Faversham Forever round-up
September 12th, 2008 • comedy, festival, penny dreadfuls
Fringe 2008 and Aeneas Faversham Forever marked my third year of work with The Penny Dreadfuls - following Aeneas Faversham (2006) and Aeneas Faversham Returns (2007) - and I think we’re getting better at it.
Some production detail:
- we jumped ship from the Underbelly to the Pleasance 2, a 156-seat venue in the Pleasance Courtyard.
- our early previews played to over 100 each night; the rest of the four week run was sold out.
- our reviews were extremely positive, with a majority giving us five stars.
- thought the production budget for the entire year (running from development previews in the winter through to fringe) was far larger than either previous show, the company will turn a profit for a third year in a row. Yes, you can make money at the Fringe.
- our publicity was once more designed by the ultra-producer, Idil Sukan. It’s the third year we’ve produced a pack of bespoke playing cards which doubled as fliers: no-one seems willing or able to match the effort or cost of copying us.
- for the third year, we’ve given our audience beautiful badges as they leave the show, this year reading “Henchman of the Month.” It’s a nice call-back to a key scene in the middle of the show (it’s a title awarded for good attendance); audiences seem genuinely delighted to have something to take away with them.
- we spent far too much money on children’s tricycles for a climactic mine-cart chase, which never made it into the show.
- the show now has three further performances in London and Brighton during October, including the Apollo Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue on October 5th.
On a more reflective note, there was a moment mid-fringe where I realised that word-of-mouth is partner to hype, leading to a small percentage of our audience buying tickets for a show that they knew nothing about (other than that a friend thought it was quite good).
On those nights - most often weekends - the cast had to work incredibly hard in the opening scenes to let the audience know what kind of performance they were watching: not only the genres of comedy and melodrama that were being blended, but the way in which the play was staged, characters were created and narrative constructed. That said, audience response was generally very positive, and very generous.
Finally, we’re almost certainly taking a break from the Victoriana for a while: the guys are working on other writing projects (including a pilot for Radio 4), though we may return for a short burst of shows next fringe.
