The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 55,000 performances of 3,548 different shows in 317 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to its historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.
Fringe theatre is theatre that is produced outside of the main theatre institutions, and that is often small-scale and non-traditional in style or subject matter. The term comes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In London, the fringe are small-scale theatres, many of them located above pubs, and the equivalent to New York's Off-Off-Broadway theatres and Europe's "free theatre" groups.
Henry James Naylor is a British comedy writer, director and performer. He is also a playwright.
Stomp is a percussion group, originating in Brighton, England, that uses the body and ordinary objects to create a physical theatre performance using rhythms, acrobatics and pantomime.
Pete Shaw is a British author, broadcaster, programmer and theatrical producer.
Tim Fountain is a British writer.
Chris Cox is a mentalist magician – a self-proclaimed "mind reader who can't read minds". On television he stars in "Chris Cox's Mind Blowing Magic" on CBBC & BBC iPlayer and is "The Geek" in the award winning Killer Magic on BBC Three. He also stars in touring stage show The Illusionists and in the West End in Impossible. He is the only mind reader in history to play Broadway, London's West End and Sydney Opera House. In his radio career Chris was the writer and producer for Matt Edmondson on BBC Radio 1; the assistant producer on The Chris Moyles Show.
Glenn Chandler is a Scottish playwright, novelist, producer and theatre director. He has written plays for theatre and radio, original screenplays for television and films, television series, and also novels. His best known work is the Scottish television detective series Taggart, which was commissioned by Scottish Television for the ITV Network from 2 July 1985 until 7 November 2010, and which continues to be broadcast around the world. Since the completion of Taggart in 2010, Glenn Chandler has focused on writing for the theatre, with a consistent run of productions in both London and Edinburgh.
ThreeWeeks is a magazine that covers the Edinburgh Festivals in August.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre is a comedy act that began in the United Kingdom in 2005 and has performed nationally and internationally since. They first appeared as part of The Sitcom Trials in London. They appeared in the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022 attracting highly positive reviews. The act has toured nationally and internationally every year since 2008 including Australia, Holland, Denmark and the Channel Isles. Prestigious appearances have included the Cheltenham Literary Festival and the Edinburgh International Magic Festival. They have appeared on BBC TV's The One Show, Comedy Shuffle, The Culture Show, Points West and Upstaged, GMTV, MTV, Current TV and Channel 4's Big Brother's Little Brother.
Frisky & Mannish is a British musical comedy double act, created and performed by singer Laura Corcoran and pianist-singer Matthew Floyd Jones. Known for their pop music parodies, the duo have toured the fringe festival and comedy festival circuits in the United Kingdom and Australia, and appeared on a number of British television and radio programmes. The act's name derives from two incidental characters mentioned in one couplet of Byron's Don Juan: "Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, / Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish"
The Antics are an improvisational comedy troupe formed in 2008, primarily of alumni of Sheffield Hallam University.
DugOut Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 2009 by students at the University of Leeds.
Wilfredo is a fictional comedy character portrayed by the British comedian Matt Roper.
Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company is both a repertory theatre company, and an actor training provider and drama school for young actors.
Paul Vickers is the vocalist and lyricist with cult rock band Dawn of the Replicants. After the group went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, he continued to release music with various collaborators as well as branching out into comedy and writing. Described by The Guardian as "a pioneer of the indie/fringe crossover", since 2010 he has performed an annual, award-winning cabaret show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as Mr. Twonkey. He has also released four albums with Edinburgh band The Leg. In 2013 he published his first book, Itchy Grumble, and in 2015 his first theatrical play Jennifer's Robot Arm debuted in London. Twonkey's Mumbo Jumbo Hotel won the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2022 What Broke David Lynch? written about the Hollywood film director having difficulty making a costume for The Elephant Man was announced as Vickers 2nd theatre vehicle with Paul playing Lynch himself.
David Byrne is a British playwright and the artistic director of the New Diorama Theatre in Camden, London. Byrne has also written for radio and television.
Nathan Cassidy is a British comedian and podcaster. In 2021, he was nominated for an Off West End Stage Award for his show 'Bumblebee' along with nominations for Best Comedy Show at the Greater Manchester Fringe and Buxton Fringe. 'Bumblebee' was released as an Amazon Prime Special in 2022. In 2022 he was nominated for Best Standup at the Buxton Fringe for his show 'Hot Tub God' and this show along with his show 'Observational' were awarded with the Best Standup Award at the Brighton Fringe 2022. He was previously nominated for Best Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival 2020 for his show 'Observational'. This show was widely reported in the press as the only live show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020. The show was given four stars by The Times which reviewed it as 'The best show at the Fringe. A classic, structured, rollercoaster Fringe hour...star-in-waiting...he is untouchable.' Previously he was nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award in 2012, won best solo comedy show on the Buxton Fringe in 2014, and was nominated for the same award in 2015, 2016, 2017 2019, and 2021. He has also won the Sir Michael Caine Award for new writing in theatre. He also presents the podcast Psycomedy about the Psychology of stand-up comedy and the daily comedy/piano podcast Daily Notes.
London Hughes: To Catch a D*ck is a stand-up routine by the British comedian London Hughes. Largely about sex, Hughes recounts stories about her mother and grandmother having children at a young age, her career as an adult chat host and then a children's presenter, and her sexual experiences.
Lucy Amelia Nancy Moss is a British writer, director, and composer best known for co-creating the hit musical Six with Toby Marlow. As director of most Six productions, Moss became the youngest ever female director of a Broadway musical at 26.
