The Free Fringe Ltd

Free Fringe shows are free to performers and free to audience. Please help us keep it that way and allow access to the arts for everyone.

Every August in Edinburgh The Free Fringe delivers 6,000 hours of quality comedy, theatre, cabaret, music, children’s, science, horror and spoken word for zero pounds.

At the Free Fringe the performer has paid nothing to us or the venue. There are no tickets, and the audience pays nothing either unless they want to donate at the end. Most do, some cannot afford to, and that’s all good.

click here

Hothouse Theatre Pod 01

This is a brief report to our members, friends and supporters, to let them know what we've been up to over the last 12 months.

It contains short audio extracts from some of the projects with brief introductions.

This is the first episode of our new Hothouse Theatre Podcast, and it will be followed up more in the future featuring full episodes of audio dramas, poems and short yarns. Watch this space!

click here

Nottingham Playhouse

In this election year – with the country in turmoil – there’s only one comedian who can kill the mood even further…

Nish Kumar – one of The Guardian and The Telegraph’s 50 Best Comedians of the 21st Century – is back on tour with his brand new politically-charged stand-up show, Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe.

Click here

Theatre Royal, Nottingham

Direct from its triumph in the West End where it won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy, Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) returns to the Theatre Royal by public demand and is a unique and audacious retelling of Jane Austen’s most iconic love story.

Men, money and microphones will be fought over in this irreverent but affectionate adaptation where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance. This multi-award-winning production features a string of pop classics including Young Hearts Run Free, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and You’re So Vain.

Click here

Nottingham Playhouse

Amplify Festival is our annual celebration of artists from across the wider Midlands regions and this year will take place 21 – 26 October.

The festival will feature a host of new and exciting work from the region, alongside scratch performances, networking opportunities, workshops, and panel discussions, it’s a place for artists and audience to come together to delight and invest in local talent.

Click here

A new musical by Jeanie O'Hare & Jim Fortune, tackling one of the gravest miscarriages of justice.

Directly informed by conversations with affected sub-postmasters, Make Good dives into this most local of stories – one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in modern British history.

Capturing the raw emotions and bewilderment of those involved, and the unbreakable bonds of faith and family that were severely tested, this powerful new musical tells the story of how entirely innocent people had their lives torn apart for crimes that were never committed and debts that didn’t exist.

Click here

Cornered explores physical theatre and movement in a fresh, exciting and explorative way.

Join Sophie Jane Corner for 3 days of devising through movement combining written word, poetry and voice through the physical body. A physically interesting way to create in the room, working on solo performance and collaboration. The workshop will contain 2.5 days of exploration working towards a final showing on our final day.

Challenge your skills in this “on your feet” medium and discover new dimensions of creative expression.

Click here

When Matt was little, their dad bought a classic car. A 1954 Sunbeam Talbot Mark II. Dad had ideas that he and Matt would do it up, repair, rebuild together. They never did, and the car festered in a garage.

I mean, Dad had just been through a divorce.

Now in their 30s, Matt would like to learn how to fix a car engine. They’d like to learn a bit more about Dad, and that time, when Dad and Mum split up. The time when Matt and Dad were closest.

Click here

We've heard it all before haven't we? The cancer narrative - she's "so so brave" and "incredibly strong". The patronising messages and latent ableism that lie underneath them.

Bare Bones follows the experience of Molly Turtle, a young woman in her 20s, diagnosed with bone cancer, now back in the “real world”. With a fresh new disability, changing relationships and a whole new perspective of womanhood, reproduction, new body, self worth and mortality – it’s the oft-forgotten little ‘ancer’ that follows the Big C.

Click here

2Funky Arts presents radical new performances, in various artistic styles, that are poignant, heroic, honest and compelling.

Created by emerging Midlands-based artists from Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds, expect pieces that turn the personal into political in ways that stir raw emotion. And Still I Rise will dig deep into feelings around prejudice, power and Black Lives Matter.

Using music, poetry and more, this is a jewel of a showcase not-to-be-missed!

Click here

Michelle allows us to share in her unique and moving story.

A story of adoption, identity, the search for ‘self’ and a yearning to connect with any shared past and present genetic flesh and blood. – This gives us a window into the journey she embarked upon, in an attempt to trace her birth relatives. This fascinating quest transformed her tattered adoption papers from being an almost fictional narrative, into real people, with real names, each having their own very real and individual lives and stories that add to their collective jigsaw puzzle.

Click here