Unsolicited Fringe Advice

A ticket, apparently.

I'll provide an update to this year's Fringe stats at the weekend, but in the meantime, here's some unsolicited advice to acts and venues from one who has seen an awful lot of Fringe shows.

THEATRE COMPANIES

• Cut, cut and cut again. If it's not vital to your message, it shouldn't be kept in. This is not just Fringe ADHD - although that's part of it - it's also a side effect of the venues. Chances are your audience will be hot and uncomfortable. Unless you've got an interval, I don't want to be trapped in the sweat boxes that are Fringe venues for more than an hour. Even with a break, seats tend towards the masochistically uncomfortable, so keep it as short as you can.

• Work with your space and work your space. Fringe venues aren't theatres, unless you pay a lot of money, and they have issues. Chances are you won't know what those issues are until you get there, but once you're in situ, check them out. Scope out your audience's sight lines and adjust blocking and set as required. (An otherwise excellent show I saw recently would have been greatly improved by the simple addition of risers under the set's chairs, so the back row of the audience could see wat was going on.) Related to this, the Fringe is your best chance to go crazy with direction. Be inventive. Have your cast on stage to begin with, or use the cramped space to make the audience uncomfortable. You'll never get a license to be this creative anywhere else.

• Pick the right play. Look, The Crucible is a good play, but it's one that demands range and gravitas. You need actors with CHOPS, damn it. You don't need a youth theatre. Or students. Pick something that works with the skills you've got. If your cast is a bit weak, do something with big, bright, easy to spot, and easy to differentiate, emotions. Not something doom laden and shouty.

STAND-UPS

• Cut, cut and cut again. Have you written a gimmick to get you through your hour? Cut it, it almost certainly isn't as funny as you are normally. Doing your first fringe hour? Chances are you've only got 45 minutes of good stuff. On the Free Fringe? 30 minutes is quite enough. Get a mate and share the billing. All these apply to the big names as much as the little guys. An hour is a long time in comedy and it ALL has to be good stuff, not just most of it.

• Don't be afraid to lose stuff. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard a comedian say "that's my favourite joke of the show, and I'm keeping it in even if it never works". If it doesn't work it has no place in your show. Full stop. It doesn't matter if you think it's brilliant. Your job is to make us laugh, it's not our job to find you funny.

• If you're playing to ten people in a tiny room, saying "Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage... ANDREW BELL!!!!!!" makes you sound like an egotistical prat (particularly as that's my name, not yours). Even if you ARE an egotistical prat, that's not a good start to a show. Do something different. Sneak out. Dance out. Just wonder on stage and say hello. You're not at Wembley, you're in a back room at the Tron. Live with it.

• Funny songs need to have jokes in them. Being cleverly done is not enough.

VENUES

• Stop trying so damn hard. Poker chips for tickets, themed bars, staff wearing "funny" t-shirts. I'd prefer it of you put this effort into slightly more comfortable seats, to be frank.

• Allowing audiences to queue outside performance spaces then going "shhhhhhh!" at them is ineffective and makes you look like dickish librarians. Organise somewhere else for us to queue. Even if it's outside or a bit of a distance away, that's preferable to being harangued by someone with a t-shirt with a concussed cow on the front.

Thanks for listening.