Fringe Theatre

Fringe Theatre in Britain offers a platform for productions that because of their political content, experimental nature, or unfamiliarity are unlikely to succeed in more conventional surroundings. The term dates from the late 1960s and derives from the activities on the ‘fringe’ of the Edinburgh Festival. There are around 70 Fringe theatres in London, mostly away from the centre where rents are lower. They are usually small, their seating ranging from 40 to 200, and few were built as theatres: mostly they are found in converted warehouses or factories, in basements, or in rooms in public houses. Fringe theatres are less formal, less expensive, and usually less comfortable than ordinary theatres, and their audiences tend to be younger and more anti-Establishment. Being short of money and often housed in temporary accommodation, they tend to be transitory. The better established ones include the King's Head at Islington, the Orange Tree at Richmond (where many of James Saunders's plays were presented), the Bush at Shepherds Bush, West London, and the Gate, Notting Hill, which specializes in rarely performed classics. Outside London Fringe theatre is housed in the studio theatres attached to many civic theatres, the multi-purpose arts centres opened in the 1970s and 1980s, and sometimes in more makeshift quarters.

Numerous fringe groups tour these locations, among the most important being Shared Experience (founded 1975), best known for its adaptations of novels, such as Zola's Germinal; Cheek By Jowl (1981), which presents lively productions of classical plays with minimal scenery, including British premières such as Corneille's The Cid and Ostrovsky's It's All in the Family; Joint Stock (1974) (see AUKIN, GASKILL, and HARE, DAVID), Paines Plough (1975), and the feminist Monstrous Regiment (1975), all committed to new work. Joint Stock works by Collective Creation, and other fringe groups use it at times. (See also COMMUNITY THEATRE.)