LPT: Hello Alex, it’s great to have this chat with you about this long running festival, now in its 9th year.   We’re curious to know about your involvement and commitment to the festival. 

AK: The Bread & Roses is often a launchpad for companies out to make a name for themselves on the Off West End, or just starting out, and that’s exactly the case with me. In 2017, my company Bag of Beard premiered our first production ‘Two Short Stories’ at The Bread, and that was the start of our work as a company. In 2022, I joined the team as Producer and have helped oversee the Fringe Festival ever since. This is what’s most galvanising about the B&R, the commitment to both emerging and established companies getting their work ON, and this year’s Lambeth Fringe is a testament to that, as we go through such a huge expansion.

Earlier this year we reported on Clapham Fringe rebrand to Lambeth Fringe. It’s an enormous step up. Could you tell us more about this ambitious move.

It is huge! We’ve gone from a single venue in 2022, to 4 venues in 2023 and now to 25 venues across the borough of Lambeth and 150 productions this year! By anyone’s metric, that’s exponential growth! Managing Director Rebecca Pryle, and Artistic Director Velenzia Spearpoint suggested the shift from looking at solely Clapham to including the whole borough shortly after last year’s festival, and I thought it was a huge undertaking that would be tricky to pull off in a year. But so many venues were completely up for it, and wanted to get the ball rolling, and so here we are with this enormous festival; and particularly with the sad loss of VAULT to the fringe ecosystem, it’s great that so many venues want to be part of this.

With this expansion in venues, comes a much broader take on performing arts. We’re expecting comedy, theatre and improv but there’s so much more to this festival. Could you give us the low-down on the less usual genres that we can expect to see.

So much of what we do is about storytelling, and it’s great to see this distilled to it’s purest form - the critically acclaimed Threedumb Theatre bring the chilling work of Edgar Allan Poe to the Calder Bookshop Theatre on 23rd September and these spooky tales are guaranteed to be an early Halloween treat. I’m also delighted that our local partners from last year are returning, and you can see autobiographical dance work and more at Central Film School - which uses the Avondale building of my alma mater, Italia Conti - so it’s doubly heartening to see exciting new art forms in a space with such a personal link for me, as part of the Lambeth Fringe.

It’s suggested that Lambeth Fringe isn't just a festival; it's a creative celebration that invites both artists and audiences to engage with the arts in an inclusive and vibrant environment.  Are there particular events for people to come together as a community?

Voltaire Road just off Clapham High Street are bringing back the immensely popular Car Free Weekends across the summer, during which the space will be used to provide a program of free, family-friendly workshops and entertainment, along with additional seating for a relaxed vibe in this corner of Clapham. Our shows have the opportunity to perform extracts of their work, pulling in new audiences and giving South London a taste of that street performance vibe many will have experienced at Edinburgh. It’s lovely to be part of such a galvanising community event, and bringing the Fringe to the streets of Clapham.

The former Clapham Fringe was already being lauded as an International Festival with touring theatre, like multi award winning company GUMBO, from Osaka in Japan. What are the big names this year and where are they performing?

One of our new partners is the ChooSE27 Comedy Festival and there’s some household names in the mix - Paul Sinha from TV’s The Chase is at South London Theatre on 5th October, at the B&R there’s a new piece of bilingual writing from real women of Colombia in ‘Casette ’93’ and Miranda star James Holmes returns to London with his sell-out hit, ‘EastEndless’ - and that really is just a small selection, there’s so much to choose from!

Of course, it’s not all about big names, the festival has a commitment to diversity and inclusivity. How are you achieving this?

We always try and offer as broad a range of productions and venues as we possibly can - throughout my time both working in and producing productions at Off West End venues, it can sometimes feel as though shows get stuck in an endless cycle of development, and it can feel as if it is impossible to get programmed. We try not to have that as the case at the Lambeth Fringe. We carefully curate our programme, but having more venues than ever enables us to have a really wide spread of work, everything from work in progress, to full productions and with a wide array of subject matter. One of the keys to inclusivity has to be removing barriers to entry, and we pride ourselves on being a festival that is approachable, accessible and as transparent in our work as possible.

The programming reflects the rich tapestry of Lambeth's culture and history. We love a bit of history, what are some of the most significant events in the Borough that are important to the vibe of the festival?

What’s wonderful is when history is embedded in the area, and reflected in the productions, and there’s a really clever example of that in ‘The William Blake Mixtape’. A hip-hop experience that examines Lambeth’s own iconic poet through a hip-hop lens. This one man performance uses an inter-disciplinary stage and screen performance creating an immersive hip-hop experience through classic literature that all ages can enjoy. Almost like our very own Lambeth ‘Hamilton’, and you can’t intertwine local history and poetry with the theatre and performance of right now any more than that!

There is also a particular focus on amplifying underrepresented voices. What are the difficulties in achieving this?

Speaking from experience, I suppose it’s partly knowing what resources and opportunities are available. Having trained at Italia Conti, there was a lot of room for devising, scripting and creating your own work, and immediately after graduating we were surrounded by an ensemble of actors who wanted to get out there and put something on. If you’re someone who didn’t have that support network and don’t know what the Bread and Roses offers in the way of springboards and ways into the industry, then the world of making theatre can seem impenetrable. But even though we’re a tiny team, we try to be as front footed as we can - The B&R offers various Playwriting Circles, networking events, our Playwriting Award and other opportunities for emerging artists. Drop us an email and we’ll try and get back to you, and demystify anything we can.

Another of the festival’s big ambitions is to offer the experience of boundary-pushing new work. Why do you feel this is important (with examples please). 

Fusing real experiences into an engrossing true story is something that seems to be high on theatre makers’ agenda this year - Italia Conti Ensemble are bringing us ‘True Stories (Sort Of)’, 13 micro one person shows, while ‘Leave My Fluctuating Body Alone’ is billed as a raw confessional about navigating womanhood. And taking something vital and current and deconstructing it further, we have ‘Don’t Let Me Die Before Sunday’, where we’re told that “the actor doesn’t want to perform a panic attack, the writer’s going on strike, and the director would rather do a DJ set. How the f*ck do you “correctly” stage a show about anxiety?” Promises to take a topic often examined in theatre and turn it on its head and inside out. If theatre is about examining the human condition, then we have a range of shows coming at that vital universal idea from every conceivable angle.

There is also a drive to reduce financial barriers and who doesn’t love a bargain. Who is it for and how does it help?

All of this would be pointless if we couldn’t get an audience in to see it, and many of these shows ticket prices start at just a few pounds. Again, it’s coming back to removing that barrier to entry, and letting people know that with this Festival, there’s bound to be something that’s up your street, or something you weren’t expecting but might love, and it won’t cost the earth to come and see it. So much quality, and it doesn’t cost too much. That’s an offer that can’t be refused!

With so many events, which performances are you personally looking forward to seeing (and what’s special about them).

The family friendly ‘Home Movie Day’ at the Cinema Museum sounds like a nostalgic walk down memory lane, even if you didn’t grow up there, there’s too much comedy to list at Waterloo’s The Glitch that sounds hilarious and thought provoking, and I love a thriller and ‘Things Between Heaven and Earth’ sounds like a great one. (See interview with writer Jun Noh here )

Images below reflect the vast array of shows to see

Finally, how can we find out more about What’s On at the festival (brochures, links, launch parties etc.)

Check out https://lambethfringe.com/events for all the shows across all the venues, and book your free tickets to our Launch Party on 7th September at The Bread & Roses - https://lambethfringe.com/events/the-lambeth-fringe-launch-party - we would love to see you there and kick off this enormous festival in grand style!