Fringe badge and don’t those mobile phone thingies take photos now?
4. The ‘it’s nice to chat’-er. This kind of person is usually very fond of the Fringe, so fond that they would probably like to become a Fringe Friend. Just £10 – with 10% off Fringe shows and lots of invitations to chat-worthy occasions through the year. What’s not to like?
5. The Fringe performer –  so they think they have come to perform? Ergo they like the arts. Ergo they are probably wanting to become an audience member too – what would they like to see?
6. The explorer – Buxton is a mystery. Nothing is where it looks as if it might be. Volunteers: open that Fringe programme at its centre spread with handy map and make sure you point out all the Fringe venues en route.
7. The ticket seeker –  Comes in all shapes and sizes. Volunteers - we can offer information galore but actual tickets are sold at the Opera House (for events with a star) or over the road at Underground Venues (for UV acts) or see the act’s individual entry for booking info. Just how many shows are you wanting to see? Why not save some money by becoming a Fringe Friend?
8. The critic – You can rely on this breed to point out that it’s not clear how to buy tickets, that this poster is wrong, that one is out of date and x,y,z is simply not clear enough.  First point, the customer is always right. Second point, this sounds like somebody who should be on the Fringe committee. In fact are you sure she isn’t already?
9. The plant lover – Just what are those flowers in the corner behind the Fringe desk and how do you get bananas to grow like that in the conservatory and what the hell did you do with that fish? You know, the one we always liked to see – the one that floated on its back but really wasn’t dead? Volunteers, it is quite hard to spin this one, but what I would say is that some of our visual artists have done some lovely flower and fish paintings, plus have you ever thought of making a paper flower for our carnival float?
10. The good Samaritan – Doughnuts and cups of coffee are always welcome at the desk. Should the desk be in drought mode, an ice cream is a nice thought. Should it be under a few feet of water (this is not a joke) mops and buckets are very appreciated. Volunteers – the correct response as it is in fact to every single person who comes to the Fringe desk is a great big:

THANK YOU!

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe