I can finally announce the thing I've been planning in the background: this July, there is going to be a Durham Free Fringe!

This is starting off as a collaboration between myself and Aadil Kurji. Aadil is a comedian who used to run comedy nights in Bristol, and we've seen an opportunity to pool our experience and connections to get a new pop-up venue running and build on the excellent work Durham Fringe has done in making the city into a Festival City.

We are not yet ready to start programming. We still have details to work out before we make promises to anybody. However, we are now at the stage where we can say the following:

• For those of you familiar with the Free Fringe in Edinburgh, this works to a similar model. There is no charge to take part and no charge to watch a show. Instead, we ask that if you enjoyed show, you donate to the performer at the end of the show.
• Durham Free Fringe is jointly run between Aadil Kurji and myself (Chris Neville-Smith). Aadil is taking the lead with comedy whilst I am taking the lead in theatre, but all major decisions are taking jointly between us.
• We will be primarily based at The Holy GrAle on Crossgate, a few minutes' walk from the city centre. We are considering other spaces too, but this is where we've pencilled in the majority of our time.
• The Free Fringe will run on the 23rd July to 27th July alongside Durham Fringe. However, like our Edinburgh counterparts, we are not directly affiliated with the fringe and run our operations separately.
• We are also not affiliated with Durham Comedy Festival, also operating at the Holy GrAle (and we didn't know about this until a few weeks ago), but we wish them the best of luck when they run on Monday 26th May.
• We are not aiming to compete with Durham Fringe. A free fringe venue is a very different model to a conventional venue, largely suiting different acts and different audiences. However, we have been in discussions with Durham Fringe about setting up a free fringe, and we hope to co-ordinate where it's in our interests to work together.
• In the first year, we intend to keep things simple with a small and manageable programme. But in the long run, we want to be as inclusive as possible.

If you want to be part of this, there is no need to do anything yet. We will be announcing how to get involved as soon as we have make decisions. But if you want to express your interest now, whether to be on stage, in the audience, or just helping out, you can email hello@durhamfreefringe.org.uk, and we will let you know when he have further news.

All very exciting now. We can't wait to share further news on what's coming in due course.

Postscript 17/02:

One afterthought. Durham Fringe's application deadline is this week, and we are aware that some of you might be unsure of whether to go for Fringe or Free Fringe.

For the time being, here is our position. If you are considering both us and Durham Fringe, we advise you to apply to Durham Fringe. We'd love to work with as many of you as possible, but until we have a better idea of availability and uptake with us we don't know if we'd be in a position to programme you, and it's not fair to ask you to pass up the chance to get a slot at Durham Fringe.

Durham Fringe's deadline is this Wednesday (19th Feb). If you don't get programmed by Durham Fringe, by all means come to us next.

As soon as we have made a decision on how we're going to programme on our side, we'll let you know.

Update 07/03:

Thank you to those of you who've expressed an interest so far. If you're interested but haven't already contacted us, don't worry, it's not a race. We hope to commence programming shortly and we'll give more details about what we're after.

In the meantime, we can now announce our second venue: The Station House, underneath the viaduct on the road up to the station. That's all for now: details about how this is going to work coming soon.