Tuesday 25 March 2014

Ton Up for the Buxton Fringe Blog!

Wait for it folks, this is the 100th Fringe blog post, at least in its current format. Before this, it was hosted by the website of our friends the Buxton Advertiser and it was the Advertiser that first suggested we give people a flavour of what's going on behind the scenes at the Fringe.

From the outset Keith Savage, now our Fringe chair, has proved a blogger extraordinaire - entertaining, gloriously indiscreet, generous with his time and support of the arts, occasionally random (still don't understand the Venues and Mares headline) and hardly minding at all when back in the days of my chairship I'd send him the odd 'vital' correction moments after he'd put cyber pen to virtual paper.

I'd be much happier if he was writing this now as Keith I think has his own following and I've already been told by a committee member that this 100th blog should be something special - no pressure then! Such are the wonders of technology that we can see whose blogs catch the most hits (Keith wins hands down) but sometimes I think it is the headline that really draws people in. Pantastic Dinosaurs Land in the Pavilion raised over 100 eyebrows (or 200 if you consider that most people have two), while A Poem for Buxton and Buxton One of the Best Places to Live drew out legions of loyal fans of our lovely town.

Quite the most phenomenal result however came with the post headed simply John Beecher, attracting over 550 page views, so over five times more than any of our blogs before or since. This remarkable young man from Buxton died tragically young of cancer but is someone who packed a huge amount into his short life, being a historian, writer, actor, tireless Underground Venues and Fringe supporter, twae kwon do medallist and friend to many.

Stats show that the Fringe blog has had over 8,000 hits since relaunching here on Dec 2 2012 and Keith claims that stats also show that China has produced a great number of these?! Answers on a postcard please!

I'm fairly confident we can double that hits' figure and proceed to a celebration of 200 blogs in due course. The reins of the blog tend to be passed fairly freely - former Fringe press officer Steve Walker has done some great ones while (or so Steve claims) Keith was smoking cigars and having his feet nibbled by fish in the Pavilion Gardens. The important thing is that one way or another we'll try to make sure you have something to read up here.

Hope you've enjoyed this nostalgic interlude. Next time we'll be bringing you up to date with a flurry of exciting entries coming in right now to meet the end of March £65 deadline!



Buxton Fringe

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


Friday 21 March 2014

Buxton Festival Launch Feels the Fringe

Enjoyed attending the Buxton Festival launch yesterday and hearing about their exciting, expanded programme full of opera, literature and music, all carefully planned to fill a festival-goer's day (though we reckon there are still more than enough gaps in which to squeeze a Fringe show or two).

It was gratifying to hear the Festival's executive director Randall Shannon acknowledging the Fringe as the Festival's 'partner in crime' and pointing out how together the Fringe and Festival provide a 'riot of activity' every July. The launch was shared with the Buxton Spa Prize (see www.buxtonspaprize.co.uk), a brand new competition to encourage artists to work in the open air and create 2-D pictures of Buxton landmarks. This was the brainchild of Trevor Osborne, a longterm supporter of the Fringe, and Trevor paid his own heartfelt tribute to the Fringe and the Festival alike in his speech. The feeling from everyone at the moment seems to be that Buxton is really celebrating its identity as a 'festival town' and undoubtedly that has helped raise its profile when it comes to being recognised as a finalist in the Great Town Awards 2014 and in recent The Sunday Times's guide to the 'best places to live'.

So it was a good do and much networking was done - I learnt along the way that Beltane is to reopen shortly for example. And of course I particularly enjoyed the Waitrose-style posh snacks (thanks Keith for pointing out that other supermarkets are available.) I myself can be found in many of them though not all at the same time...


Buxton Fringe

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


Wednesday 19 March 2014

On the Fringes of the Fringe


When we asked our sponsor the University of Derby whether its third year design students could come up with a programme cover for us, one of the suggestions we made was that they should avoid making the Opera House centre stage in their picture. Don’t get us wrong, we love the Opera House for a whole host of reasons, not least for its fantastic ticketing support, but there has been a perception in the past that Buxton Fringe is ‘all about’ the Opera House in some way whereas in fact the Opera House itself never gets used as a Fringe venue though acts such as the popular Shakespeare’s Jukebox perform on the Forecourt and the Arts Centre is a wonderful Fringe venue for both us and the Festival.

It is not even true to say that Buxton Fringe is ‘all about’ the ‘posh’ bits – The Old Hall, the Pavilion Gardens and so on. This year more than ever our venues are refreshingly spread out with The Green Man Gallery offering a new space for musicians and artists alike and The Market Place breathing life into a very central part of town that hasn’t always ‘felt the Fringe’ as much as it should. There are also events happening in the atmospheric Poole’s Cavern, normally full of bats but boasting vampires for this year’s Fringe, and at Burbage Institute, a historic building at the heart of Burbage, a village in its own right though only 20 minutes' walk from the centre of Buxton.

It is also nice to see two events (so far) taking place in the Spring Bank Arts Centre in New Mills. I remember in the past advising a performer that holding a Buxton Fringe event in Manchester was perhaps a step too far, but the Fringe has always been supportive of its venues outside the town, listed on our website Venues page under ‘outreach venues’. We’ve had some truly exciting events outside Buxton in the past including a community drama about the plague in Eyam (The Roses of Eyam) and last year, the Litton Poetry Festival with John Hegley
.
I noticed in Waitrose (between Fringe proofing we still need to eat) that there is a collection for Chapel Arts, an organisation aiming to promote arts in the community in nearby Chapel-en-le-Frith and hoping in due course to create its own arts festival. It's great to see the spirit of the Fringe alive and well all over the High Peak. 








Buxton Fringe

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


Monday 10 March 2014

Filling in the Gaps at Buxton Fringe

Doesn't seem long ago that there was zero comedy listed for Fringe 2014. Now that category is already positively brimming with entertainment ranging from Edinburgh Fringe favourites Absolute Improv! to John Cooper (better known as Danny Pensive) shedding his comic persona to show us the man beneath the duffel coat. This burst of activity comes from Underground Venues who have transformed the comedy scene at Buxton Fringe in recent years.  Applications to perform at UV close on March 23 so wannabe performers there haven't got long, but don't forget, though there are advantages, you are not obliged to use a managed venue and the town has always offered a warm welcome to comedians wherever they go (with the possible exception of spoof country and western star Tina C, who famously performed in a very drunken pub during carnival day, but that's another story....) It is interesting to recall how long before UV, comedy club Buxton Buzz was born at the Fringe and is still running every month. So we know there is local talent out there. Remember too that if you have a play that is largely comic, then Comedy is the category for you.

There is now something in every available Fringe category - yay! But some sections are thinner than others. Having attended Oxfam's hugely popular dance day at Buxton's The Railway last Saturday I'm amazed that there aren't more people out there keen to put on some dance at the Fringe.  I'd also be surprised if we don't gather some more events specifically for Families - children love the Fringe. We are orange and have balloons - what's not to like?! But some entertainment specifically geared towards them puts a smile on everyone's faces. In terms of what's there right now, it's good to welcome a show from Buxton Festival, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, alongside Fringe favourites stone & water and family-friendly comic improvisers, Comedysports. We've had some great school productions for children in the past - it's still only £65 to enter the Fringe if you get in before the end of this month so do give us a whirl.

Meanwhile behind the scenes we have a few gaps of our own to fill - like the entire printed programme! So don't be surprised if we go a bit quiet at times as we head into busy times... The door of our non-existent office is always open however so any questions, just head for our contacts page http://www.buxtonfringe.org.uk/contact.html and get in touch as we'd love to help!





Buxton Fringe

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


Monday 3 March 2014

Buxton - A Source of Artistic Inspiration

At one point it looked as if the strapline for Buxton as a town was going to be 'a source of inspiration' and I still think there's some mileage in that, not just because of its clever spa water wordplay but because it happens to be true.

Walking through Pavilion Gardens I saw that a massive, ugly tree trunk is swathed in scaffolding and about to be transformed into something rich and strange by wood sculptor Andrew Frost. Andrew was fighting his way in as I passed and already attracting smiles and interest from strollers in the gardens curious as to what he was up to.

Trees as it happened were in my mind as not only have I inherited a stack of paintings from my late father but in amongst his notes was a written plan for a tree picture he was planning to complete - full of detail about lichen, roots and shadow and currently beckoning to me as something that could be my next art project.

Inspiration is like that. We think it comes from nowhere but it usually comes from other people and you only have to look at the Fringe's growing Visual Arts section to see how Buxton people are busy feeding off each other's creative energy, whether it's Burbage Art Group - a friendly art class open to all - or the Great Dome Art Fair where professional artists and crafts people have benefited from joining together and are now passing on their ideas and expertise in talks and demos for the public.

It's good to work together and it makes for a fascinating exhibition when artists work to a single theme as in High Peak Artists' Sea Fever or The Green Man Gallery's Square Roots, inviting its artists to look at a square kilometre from a local Ordnance Survey map.

And then there are those very personal shows too, Michaela Wrigley's Landscapes for Dad or Sue Astles's tribute to her painter uncle Harry Ousey.

Just reading all those Visual Arts listings makes us long for July. You might just be inspired to try some art yourself at Dr Sketchy's burlesque workshop for example. Or simply relish all those free shows in beautiful Buxton buildings that are themselves an inspiration. Either way we know you are going to find Buxton' Fringe's Visual Artists a true source of inspiration!



Buxton Fringe

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