PRESS RELEASE 10th June 2013
For immediate release
Comedy often draws the biggest audiences of the Fringe and it's no surprise given the quality of the talent on offer in this year's massive programme. Returning to the Fringe are last year's award-winners, Max and Ivan. Having walked off with the Comedy Show gong two years running, the performers' latest show, The Reunion, is a bewitching tale of love, loss and shatterproof rulers. 2012's Individual Comedy award winner, the Geek Songstress Helen Arney, returns in two shows, a reprise of Voice of an Angle, and joining real-life partner Rob Wells for an hour of home-cooked science and comedy in Domestic Science.
Also at the Fringe in 2013 are former award winners and perennial favourites, Matt Pritchard with his seventh Fringe show, Extra Sensory Deception, Piff the Magic Dragon (not forgetting Mr Piffles - The World's First Conjuring ChihuahuaTM) and James Sherwood, who promises the best of his songs and musical stand-up from the last 400 years of the Buxton Fringe!
Sunderland's duffel-coated stand-up, Danny Pensive, is going Around the World in 80 Haways, just one of several shows full of travel and comedy. Morgan & West have A Grand Adventure as the dashing duo cross continents, meddle with miscreants and sneak into secret societies, and in Chain Letter, Ben Van der Velde rediscovers the lost art of letter-writing by starting his own chain letter. Daliso Chaponda is an African comedian previously focused on the insane behaviour of Westerners but in Laughrica he's focusing on Africa - "Westerners are insane but Africans are even crazier."
For something that definitely isn't family friendly, the Fringe gets risque with the Coin-operated Girl, Miranda Kane, a sex-worker's real-life revelations of frivolous fornications, with stories of hilarious, heart-warming and bizarre moments in a unique career. Sugar & Vice tell us about All The Men We've Never Slept With - join the sometimes-sweet, mostly-naughty girls for late-night songs and laughter.
If it's comedy improv you're after there's plenty of choice; Five-star comedy troupe To Be Continued... presents an hour of Absolute Improv based entirely on your suggestions. In Lights! Camera! Improvise! Mischief Theatre make an improvised movie live on stage - you choose the film's genre, location, and title. The Great Exhibitionists are in London, 1851: a family gathers for the revelation of their late father's last invention in this unique semi-scripted, semi-improvised comedy.
There are plenty of wild and wonderful characters coming to Buxton; Boris Nicoli KGB Mind Reader is Hammered and Tickled, as the last vestige of the KGB Psychic Counter-intelligence unit. Ruth E Cockburn Doesn't Even Smoke, and she's definitely not cool but will provide a guide to being content with what you've got, whereas Alfie Moore will tell us how he won and lost big as a gambler and the influence of his Elvis loving dad in Viva Alf's Vegas. There's a two-man rock opera, Total Hero Team, from MJ Hibbett and Steve, featuring superheroes, robots, sing-a-longs, ukuleles and Boris Johnson.
For sketches and variety, fresh from a sell-out show at Edinburgh's Bedlam Theatre fruity sketch group We've Become Mango unleashes its silly comic madness upon Buxton in Talking Limbo, whereas The Wells Brothers present a wry revue of Vaudevillian music and magic in a hilarious Edwardian parlour show full of amusing songs and magical surprises.
Underground Venues, in its last year at The Old Hall, provide the bulk of the comedy on offer and they have lots of exciting stand-up. Deadpan Geordie, Gary Colman, presents a joyous show about the crushing banality of family life, I am Happy announces Ishi Khan-Jackson in her energetic show about the secrets to happiness, Amadeus Martin returns with more quirky comedy in Me Etc, Oliver Meech meddles with forces we barely understand in When Magic & Science Collide, Malcolm Hardee Award nominee 2012, Nathan Cassidy previews his Edinburgh show, and Wes Zaharuk is Perfectly Bananas with his reputation for a tornado-like approach to comedy. And of course there is the always sold-out Barrel of Laughs, featuring the UK's best comedy talent with uncensored, unpredictable fun in the Old Hall vaults.
The Fringe is hugely grateful to its many supporters including its main sponsor The University of Derby Buxton as well as The Osborne Group, High Peak Borough Council, The Old Hall Hotel and The Cavendish Shopping Arcade.
For further information or interviews about the Fringe Send message to Press or tel: 07974 385767.