Five #firsttimefringers as spotted by Kate Saffin

There’s a first time for every Fringe writer, performer, director, producer… and sometimes they are they are all the same person! Those pre Fringe nerves will all be tingling as they get ready for their first show. Will the set/costumes/props last the month? Should we have made more cuts? And the big one, will anyone […]


Kate Saffin’s five solo shows by women

Solo performers probably outnumber every other group at the Fringe if you include theatre, comedy, spoken word and music. The 262 solo theatre shows listed this year offer diverse work across every genre and style, every venue and every imaginable topic (well, possibly not every one but certainly a great range!). Many are new writing, […]


Sarah-Louise Young is a theatre maker with 26 years’ experience at her 17th Fringe with her 40th production and the 13th show she has created. Which is nicely serendipitous because it’s also the first show she has made telling a very personal story. We found what we thought would be a quiet corner of Summerhall… […]


Actor, Samara Neely Cohen talked to Kate during Edfringe 2022 about 9 Circles, 9 Circles by Bill Cain asks how can a soldier be trained to be a cold-blooded killing machine while clinging on to the threads of humanity? A Dantesque descent into the conundrums, contradictions and hypocrisies of war through the eyes of a […]


Sarah talks about her journey to embracing the chronic pain she has lived with since her teens and how she developed Pain and I. She describes it as a bold exploration into chronic pain experience, featuring playful choreography, experimental dance, intimate autobiographical text, and original classical music composition by Alicia Jane Turner. In addition to […]


Fourth Wall’s musical show Fruit Flies Like a Banana comes in two flavours for their first Edfringe: one for children and a longer one for adults (not that there is anything unsuitable for children in the longer version, it is just framed differently). It’s a show that combines extraordinary physical acrobats with virtuoso musical skill […]


Kate’s five solo shows to see at Edfringe 2022

Making sense of life: Age is a Feeling From Haley McGee, a new show, that is different every day, inspired by interviews with hospice workers, interactions with mystics and trips to the cemetery. Age is a Feeling is a story about the glorious and melancholy unknowability of human life that charts the seminal moments, rites of passage […]


Zero Waste Fringe: BoxedIn get creative at the Greenhouse

A rather casual conversation at last year’s Edfringe about all the waste it creates led to the question ‘could we do it differently?’ and it turns out we can. Or, at least, BoxedIn Theatre can. They have created a zero waste venue, The Greenhouse, and an eco themed programme. It was a bit of a […]


World War II recommendations

There is always a goodly sprinkle of shows at the Fringe with a focus on war. These are three that I found around World War II that intrigued me, as telling an unknown story or taking a look behind the scenes of an iconic generation defining moment                 […]


Following the international success of Testosterone, exploring the culturally and socially different world a transperson has to learn to navigate, Kit talks about his new play, Passengers, described as: ‘A dark comedy about the epic battles and alliances within the psyche and the beautiful power of the mind to protect itself from pain. Max wants […]


The Female Role Model Project: Kate Saffin talks to the creator, Tjasa Ferme

Tjasa Ferme talks about this ground breaking mix of theatre and multi-media exploring the science of the brain. She describes how the idea emerged and developed into an interactive experience as much as a ‘show’ using live neuroscientific monitoring and recording which the audience see and hear as video and soundscape. And volunteers from the […]


It runs in the family: Kate Saffin talks to Joan Lawrence and Christian Gittings about Gilbert & Sullivan

Sometimes things just run in families and it was quite by chance that I learned that Joan Lawrence who sang with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1956 to 1962, would be watching her grandson, Christian Gittins, perform in Coily Dart’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s Improbable New Musical: Less Miserable The Spaces. Here they talk about […]


Best of the fest from Oxfordshire theatre makers

  Some best of the fest shows coming from the lively, innovative and dynamic theatre making going on in, and around, Oxford. Selected by Kate Saffin, Fringe Reviewer reviewer. If you’re looking for: Work by an all female company (with a mouse who is A therapist-cum-confidant-cum-philosopher) Beyond: Sugar Mice at Paradise Green 15.20 to the […]


Kate Saffin talks to Jeremy Nicholas about… talking (in public)

Jeremy describes himself as the 11th most famous Jeremy at the BBC and has many years experience as a broadcaster and as an international speaker. Last year he shared some of his most colourful moments at the BBC. This year it’s stories of public speaking. He describes the show as for anyone who ever listens […]


What happens when the glass slipper doesn’t fit? Kate Saffin talks to Michelle Madson and Lizzie Shakespeare about Bait: Kill the Princess

Described as a ‘savagely playful subversion of identity’ talk about the stereotypes of princesses that all little girls face and their different experience of growing up with those stereotypes. They discuss how the work developed as they explored whether you can kill the princess or whether she will always reappear in a slightly different guise. […]


Fourteen years of breakfast and short plays: Kate Saffin talks to Claira Watson-Parr and Billy Knowelden of the Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show

It isn’t always easy becoming a Fringe institution. Claira and Billy reveal some of the work behind creating and growing such a rare and valuable plant (with a total of 15 short plays across a rotating programme of three menus I reckon I can mix a few metaphors). This year sees the company take a […]