Following the hugely successful inaugural Fringe last year, the second Colchester Fringe is about to take over the city from October 20th-23rd!
The Colchester Fringe 2022 is being staged multiple venues, including:
Headgate Theatre
The Mercury Theatre
Firstsite
Colchester Community Hub
Lion Walk
Culver Square
Coda
And pubs, bars, shops- all within walking distance and all fully accessible. The mission of the Fringe is the acts are 50% Essex based, 25% national and 25% international. With 34 acts in total, encompassing theatre, dance, drag, stand up and those tricky to categorize, I won’t be able to cover them all- but here’s my highlights.
I’m proud to be presenting my new play, JACKY, at the Mercury Theatre, and it features wheelchair ballroom dancing, and is a story of reliance, sequins and survival! Alongside us will be the very intriguing THE SENSEMAKER. If a dystopian battle between a woman and an answering machine sounds like your thing, then see this multi award-winning show, which hails from Switzerland. Also catch LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES, a dance/theatre piece direct from San Diego, and INTOLERABLE SIDE EFFECTS, a tale of a Millennial Rabbit! There’s quite a hub at the Headgate Theatre. Catch Radio Vision, Colchester’s group that focus on audio drama. They are presenting two plays, BOUNCE AND OUT OF THE DARKNESS, featuring local writers and actors, and this company were my Fringe pick last year. Catch THE A TO Z OF FISH AND CHIPS, which is going to be hilarious, and award winning Headgate Young Company present FAILED, a devised piece about driving lessons! There’s loads of LGBTQ content, don’t miss PAPER DOLLS, a new piece that explores themes of gender through video, physical theatre and drag, and 2ND STAR TO THE LEFT is a new work created by Movement Space Colchester, winners of last year’s Fringe production, BACK TO THE ROARING 20s, which they encore this year. See fantastic drag cabaret with The (Stock) Cube, and a new twist on Harry Potter with RECLAIMING HARRY, and I’m very curious about JUNO AND THE JETPACKS, telling the story of emerging star Juno. A one off is NEURODELICIOUS, a showcase of neurodivergent talent at Colchester Arts Centre on Sunday October 23rd, there’s already a great buzz about this following their inaugural show in Cambridge. There are great family shows, including CAPTAIN JAKE AND THE SEARCH FOR THE RED QUEEN and CIRCUS ZUZU, AFTER THAT, and GRIMM’S “FAIRER” TALES reworks some old classics. The other end of the spectrum, no doubt, will be COLCHESTER FRINGE COMEDY SHOWCASE, and THE LAST KING OF PORN! There’s so much, so pick up a brochure from many locations in the city, or go online to browse and book! COLCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL WEBSITE
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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