Now in its 20th year, Camden Fringe has announced a programme of more than 400 shows playing across 40 venues this summer. With a huge offering of theatre and comedy, the programme also offers dance, magic music and more at venues including Etcetera Theatre, Hen & Chickens, Camden People’s Theatre, The Bill Murray, the newly opened Libra Theatre Café, and The Old Red Lion, which is presenting festival-within-a-festival Shakefest. From one-off performances to longer runs, the programme spans everything from the serious — such as Bloody, Bloody Kansas (28 Jul – 2 Aug, Hen & Chickens Theatre), a show about America’s first known serial killing family — to the absurd, with ELON MUSK: Lost in Space (1 – 2 August, Theatro Technis). There’s also the operatic, such as The Marriage of Figaro (7 – 9 Aug, The Cockpit and 16 – 17 Aug, Upstairs at the Gatehouse), musicals including The Canterville Ghost: The Musical (23 – 24 August, Libra Theatre Café), and the comedic, with NEPO, BABY! (20 Aug – 22 Aug, Etcetera Theatre) and Lust In Translation (3 Aug, Museum of Comedy).
Camden Fringe is an affordable alternative to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, offering performers the chance to try out new material and different ideas in a supportive setting with less time and financial commitments. The festival aims to give anyone the chance to perform and showcase their talents, from very experienced performers and companies to ambitious newcomers. With hundreds of shows covering all manner of subjects, the full programme on the Camden Fringe website allows audiences to find shows by venue, genre and even key themes, and, like the Edinburgh Fringe, shows will be on throughout the day.
Running over four weeks, highlights of the festival include:
Week 1, 28 July – 3 August: Kicking off the festival, Etcetera Theatre will host the fast-paced, witty feminist two-hander I’m Fine, It’s Just the Wine (29 Jul – 31Jul), whilst Camden People’s Theatre’s presents WWI story Women in War (29 Jul – 2 Aug), and Rabbie Burns Bottom Drawers (28 Jul – 2 Aug, Barons Court Theatre) imagines the Scottish poet’s erotic fiction. Aces and Eights offers The Dead Good Poets Society (31 Jul), a comedic hour of poetry and sibling rivalry starring Jack Scullion and John James Davies. In music and musicals, FLAMENCODANZA (31 Jul – 1 Aug) at The SPID Theatre is an internationally touring dance and guitar duo fusing flamenco, Brazilian music, and jazz, and Upstairs at the Gatehouse stages The Musical Medea (29 Jul – 3 Aug), a new folk musical retelling the Greek myth with an original score and actor-musicians.
Week 2, 4 August – 10 August: Lion & Unicorn Theatre presents MISS (7 – 9 Aug), a day in the life of a secondary school English teacher navigating her highs and lows. Paul F Taylor: Off The Paul (8 – 9 Aug) will be at Camden Comedy Club, a surreal comedy show from the Channel 4 and BBC Radio 4 regular. The Courtyard Theatre hosts The Musical of Mirror (8 & 10 Aug), an immersive folk musical about identity and family pressures within an East Asian context, and also Tales of a Jane Austen Spinster (8 – 10 Aug), which follows a Jane Austen heroine navigating modern dating. Rosemary Branch Theatre hosts Magic & Sex (4 – 6 Aug), Kathryn Haywood’s comedic exploration of magic, sex, and mentalism. Theatro Technis presents The Forty Elephants (4 – 5 Aug), a contemporary dance show telling the story of a 1920s all-female London crime gang.
Week 3, 11 August – 17 August: Please Shoot the Messenger (13 – 15 Aug) at The Hope Theatre is a show mixing Shakespeare, clowning, and physical comedy about a cursed royal messenger during a plague, whilst over in Shakefest at the Old Red Lion, (Un) Shakespearean Nightmares (15 – 17 Aug) looks at the bard’s minor characters and underdogs. Three shows tackle questions of identity and inheritance in strikingly different ways: Dirty Laundry (14 – 19 Aug) at Etcetera Theatre is a visceral exploration of sex, shame and faith set in a Catholic laundrette, The White Lotus (11 – 12 Aug) at The Cockpit is a bilingual physical theatre piece exploring British-Chinese identity through dance and traditional puppetry, and Fickle Eulogy (16 – 18 Aug) at The Hope Theatre is a solo show confronting grief and loss following a mother’s death from COVID-19. On the lighter side, To Mars (16 – 17 Aug) at Bridewell Theatre is a children’s show about siblings on a Martian adventure testing family loyalty, and Operation Blank (12 – 15 Aug at Hen & Chickens Theatre, 17 – 20 Aug at Canal Café Theatre) is a comedy about a junior government staffer trying to trigger a response to an atomic bomb threat via Microsoft Teams.
Week 4, 18 August – 24 August: Escape for Dummies (16 – 24 Aug) at The Courtyard Theatre is a family-friendly silent physical comedy about two shop dummies desperate to escape their retail prison. KORE (19 – 20 Aug) at The Cockpit is a new play exploring grief, prescription drug dependence, and survival with a haunting original score. At Hen & Chickens Theatre, Power Power (20 Aug – 24 Aug) is a silly situational comedy about hospitality and superpowers in a budget hotel, whilst LISA! The Mona Lisa Musical (22 – 24 Aug) is a comedy musical that fictionalises the story behind the world’s most famous painting. At The Libra Theatre Café Waiting for U-N-I (20 – 22 Aug) is a story of growing up queer and navigating sixth form in a small town, Katerina Robinson: Seggs, Green Tea & Early Nights (20 Aug) at The Bill Murray is a comedy spilling the tea on modern dating, sex, and sleep with unhinged sex tips and brutal truths.
Camden Fringe was established in 2006 by Zena Barrie and Michelle Flower. Zena Barrie said, “”We’re proud that The Camden Fringe provides a platform and advice for new companies to experiment and get their ideas up and running and in front of an audience. We can’t quite believe the two of us have been doing this for 20 years!”
The venues hosting work for this year’s Camden Fringe are: Aces and Eights, Barons Court Theatre, Belsize Community Library, Bridewell Theatre, Camden Comedy Club. Camden People’s Theatre, Camden Town Methodist Church, Canal Café Theatre, Castlehaven Community Hub (Castle Room, Dance Studio, Kitchen Classroom, and Sports Pitches & Parks), Chisenhale Dance Space, Clarence Hall, Devas Garden Room, Etcetera Theatre, George Tavern, Hen & Chickens Theatre, King’s Head Theatre, Lion & Unicorn Theatre, Little Angel Theatre, Museum of Comedy, Old Red Lion Theatre, Phoenix Arts Club, Rosemary Branch Theatre, St Paul’s Church Hall The Bill Murray, The Cockpit, The Courtyard Theatre, The Hope Theatre, The King Alfred Phoenix, The Libra Theatre Café, The Old Queens Head, The Playground Theatre, The SPID Theatre, The Water Rats, Theatro Technis, Upstairs at the Gatehouse, WAC Arts.
