Proper update coming on the proper free fringe website shortly, but on (soft) deadline day for applications for Durham Free Fringe, I can report that in the last few weeks it's gone nuts. One month ago, interest was only trickling in, and I was stressing over whether we'd be able to put on an event any bigger than the pilot festival last year. Now it's a new challenge: with more entries than we were expecting, a new task to find venues to put everyone.

Our aim is unchanged: we want a stage for everyone, and I'm still hopeful we can accommodate everyone who applied. We are in discussions with several venues to increase our capacity, and hope to be able to share news soon for who's on board. After than we can embark on scheduling and offers.

In the mix of this, we have Durham Fringe applicants to consider. A handful of Free Fringe applicants also applied to Durham Fringe - if that's you, don't worry, we can include you. We have deliberately planned the programming process so that unsuccessful Durham Fringe applicants can consider us an alternative - that's the reason why the 31st March is a "soft" deadline. Nevertheless, I'm sure you'll appreciate that we don't have the resources to find a home for all 100+ applicants without a Durham Fringe venue. Our current plan is to programme for the acts we already have first. After that, we should have a better idea if we have gaps in the programme we can fill.

All getting exciting/stressful now. All that remains is to thank everyone who put their trust in us for fringe week - we want to make sure our trust is earned.

Yay! I can finally announce this. And this news really has come out of the blue.

It's Not Cluedo is coming to Old Joint Stock Theatre! And this is a really big deal for me. Until now, It's Not Cluedo has always been done at inclusive venues where I've made the approach to the venue. This time, however, the venue approached me. Old Joint Stock is a pub theatre in Birmingham, but it's also one of the most famous pub theatres in the country - I keep hearing about them and the productions they host there.

I realise this news won't be of much use to the majority of my readers who see me either in the north-east or Brighton/Buxton Fringe, but if anyone is in reach of Birmingham, it's on 30th April at 7.30 p.m., which I can take in on a detour to Brighton Fringe. This is going to be a little different to normal - since the tickets cost more than usual (I always respect the host venue's pricing policy), I'm going to go the extra mile and give you an extended show with TWO mysteries to solve. I might also work in some extra bells and whistles, and I only got the news a couple of weeks ago and I'm still considering what I can do.

This is my first time doing my own show in a fully professional venue, so I have a lot of people to thank for this journey. For everyone who's been a guest on the show, thank you so much, but thanks especially to Hooky Productions, Shellshock Improv, Brainsoup Collective, Dean Logan, Sam Honour and Becky Clayburn for helping me develop this show through workshops and previews. Of course, thank you to Michelle Yim and Ross Ericson at the Rotunda for taking a chance on my crazy idea with their co-productions. And finally: thanks to everyone who came to my shows and told people how they enjoyed it - I still don't know how this show came to Old Joint Stock's attention, but word of mouth publicity does count a lot, so thank you so much for that.

I still stunned by this, I keep reloading the web page to convince myself this is really happening and not just a wind-up. But it's here, and if you want tickets, come this way.

Late to the party with this one, and I announced this all on social media last week, but, for a change, I am doing live music for a play.

It's The Glass Menagerie at the City Theatre, and although I'm biased, I think I've done a really good good job with the music I composed on the fly for this.

I hope to get a proper recording of this done as a showcase for future directors, but I'm not familiar with musical recordings and that might take some time for me to figure out. In the meantime, I have a preview of in in the (very darkened) wings at the dress rehearsal. Wordpess is being difficult to file sizes, so here's a link to see it on Bluesky or Instagram.

Running Sun 8th - Sat 14th February. 2.30 Sun/Sat, 7.30 weekdays. Tickets from Gala Theatre Box Office or on the door, Durham City Theatre.

Postscript: Observant readers will notice this is the same City Theatre I had a highly public and acrimonious falling out with two years ago. The situation has moved on, and there is a reason why it's this particular play, but it would not be helpful to give a running commentary. Ask offline if you really want to know. I may or may not tell you.

This article was previously posted to the Durham Free Fringe website (yes, we have a proper website now), but a copy of the text is here for the benefit of anyone still looking for updates here.

After a successful launch, we are delighted to announce that programming has begun for our second year. Here’s how it’s going to work:

About the Free Fringe

The “Free Fringe” concept originated in Edinburgh. Most venues at the Edinburgh Fringe were pop-up theatre spaces, fully equipped with stages, sound and lighting. Whilst great things could be achieved on these small stages, demand was at a premium, and many artists struggled to find a venue, or afford a venue, or both. Then organisations like PBH and Laughing Horse recognised that, for many performers, you only need a room and an audience. Without these budget overheads, the events could be both free to take part in and free to watch, with artist income coming entirely from audience donations.

Although the Free Fringe was originally for aspiring stand-up comedians, the scope has since grown wider. Some successful comedians have remained with the free fringe, storytelling, poetry and music have found homes there, and even theatre has been known to work. Established acts have often used the free fringe as a launch pad for new experimental work, but polished performances can also be found there. There’s a whole world of possibilities, and this is what we’re trying to being to Durham.

In 2026, Durham Free Fringe once again runs parallel to Durham Fringe on Wednesday 29th July to Sunday 2nd August. Our primary base will be the Holy GrAle, but we intend to reach out to other spaces to accommodate whatever interest we receive.

Like the Free Fringe in Edinburgh, you should not expect performance spaces to the same spec as the more commercial venues, but as we both technical backgrounds, we can go above and beyond support normally offered in free fringe spaces. Microphones, sound operation/design and projectors are all possible within reason. However, things such as lighting plots, blackouts or complex sets are definitely out. You are advised to have a plan in place that makes minimal use of tech, and treat anything we provide as optional extras.

Scheduling works similar to conventional fringe shows, with most acts being around an hour. For shorter acts, we will look to amalgamate them into a mixed-bill event, with our headline event, Just Off The Bailey Banter, taking stand-up sets and more.

There is no charge or deposit to take part in Durham Free Fringe – we can do this thanks the the kind support of the venues that host us. Audiences are invited to donate money at the end, which goes entirely to the performer.

We will be doing some festival-wide publicity, through posters, flyers and social media, but, like most fringe venues, we cannot guarantee an audience. So we encourage our artists to publicise their own acts. We are happy to help distribute any posters or flyers we receive from you, and propagate social media publicity (we are currently on Instagram and Bluesky).

And finally: We are not trying to compete with Durham Fringe. We are adding to the festival atmosphere that Durham Fringe did such a good job starting, but our event is very different. We have a different offering for artists and draw a different audience, and it our aspiration to add to Durham Fringe, not compete with it.

And that sums us up. If this appeals to you, read on.

What’s changed for 2026

We kept our inaugural year small and manageable, so we expect most of you to be new to us. However, for those you joined us last year, we’re doing a few things differently this time. Our key changes are:

• We are going to be programming further in advance this year. Last year, we opened programming in April so that acts did not need to commit months in advance – but, for a number of reasons, this created more problems than it solved. This time, we are setting a deadline on the 31st March for applications, after which we will start scheduling. This is a “soft” deadline and we will still consider applications after this date if we have space, but we will prioritise applications received before this date.
• Last year, we didn’t go out of our way to encourage applications from Durham Fringe hopefuls, but we ended up with some crossover anyway … and we decided we liked it. So this year, we are going to be a lot more accommodating of artists applying to both us and Durham Fringe. Our programming schedule takes into account Durham Fringe’s schedule, and you are welcome to apply to us if your show doesn’t get a slot at Durham Fringe. The one thing we won’t do is programme a show also running at Durham Fringe – there are too many problems to make that doable.
• We have an application form this year. We like to keep the process as easy as possible, and last year we did it all through informal emails. However, there’s certain things we need to establish early, such as when you are available and what tech support you need. We don’t want to put any off with unnecessarily complex application processes, so we’re open to suggestions on whether this approach is the right balance.
• We are taking a different approach to venues this year. The Holy Grale remains our key hub, but we are looking to take on other spaces as needed to meet demand. We hope to be in a position to announce more venues soon, but this is an experiment and we’ll see how it goes.
• And finally, we would welcome your help. Last year, it was just the two of us (Aadil Kurji and Chris Neville-Smith); this year we’re looking to build up more of a team. However, we’re aspiring for Durham Free Fringe to be an operation run by artists for artists. If you are performing with us, or you performed with us last year, we’ll welcome any offers of help. If, however, you’re not a performer, for the time being we encourage you to volunteer with Durham Fringe instead of us. But that’s only a guide – if you specifically want to work with us, let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

How to apply

To apply, go to our application page. The form will work its magic and send it to us, and we will get back to you within 72 hours. This will probably just be a confirmation we’ve received it, but we might ask some queries if there’s anything that need clarifying. If you don’t get an acknowledgement within 72 hours, please chase us up with an email, to be on the safe side – there’s a chance the internet failed as and we never got your application.

If for any reason you can’t use the online form, we’ve also made available forms in Word format, Libreoffice format or plain text, that you can email to us manually. However, please use the online form if you can, because it’s easier for us to process.

Please do not stress too much over what to put in the form – we hope to accommodate everyone who applies, and the information you give us will mostly likely be used by us for scheduling and general planning. Probably the most important decision to make is choosing a show description for the programme that appeals to an audience – but we are happy to advise on that if you’re not sure what to do.

We are not particularly bothered about whether you are seasoned fringe veterans or complete beginners. Unlike more commercial operations, where the pressure is on to programme well-known acts to bring in the crowds, we are more interested in giving everyone a chance to perform. What is more important to us is practicality. We might have to say no if we think your set/prop/tech requirements are not achievable in the spaces we have. Likewise if we can’t work to your availability. But if you want to take artistic risks, from your first time on stage to new untested work, you are welcome.

We expect do to most of our scheduling and offers in April. This is because we expect all Durham Fringe applications to be accounted for one way or the other, but still leave artists with plenty of time to plan their July with a firm date from us.

And that’s it. Hope this is simple enough. We look forward to hearing from you.

Questions and answers:

Can you really do theatre in a free fringe space? The Free Fringe is overwhelmingly associated with comedy, particularly stand-up comedy. The reasons why aren’t surprising: stand-up comedy needs little more than a microphone and an audience; and with almost all free fringe spaces being pubs, this is the entertainment pubgoers most warm to.

But theatre can work too provided you know what you’re doing. A play directed for the conventional stage will struggle to work in a free fringe setting due to limited space, lack of tech capability and chattier audiences. But a theatre piece that makes good us of the space it’s set in and heavily interacts with the audience can work very well.

Are there maximum and minimum running times? There are no hard and fast rules on minimum running times. Last year we were able to take acts as short as five minutes by including them in our mixed bill comedy. If you have a short act that’s isn’t comedy, please apply anyway – we’ve found that that other types of act such as spoken word can suit these events too.

For maximum running times, we work to the base assumption of shows being an hour long with a half-hour gap between them, which means shows of up to 75 minutes should be feasible. Anything longer will be difficult, and we will be reluctant to programme something that takes up space that could have gone to two other acts. But ask us – we may be able to make this work.

Can I take a work in progress to Durham Free Fringe? Yes! This is one of the things Free Fringe does best. Some of the most successful Fringe shows out there developed on the Free Fringe.

Whether you advertise your show as work in progress is less straightforward. We don’t expect shows at the free fringe to be fully polished – and arguably all fringe shows are works in progress to some degree. If, however, you are going to be reading off a script, or using cue cards for a stand-up set, it’s probably fair to bill this as WIP. But we can’t police this, so ultimately we’ll trust your judgement on what to call this.

Can I bring one show to Durham Fringe and another to Durham Free Fringe?Yes! We were a bit reluctant to encourage this last year as we didn’t know how much demand there would be, but we’ve decided we like the crossover. You might want to accompany a polished show at Durham Fringe with a new show at Durham Free Fringe, but that’s a suggestion and it’s up to you. Whatever you want to do, you’re welcome.

Am I guaranteed a slot if I apply? We’d love to yes to everybody, and we hope we can, but at this stage, we don’t know. We do have a number of ideas in place for how we can respond to demand, and expand or shrink capacity as needed, but we can only accommodate a finite number of acts and we don’t know how many applications we’re going to get. All we can say at this stage is that our aspiration is stage for everyone, and we hope we deliver on this.

Can we bring our own tech to a Free Fringe venue? We have no objection ourselves to bringing along your own equipment provided you can set it up and strike it in time. However, we would also need permission of the relevant venue, which we can’t guarantee. Best strategy is to tell us what you want to do, try to keep it as simple as possible, and have a tech-free backup plan if we have to say no.

Will we make money from this? Quite honestly, we don’t know. At the Edinburgh free fringe venues, there’s a strong expectation that you should make a proper donation if you can afford it, and £5 or so is considered a typical amount. However, the culture of Free Fringe outside of Edinburgh is relatively new and relatively untested.

However, money isn’t the best reason to do the free fringe. Trying out work, finding an audience, or just having a good time are all things we’d rate as much better reasons. If you know what you’re doing and you think you can make a tidy sum with us on the free fringe, go ahead – but for most applicants, having fun is probably a more worthwhile goal.

You said you’d welcome help from artists performing with you. How do I express interest for that? We’re going to be doing that later. We considered including this in the application process, but decided against it as this could prejudice our decision-making. Those of you who performed last year and expressed an interest in helping this year – we will be contacting you shortly. Everyone else: we’ll probably ask after we’ve given out offers.

And to stress once again: there is absolutely no obligation here. If you just want to do your own show, that’s fine. But the more help we get, the more help we can give other artists in the future.

I have a different question! Please ask, at hello@durhamfreefringe.org.uk. We’re not giving a running commentary of every discussion we’ve had and every decision we’ve made, but we’re quite open about our plans, and we’re quite happy to answer any questions of what we’re doing and why.

And that’s it. Look forward to hearing from you.

This was supposed to be one of the thing I wrote in December, but due to the combination of my day job temporarily going nuts, and me fighting off a monster stomach bug at the same time. Anyone waiting for me to wrap up everything on the theatre blog, apologies. Will make a proper attempt to catch up this weekend.

Anyway, here we go:

The good ...

Fewer items to list compared to last year, but one of them really is a big deal.

• We launched Durham Free Fringe. Probably the most audacious thing I've ever done in theatre. And the most stress-inducing as well. Honestly, I'd spent pretty much every day from November 2024 to July 2025 stressing over how this would turn out. Would we get enough acts? Would we get an audience? Would things hold together with our venues? And so many other things. But, madlads that we are, we pulled it off. Enough to put a programme together, and whilst the audience varied from event to event, I'd say our bigger events had some really respectable audiences. I won't tell a lie, not everything worked as well as we hoped it would, we had some precarious moments, and we learned a lot of lessons. But that was our first attempt, and we've got a better plan in place for Durham Free Fringe 2026. Hope to open programming in the next week or so.
• It's not Cluedo had its second year, continuing my partnership with the Rotunda at Brighton Fringe, reprising at Scarborough, finally coming to Buxton and Durham, both of which I'd wanted to do for ages. The show's evolved into something a lot more versatile than last year, able to scale up from informal games with a handful of audience to all-star line ups at Brighton Fringe - but I have to say, my favourite show this year was a Brighton Fringe one. No disrespect to the rest of my guests, all of whom were great, but the show that featured Do The Thing, Glenda and Rita, Aaron Weight and Bad Clowns was INCREDIBLE. Lots of people funnier than me taking the show to levels I could never have done on my own.
• I performed Doctor Coppelius. A much lower-key project, partly because the Buxton Fringe venue where I'd intended to do this, the Green Man Gallery, sadly closed for 2025. But I really did love performing in Scrivener's bookshops so I stuck with a set of intimate performances there. Got some really good feedback from that. I'm not quite done with this, because the new Rotunda Pip space was just too tempting for an encore, so if you'd like to see me do something serious for a change at Brighton Fringe, you can see me there.
• I've been getting busy with lighting. Just a side-project compared to everything else, but I finally managed to get my mits on some lighting rigs of the big theatres. I learned loads from And There Were None at the People's Theatre, although I left the big decisions to the director there as he knows his way round the 100+ lights better than me. Then it was an encore for Durham University Ballet Company where I had two hours to knock together a lighting plot from zero. Oh, and I found out at the last moment I was operating the sound too. But miraculously it worked and I was amazed by how this turned out.
• I ditched Theatre Twitter: Not the grandest milestone of the year, but really wanted to do this ever since the AI revenge porn guy bought the site. Quite apart from the moral arguments - of which I have many - it's just become totally unusable, from stupid promotion of Musk-approved conspiracy theories to just being overrun by bugs. Until last year, however, I was stuck with the hellsite for the lack of a viable alternative. But finally, enough people moved to Bluesky for me to set up a new home there, thanks to the election of an orange maniac. I'd have preferred it if aforementioned orange maniac wasn't elected, but a social media channel that actually works is a silver lining.

I've got photos from various projects to add to the site which I hope to finally get round to. But honestly, I've got some good ones.

The bad ...

Partly because I'm aware that the temptation is for artists to paint a artificially good picture of success, but mostly so I can do a play on words of that Clint Eastwood film, here's the things that didn't work so well.

• I got the walk of shame. It finally happened. Every fringe performer dreads getting no-one to a performance, and I've had a few near misses, but it finally happened for one of my Doctor Coppelius performances at Buxton. In my defence, this happened during a monster heatwave and it clobbered ticket sales for pretty much everybody in the first week. Second week was better, but always frustrating to not get the word-of-mouth publicity you need at the start of the run. MI actually had sold tickets for that performance, but they didn't turn up. My request: please don't do that. If you buy tickets to a small show where every bum on seat counts, it really demoralises performers to simply not come along when you were expected. You've got the rest of the evening to chill out in the sun.
• I've hit the limit for what I can do: I've been aware for a few years that I cannot do one billion squillion zillion things at the same time, and I've been careful over what I commit to in the summer. Even so, five fringes in four months (two shows, one venue to run and lots of reviewing) is a lot of work and a lot of stress, and - I won't tell a lie - I was approaching breaking point by the end of it. As a result, I'm going to be more careful about overstretching myself in 2026. For anyone who thinks they're not doing enough and looking enviously at people who do everything and wondering how we manage to do it all - take it from me, we're looking enviously at you not having all these high-stress high-stakes projects. Do copy what I'm doing unless you're mad.
• I ditched Theatre Twitter. Whilst I'm glad to be rid of the cursed birdapp hellsite, Bluesky has only been a partial substitute. Progress on a theatre Bluesky community is slow, and I suspect it will never fully rebuild what was once Theatre Twitter. And that's not good for me, because that was one of my best publicity channels. Theatre blog hasn't been too bad, because Google has mostly filled the gap left my Twitter, but my theatre projects have taken a bigger hit with publicity. Instagram seems to have taken over as the main social media publicity channel now, but I've found images too much of a faff. No intention of going back, though - even if I wanted to, Theatre Twitter's pretty much decimated now. So it's still worth it.

... and the ugly:

It wasn't my play to make The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly an annual theme. I thought the shenanigans with Durham Dramatic Society was the last ugly bit of business I had to deal with. Sadly, there's more.

• A venue I used to perform at turned racist on us. I've said my piece elsewhere as to why I believe Whistlebinkies' and Banshee Labyrinth's exclusion of a Jewish performers from their Edinburgh Fringe programmes is both illegal and racist, and I won't repeat that here. But there's nothing more gutting than one of the venues doing this being a place I performed at and liked. The easy thing to do would be to do what most fringe performers do, and keep my head down - but after all the time I spent banging on about standing up to wrongdoing wherever you see it, it would have hypocritical of me. Ah well, looks like I won't be going back to Edinburgh Horror Festival in a hurry. I can at least take a small comfort that I tricked Banshee Labyrinth into hosting a play they'd never have permitted if they knew what it was really saying. And, satisfyingly, Banshee Labyrinth can never admit they'd have had a problem with that.
• Durham Dramatic Society doesn't seem to be getting much better. Much as I resent how I was treated, part of me wondered if the root problem was me. Was the society was getting on better without me? The answer, it turns out, is no. There's been a pretty ugly incident which, for once, I had nothing to do with. I'm not going to say what allegedly happened, because I've heard contradictory accounts, I've drawn a blank over who (if anyone) is in the wrong, and this would be damaging the people should the allegations be wrong and/or a misunderstanding. What I will say - and I'm saying this because I still care about the future of DDS - is that they really do need a proper complaints procedure. This is nowhere near as bad as Banshee Labyrinth (who richly deserve to be sued to high heaven), but incidents like this could still put them on the wrong side of the law. I have no reason to believe I will be listened to, but I'm happy to explain how you're pushing your luck with the Equality Act and what you ought to do about it.

Okay, this summary looks more downbeat than it really is. But, honestly, the launch of Durham Free Fringe was by far my biggest event of 2025, and everything else was just footnotes. Hopefully in 2026 I'll have a lot more good things to tell you about Durham Free Fringe. Please don't give me any bad or ugly things to write about.

Okay, that's enough procrastination. It's time to start thinking about next year's fringe season, and the big one will be plans for Durham Free Fringe 2026. When we wrapped up this year we'd pretty much decided we were going to do this, but decided very little else about how this would work. Well, we've finally got our heads together to start making plans. And the first decision we have to make is who's going to be operating this.

As I've mentioned several times before, 2025 was always intended to be a small and manageable season, so it was two of us (Aadil Kurji and myself) doing all the things between us, from top-level decision making to petty admin. Does this make sense for future years? To be honest, we don't know. The size of Durham Free Fringe is heavily dependent on demand, and whilst we have some influence with how heavily we publicise our call for participants, we have no idea how much demand is out there. It could remain as a small niche operation, or it grow to a big network of venues like the Free Fringe organisations in Edinburgh do. Only one thing is for certain: even with the low-budget low-resource model we use, there's only a finite number of acts two people can oversee.

So we've had a discussion and we're ready to share our first decisions for our plans next year.

Our first decision is that, for next year, governance remains unchanged. Aadil and myself will continue to make decisions between us. Of course, we are always listening for how you think this should be run, and if you have any views on how you'd like this to work, please reach out to us. After Durham Free Fringe 2026, we will review this arrangement again.

Our second decision, however, is something new. Our decision in principle is that we want Durham Free Fringe to be run by artists. There are many different ways fringe venues work, all of which are valid, but the advantage of venues run by artists for artists is that the people doing the work have hands-on experience of understanding the aspiration and struggles of the people taking part.

As such, from next year, if you want to perform with us, you will also be welcome and encouraged to help out with the wider event. Exactly how this works depends on what people think they have to offer. Maybe you can operate sound cues on another show, maybe you can help us with publicity, or maybe you just have a bunch of friends you can bring along to support some acts - whatever you think you can do, we're interested. To be clear, however, this is entirely optional. If you just want to do your own show, that's also fine, and this won't count against you we're doing programming. If you performed with us this year - you're welcome to get involved whether or not you're planning a follow-up next year.

For prospective volunteers who are not performers: for the time being, we are still encouraging you to volunteers for Durham Fringe instead of us. This isn't because we don't want you, but because we want to avoid a team getting too large and unwieldy until we have a better idea of how this works for us. But, again, if, whatever reason, you specifically want to work with us, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

If you're waiting for news on how to apply, be patient. We won't be starting programming until the New Year. But in the meantime, if you want to contact us for whatever reason - be it feedback, interest in performing, or offers to help you - contact us at hello@durhamfreefringe.org.uk and we'll get back to you.

Postscript: Finally: yes, know. I am continuing to use my website for Durham Free Fringe updates when we have a proper free fringe website now. Please bear with us - properly configuring that site beyond a one-page job is on our list of things to do, but we're both currently ridiculously busy in our day jobs. We hope to soon have all the key information over there.

I aim to do updates at least monthly, but this is going to be a quick update because there is no news. After five fringes in four months, I've been comatose. Of course, it didn't help that I've been on holiday for nine days - as people who know me can attest, my holidays are even more exhausting than my fringe activities.

Things aren't quite still. We've had a first discussion on Durham Free Fringe plans for next year. Nowhere near any formal plans yet, but I hope to make some proper moves next month. We might actually have something to announce sooner than you think, but I'll have to get back to you on that.

And that's your update. Back to hibernation for me.

And that's really it for this year. Not said much about my final month because that was reviewing at Edinburgh Fringe, which you can read all about on my other website. I won't tell a lie, without the chance of a break after Durham Free Fringe, I was approaching breaking point at one time during my visit. But I've made it through to the end, lost count of the number of reviews I got out, and I finally I can have a rest. Well, not a complete rest, I have a few loose ends to tie up. And then I have a holiday to go on, and anybody who knows me knows my holidays are way more tiring than a normal day working. But after that, I'm pretty much clear until fringe season start ramping up in spring next year.

However, my fringe season has ended on a sour note. Two Edinburgh Fringe venues have gone full racist on us and kicked out Jewish performers for being Jewish. (They made claims as to why it wasn't about that, but their excuses are just shit - and, as I made the case on my theatre blog - not excuses accepted by the Equality Act for direct discrimination.) Most gutting: one of them in Banshee Labyrinth, where I have fond memories of doing Edinburgh Horror Festival. I must stress at this point that the racist act has been committed by the host venue, and - as far as I can tell - Edinburgh Horror Festival is an innocent party in this. But it's still enough to make me want to have nothing to do with a business that behaved as such a despicable manner. Had I been doing Edinburgh Horror Festival this year, I would have withdrawn in protest.

Anyway, Edinburgh Horror Festival was fun, but a novelty I can do without. I badly need a rest, so no decisions on anything for at least a month. And if you need to sleep for a month too, go ahead. You've earned it.