Fringe First Awards at Fifty
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00:00 The Fringe First Awards were founded 50 years ago this year to encourage the presentation
00:14 of new work on the fringe. That's new plays, new writing, work that has been created specially
00:20 for the fringe. They were the idea of the then Arts Editor of the Scotsman, a wonderful
00:25 man called Alan Wright, who had been part of the generation who reviewed Stoppard's
00:30 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when it first appeared on the fringe in the 1960s and was
00:34 very excited by the idea of a play that went on to have such a huge global success premiering
00:42 on the fringe. So he thought that he would institute an award to encourage people to
00:46 premiere brand new shows on the fringe and that was how the Fringe Firsts were born.
00:51 So the shows which are eligible are basically theatre shows or shows with a strong theatrical
00:56 element that are being done for the very first time and they're only allowed to have had
01:01 a very few previews wherever they come from before they arrive at the fringe. So if I
01:06 was to look back at some of them I would think of Gregory Burke's Gagarin Way back around
01:11 2000/2001. I would think of brilliant plays by David Gregg and by Steph Smith and by other
01:19 really powerful Scottish playwrights who have gone on to have terrific careers and also
01:25 tremendous international work on the fringe because one of the slight variations to that
01:31 central rule of the Fringe First being for new work is that if there's a brilliant international
01:36 piece that has never been seen in the UK before and has only been around for a couple of years
01:41 in its own country then that too is eligible for a Fringe First. So I'll give one hugely
01:46 vivid example, a show called Nastasia Filipovna at the Traverse in the late 1980s which was
01:53 just a fantastic piece of theatre by a Polish theatre company that was run by the great
01:59 theatre and film director Andrzej Wajda and I remember the vividness of that at the Traverse
02:04 and the sense of the Iron Curtain opening up. One of the most conspicuous examples is
02:10 Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can remember nipping into the underbelly to see the first ever
02:15 version of Fleabag, the one hour solo show that Phoebe performed there herself less than
02:20 a decade ago and I just remember seeing the huge response that that was getting from audiences,
02:25 particularly from young women in the audience and I thought well this is not really my generation
02:29 but this woman is obviously really on to something, she's really striking a nerve here and of
02:34 course she has gone on to be a huge international star both as a writer and as a performer and
02:40 she is now chair actually of the Fringe Society supporting the Edinburgh Fringe in that role.
02:45 Way back at the very beginning of the Fringe Firsts I can remember this great generation
02:49 of Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson when they were students just emerging from
02:55 university they were in Fringe First winning reviews at that time. I remember Rowan Atkinson
03:02 doing a show in what used to be the Wireworks, it was a huge sort of towering venue behind
03:08 where the Fringe office is and that was amazing and almost every famous routine that people
03:15 associate with Rowan Atkinson was already in that show way back in the late 1970s and
03:20 I can remember this huge response. So I mean really the Fringe is a tremendous sort of
03:25 breeding ground for big stars and the boost that you can give to brilliant young companies
03:31 at the start of their career is just such a thrill.
03:35 I'm Shona McCarthy, I'm the Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.
03:40 The Fringe Firsts have been such an important part of the development of the Fringe because
03:45 they really give recognition to those emerging artists, people who may be bringing a show
03:51 for the first time and I think it's just so vital because everybody doesn't realise that
03:57 the Fringe is one of those festivals where artists come in to bring work or doing so
04:01 at their own risk and very often financing their own way at the Fringe. So the Fringe
04:06 Firsts being in recognition of work that's here for the first time, work from emerging
04:12 artists, new experimental work, it's just been an absolutely crucial element of why
04:18 artists want to come to the festival in the first place.
04:21 The Fringe Firsts in my opinion are more important today than ever because you have artists and
04:26 companies out there who may be preparing work over a year, two years, finessing it to bring
04:32 it to the Fringe. And to have the recognition of a Fringe First, you've got Joyce Macmillan,
04:39 you've got these incredible people making the decisions, people who have enormous experience,
04:45 so it brings with it a validation. It can also bring on a practical level, getting a
04:49 Fringe First can mean that your show has an audience for the rest of the run and the audience
04:56 not necessarily just punters but also arts industry people who are coming to look for
05:01 that new writing, that new talent and the potential of onward life for the show. So
05:06 winning a Fringe First can be an absolute accelerant to your Fringe journey and if your
05:13 objective is to have your talent recognised, to have a potential for your work being picked
05:19 up and taken elsewhere, then having a Fringe First just makes a massive difference.
05:24 Thank you so much for the award. I love it!
05:29 Thank you.
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