Conchords, who made their way over in 2002 to catapult their careers. It’s beautifully documented in a mockumentary-style episode of The Living Room, following the pair from rehearsals in Wellington with their manager Larry Pritchard, played by a young, fresh-faced Taika Waititi, all the way to the streets of Edinburgh, where they hope to find success. In it, Brett McKenzie summarises their goals nicely, “New Zealand’s fourth most-popular digi-bongo-jungle-folk-comedy duo set off in style with high hopes of making it really, really, really big”
The story closely mirrored the reality of the festival for these cash-strapped performers. They are seen drinking a celebratory $7 bottle of bubbles on the way to the airport, and when they arrive, their accommodation is a flat with no lights and a bedroom in a closet.
The pair were so broke they only promoted their show via word of mouth with no paid promotion – even flyers were out of budget. According to fellow comic David O’Doherty, they were almost kicked out of the festival for trying to sell tickets the wrong way. They tried to make some extra pennies by posing as ticket scalpers and selling their comp tickets for £3 outside the venue! Luckily, they weren’t, and they went on to be nominated for the top award for comedy at the festival.
Jermain Clement talked about the struggles of the festival in a recent interview with Romesh Ranganathan, “You know, one of the saddest things I saw at the Fringe, was someone asleep in a bus shelter and for a pillow they were on a pile of their own flyers, with their own face on it. That is how rough it can be out there.”
The festival gave them important access to the industry icons in all sorts of ways, including playing hacky sack and football with comedy legends like Frankie Boyle, John Oliver and Demetri Martin. They worked alongside their future co-star Rhys Darby at that same Edinburgh Fringe, operating the lights and handing out biscuits at half-time during his show. For Flight of the Conchords, Rhys Darby and even Taika Waititi, it was these successful showings in Edinburgh that sparked a cult following, eventually propelling them to international stardom.
They aren’t the only comedians from Aotearoa to get their big breakthrough success at the Fringe. Rose Matafeo, at only 26, won the 2018 Edinburgh Best Comedy Show award for her hit stand-up show, Horndog. She was the first person of colour and only the fifth woman in 37 years to win the award. "I didn't have any chance of winning an Olympic gold medal, but I feel like, as a comedian, this is maybe the closest thing you could try and get to that," she told RNZ at the time.
Matafeo saw her win as an opportunity for more comedians to see the festival as a pathway: “this is going to open, hopefully, more opportunities for people to come up here [...] and show the talented comedic minds we have in New Zealand.”
She wasn’t wrong; many of our finest comedy exports have cut their teeth at the festival. Sam Wills, known as Tape Face and previously The Boy with Tape on His Face, has been selling out shows at the festival for over a decade, leading to his international success. An incomplete list of comedy legends at Fringe: Trygve Wakenshaw, Paul Williams, Alice Sneddon, Ray O’Leary, James Nokise, real-life-musical-comedy-couple Two Hearts, and the list goes on.
Another talent pool that has found success at the festival is our theatre performers and creators. In 1999, Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis, of Indian Ink Theatre Company, headed to Edinburgh. Their first-ever production, Krishnan’s Dairy, received five-star reviews and played to sold-out audiences, and they came away with the coveted Fringe First Award. Now over 25 years on, it’s a moment they cherish “It was so amazing - more amazing in retrospect. When I think of Edinburgh now and what a neurotic minefield it is for an actor, coming into this town where it's just mad [...] It's a real test of your mettle to be there.” It’s no surprise that the origins of arguably the most successful independent show in New Zealand theatre history, Krishnan’s Dairy, started at a fringe festival on the other side of the world.
These successes are only part of the story. The festival is notoriously expensive and a little mad, with the small city of Edinburgh swelling by tens of thousands for the month. Even the Fringe Society, the charity that oversees the festival, makes it clear to participants thinking of putting on a show, “your expenses will be greater than your revenue.” It can be tough on the spirit too; both Flight of the Conchords and Rose Matafeo have talked about performing to audiences of one. So is it worth it for young artists to pursue this dream?
The ever-increasing costs are clear to British producer Francesca Moody. She is behind festival success stories Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, and managed to make it work, but she warns that in the current market, talented, unique performers don’t have the freedom to experiment with the financial pressures on them. She says, in the current state of the festival, that she wouldn’t have been able to put on her first shows in the same way, unencumbered by the need to meet soaring costs: “Obviously that becomes harder when things get more expensive, because there's more pressure on success as well. I certainly think there are people who are being priced out of the Fringe at the moment.”
With this crisis in mind, Moody has created an alternative pathway for new artists that she has called Shedinburgh. It acts as a new venue for theatre, comedy and music at the festival, with koha tickets available at every show. The unique part is that all performing artists are paid and offered accommodation. In addition, she is investing in the future of the Edinburgh Fringe with the Shedload-of-Future Fund. This year, five grants were offered to first-time Fringe performers with £5,000 towards their costs. It is a celebration and an investment in the next generation of the festival.
Recently, post-COVID inflation has hit the festival too, with prices jumping again, adding more pressure. New Zealand Writer and director Luke Thornborough is returning to Fringe this year, for his third season with his show Alone, a tense and tender sci-fi drama set in space that tackles politics and the climate crisis. He told me about the stressful process of getting a complex show like this to the world's largest performing arts festival on the other side of the world.
Their route was similar to many productions that end up at Fringe. The crew did a run of small but successful tours in Aotearoa and Australia, and they were considering how to reach audiences further afield. Edinburgh seemed like the right challenge, but with a substantial gap in funding and no luck with Creative New Zealand, they were at a dead end. So, they turned to Boosted, who gave them mentorship on how to crowd-fund their project: “I had incredible mentors every step of the way with the Boosted campaign because it was quite a big ask.” They managed to raise the $20,000 needed to get a skeleton crew over to the festival.
But the reality once at the festival was tough, “It's not only getting over there. You have to live for a month. So you end up burning cash while you're open”. At times Luke questioned what it had taken, “Even though I went in with my eyes open that it was going to be expensive, I still underestimated the cost, and that was a tough lesson. And for a long time, I was like, well, what was the point in that? What did I gain out of that?”
In the end, they did gain a lot. They worked with one of the big four venue operators, Assembly, who helped their first season at the festival to be a success. For the second season, staring down the face of another expensive run, Luke connected with a friend from New Zealand, whose Parisian theatre company decided to come on board as a European-based team to help put the show on, which was an opportunity he never would have seen coming. “There are so many opportunities there that if your goal is to go in and sell as many tickets as possible and make money, then that's sadly not it. That's a hard thing to achieve. But if your goal is to go in with an open mind to meet people who can help you take it further, then that's the way to approach Fringe.”
This year will be the third time the award-winning show is at the festival, where it has received numerous five-star reviews and performed to sold-out crowds. “It feels like we’re getting attention and the momentum keeps growing,” says Luke. There are lots of opportunities on the horizon, he has been approached by some big names that helped launch other careers and is in talks to tour the show across a few big markets.
There’s a saying at the fringe that everyone makes money apart from the performers. For most, this is true, they’ll likely cover their costs or make a loss. But as Kiwis, we do have a knack for finding a way to make it work over in Edinburgh and telling stories and jokes that resonate. This year I’ll be lucky enough to attend the festival, and I have got my eyes on a couple of notable newcomers: How to Art, a clowning masterpiece by Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn about making art, and HR the Musical, a riotous musical sketch-comedy, that makes fun of corporate absurdity and office culture. We’ll have to wait and see whose gamble will pay off.
