Why go to the fringe?

We had some wonderful news this week when Belt Up was listed amongst the ‘must-see shows’ in the Guardian’s fringe preview this week. This was hugely complimentary considering that in the list we were rubbing shoulders with the likes of ‘Frantic Assembly’, ‘The Wooster Group’ and ‘Ontoerend Goed’. In 2008, when we set up Belt Up Theatre, we never expected that just over two years down the line we’d be considered alongside some of the companies that we greatly admire.

Most surprising however was one of the comments in response to this article. The Guardian website comment section is a great platform for some good discussion but occasionally you get a few numbskulls. One poster took a bit of a swing at Belt Up accusing us of being ‘establishment’ and then questioned why a professional company were at the fringe. I responded to their post, naturally, with a swift rebuttal – they were under the belief that we were receiving massive amounts of state subsidy, we are not, not even anywhere close.

Despite the poster being a bit of moron, I thought they did bring up a few interesting points. Why are we at the fringe? We’re also at the Edinburgh International Festival this year, the very festival that the fringe is on the ‘fringe’ of, doing a Behind the Scenes workshop of a new version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. So why, when we’re included as part of the curated festival are we also on the fringe?

As a little bit of history, the Edinburgh International Festival was set up in 1947 to raise morale and so on, the same year a handful of theatre companies, not part of the festival decided to go to Edinburgh and perform anyway, and so the Fringe was born. A few years later when the Fringe Society was set up, the constitution clearly stated that there would be no vetting as to what and who was allowed to be included as part of the Fringe. It’s not a case of the Fringe being a response to the ‘establishment’ or anything it is just simply an open access policy,

This is its beauty. It’s because of this that I now work in theatre. In 2008 a group of second year university students calling themselves ‘Belt Up (nothing to see/hear)’ were allowed to take over a hotel function room, turn it into a Victorian boudoir and put on a silly amount of plays. If that idea had been pitched to any sensible person then they would have laughed in our faces. It was in that year that we picked up the Edinburgh International Festival award – an award to strengthen links between the EIF and the Fringe.

This year a group of professional theatre people calling themselves ‘Belt Up Theatre’ have been allowed to take over a massive burnt out room, turn it into a house and put on an even sillier amount of plays. We’re a lot more established than we were in 2008, we’ve had a lot more critical reception, more awards and stuff but I still reckon that if we pitched this idea to any sensible people then they’d still laugh in our faces. That’s what’s so brilliant about the Fringe; it allows very non-sensible people to do whatever the hell they like. We took on a massive amount of risk at the fringe in 2008 and this year we’re matching if not increasing that risk. We’re still riding the wave from the payoff of that 2008 risk so who knows where we’ll be 2 years down the line after this year’s.

So in answer to that poster’s question, what’s a professional company doing at the fringe? We’re going there to do things that we wouldn’t be allowed to do anywhere else. The fringe is a massive crucible for art and is something that has been invaluable in our development both professionally and artistically.