Two Left Hands - Heart of the Community

Two of the panels at the Train Station

The third panel is at the Green Man Gallery

In the absence of the traditional Well Dressing Festival this year, Two Left Hands have created an Alternative Well Dressing Trail, fabric panels created by local people and community groups have been stitched into three huge, banner-style hangings. Two have been hung at Buxton Station (beside the iconic fanlight window) and one at The Green Man Gallery.

The theme was Heart of the Community and all the individual panels are made by people across the town between the ages of 2 and 73. The total area of the panels is over 20 sq. metres.

Read more about in our review, and do get out and see these panels, they are a fantastic achievement.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
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Sheridan Shacklethwaite's Stalactites Secrets

Sheridan and Susie

Sheffield Live Radio presenter Sheridan Shacklethwaite will be leading a tour of Poole’s Cavern as part of this year’s Buxton Fringe (July 1-19) – but this year you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own home!

Sheridan Shacklethwaite’s Stalactites Secrets is a brand new online tour of Poole’s Cavern, which will be available to view on YouTube throughout the fringe.

Sheridan presents a weekly show on Sheffield Live Radio called the Susie and Sheridan Show. “Since we can’t go to the fringe this year,” says Sheridan, “we thought we’d bring the fringe to you. The tour lasts 12 and a half minutes, so why not put your feet up and join us for a cuppa?”

Poole’s Cavern in Buxton is a natural limestone cave, believed to be over two million years old, with spectacular geological formation. It is known as one of the wonders of the Peak.

“Poole’s Cavern is truly spectacular,’ says Sheridan. “Since we can’t visit the real thing, we hope you’ll join us on this light-hearted, thoroughly researched, entirely made up online tour!”

Sheridan Shacklethwaite’s Stalactites Secrets is free to view and donations are gratefully received.

 

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
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The online Fringe, how is it for you?

The long awaited Buxton online Fringe 2020 is live!  Four days into the Fringe I've enjoyed folk, opera, theatre, comedy, art and street theatre. I've been jumping seamlessly from genre to genre and artist to artist, sometimes while cooking dinner or watching TV or (pretending) to listen to my partner.

For me this is the great thing about the online nature of this years fringe. You can dip in and out of as many events as you like and re-watch your favourites.  Another plus is trying out new things you weren't brave enough to go to last year. All without leaving home. No need to worry about the weather or booking tickets. No tricky negotiations about who wants to see what with your friends and family. No time tabling to avoid double booking or running from venue to venue. No chance of being selected for 'audience participation'.

And the quality and creativity of what's available is amazing. Our performers have all risen to the covid 19 challenge wonderfully.

But what about any negatives? I miss the atmosphere of a live gig and the chance to interact with other members of the audience or the performer. Or being able to get up close to a piece of art. And to show my appreciation for taking me to another place or giving me a laugh.

And what's it like for the performers, without live interaction and feedback from the audience? Just liking them on Facebook or Twitter surely isn't the same as hearing us laugh or applaud.  I wish the internet let us broadcast our laughs, gasps, cheers, claps and whoops of approval to the artists.

On a more serious note many of our performers have been hit financially by Corvid 19, some indicate that they would be grateful for donations, please do give if you are able to.

The Fringe is a wonderful event and next year I'm going to make twice as much noise to show how much I appreciate their efforts not just for 2021 but for this year too.

In the meantime I just want to say a huge huge thank you and well done to each and everyone of our 100 entrants. Brilliant!

Carole Garner

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
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Anne Goodwin is Becoming Someone

Anne Goodwin reads from Becoming Someone

Mansfield author Anne Goodwin loves meeting readers at summer book fairs, book clubs and bookshop signing sessions, but this year’s pandemic has put live events on hold. So she turned to social media, posting readings on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, her website and blog. But she hadn’t considered virtual festivals until a fellow volunteer from the Peak District National Park got in touch. Before long, Anne had a slot in the prestigious Buxton Festival Fringe, one of the country’s largest open access arts festivals.

Anne’s drop-in online session is on the theme of identity and fiction and runs throughout the Festival from 1st to 19th July. It includes readings from her short story collection, Becoming Someone, and a literary quiz. “People can listen at their leisure,” said Anne, “or challenge friends and family to identify the quotations from classical and contemporary novels in my quiz. I’m particularly excited about the third strand of my event when I’m hosting my first ever live virtual book group on 16th July.”

But Anne didn’t stop there. “Planning my session for the Fringe changed my mind about the cancellation of large gatherings,” said Anne. “I realised it opened new doors as it closed others. Like many authors, I have a network of fellow writers from around the world I’m unlikely to ever meet face-to-face. Covid provided the opportunity to invite someone to work with me here in the East Midlands.”

With less than a week until the start of the Festival on 1st July, Anne contacted a colleague in Michigan USA. Charli Mills has built an international community of writers to craft weekly flash fiction in response to a prompt posted online. “As an experienced workshop leader and advocate for literary art, I knew Charli had the skills and can-do attitude to rise to the challenge,” said Anne. “But it’s uncharted territory for both of us. Although familiar with each other’s writing, we’ve never co-hosted a live event.”

Their event, The art of the 99-word story, consists of an online tutorial and an invitation to join a Zoom get-together to celebrate the results at 5pm on 17th July. It’s free to take part and suitable for both experienced writers and those who have never written creatively before. “Anyone can write 99-word stories,” says Charli. “Go where the prompt leads! You can write in any genre, any style. It can be funny, sad, romantic, or weird.”

Both of these events can be accessed online throughout the Fringe from 1st to 19th July 2020. The virtual book group takes place on 16th July and the flash fiction readings on 17th July. You can register for these sessions up to the day before.


Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
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Twitter: @buxtonfringe
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Buxton Fringe on the Crisis in the Entertainment Industry

Fringe bunting with the Opera House in the background (credit: Dave Upcott)

While our mainly online Buxton Fringe has got off to a great start, we’ve been deeply saddened to learn of the redundancies announced this week in the Theatre industry. 65% of staff at the Royal Exchange Theatre just up the road in Manchester and all Front of House staff at the National Theatre in London are to lose their jobs.

It is a devastating blow, to those that will lose their livelihoods and to the theatre and wider entertainment industry.

We’ve seen this year that while we have an incredible 100 entries this year, that is half of what we had last year, and all of last year’s shows were happening in real life. That is a lot of artists and performers unable to work this year, and alongside them, the directors, producers, designers, technical and venue staff that all get some income and experience at Buxton Fringe.

We are aware of our place in the entertainment ecosystem, and very happy with it. Fringes like Buxton offer a place for new and emerging artists to take their first steps in the industry, and to hone their craft in front of friendly and appreciative audiences. Our Fringe is also at the centre of Buxton’s cultural life, it’s a place for local artists and performers to showcase their work, and for youngsters to have a chance to perform outside the school environment for the first time. We offer work experience to many kids on our Fringe Desk and many young people also gain wonderful experience working at Underground Venues, and other venues around the town.

We are now struggling to offer those opportunities, musicians, comedians and performers of all kinds join those in the theatre at being unable to work, and now, even the biggest most important organisations in our industry are laying off vast numbers of employees. The Buxton Opera House remains closed, and an industry of which the UK can genuinely claim to be a world leader is in danger of collapse.

And this is not just a financial and jobs consideration, culture gives us a sense of ourselves, it enriches individual lives and the national conversation. What is our country without it?

We stand in solidarity with everyone in the industry who is struggling at the moment, but let us do more.

• If you are able, please donate to any performers who offer that option.
• Beyond the Fringe, donate to the cultural organisations that are struggling.
• Get active. Write to your MP and sign petitions (there's one here). Our local MP in the High Peak, Robert Largan, has written to the Culture Secretary on this issue, we thank him for this, and encourage him to continue to hold the government to account on this.

Let’s keep our theatres and performance venues open, and support everyone in the entertainment and culture industry.

Stephen Walker
Chair
Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
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Friday Night is Comedy Night

In a normal Fringe, which by now I think we have accepted the 2020 edition of Buxton Fringe is certainly not, Friday night was crammed full of comedy offerings, often at Underground Venues, and culminating in the always sold-out Barrel of Laughs.

But fear not, your laughter muscles can still get a work-out online. Underground may not be with us this year but Tom Crawshaw and Yacein al Shaater have teamed up with their old mucker, Michael Grady Hall in Three’s Company’s Adventure Department for their new serious theatre podcast (really?). Apparently things go a little awry in the first episode and they end up meeting a wizard on a magical island (sounds more like it). It’s even got star names like Les Dennis, Caroline Quentin, Rufus Hound and the great Youssef Kerkour from Channel 4's Home. It starts tonight (Friday 3rd July) at 7pm, with the first two episodes and the promise of more to come, but you an catch up at any time.

It is not always so clear where this year’s Fringe comedians are broadcasting from. Red Shed Readings presents Radio Free Kinsley, based in a bunker somewhere and presenting a high-pitched campaign for producing green-house vegetables with a guest appearance from possibly the biggest star on the Fringe this year, Orville the Duck!

Also tucked away, DNA scientist, Helen, is writing her PhD and invites you Inside the Labcoat to join her self-isolation, possibly in Cambridge, where she has yet to be asked to become a spy, or so she says. She invites you into her world of underconfident lifts, quirky buildings, and unconventional friends. She does this, in an attempt to prove that scientists are perfectly normal…honest!

There’s also plenty of comedy with a uniquely local flavour. Andy Quirk’s Parodies From the Peak District has been attracting a lot of early attention and features musical parodies capturing his experience of moving to the area and with subtitles so that people can sing along.

Later in the Fringe, Richard Pulsford hosts It Just So Happened, an alternative history panel show with stand-up sets based on Buxton’s local history and events that happened on the same day in history (it’ll be on July 18).

Sheridan Shacklethwaite’s Stalactites Secrets is a thoroughly researched, if entirely made up, virtual tour of Buxton’s Poole’s Cavern.

Deluded poetry teacher Andy Gilbert meanwhile invites Fringe-goers to join in a quirky lockdown poetry lesson with references to his hometown of Tamworth as well as Buxton.

Some performers are in confessional mode. Australian comedian Stew Walker, who made his sold-out debut season at the 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, shares his musical quest to treat his sleep apnoea and bungalow blues.

It is good to see the return of popular Fringe regulars. The acclaimed Lucky Dog Theatre Productions presents The Laurel and Hardy Cabaret while madcap Mike Raffone offers a rip-roaring, highly interactive session of Lockdown Bingo live-streamed via Facebook every Wednesday night. You'll certainly need to participate and that requires a bit of preparation. There's a need to choose yourself 24 numbers beforehand and lay them out in a particular way on your very own Bingo Card, so check out the full details in advance.
Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe
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Will You Take Floella Under Your Wing?

Floella outside Hawkshead on Spring Gardens

We came across Floella in town yesterday. She has taken up residence outside Hawkshead for the duration of the Fringe. She is really colourful and will look at you when you walk past.

We found out that Floella has been self-isolating and is very miserable because she is missing all her friends. She is very happy to be part of the Buxton Fringe's Sculpture Trail and to watch people walking by in Spring Gardens. She would be even happier if some of the Buxton children could send her poems or little stories to cheer her up. You can write to her at

floella@buxtonfringe.org.uk

She has promised that she will reply to all emails. Even if you are not able to send her an email do walk past her and give her a wave.

Viv Marriott

Buxton Fringe

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