In the run-up to the Edinburgh festival fringe last year, comedian John Tothill was having “horrific hallucinations of being pulled into hell by the devil”. But it wasn’t the stress of the festival’s ever-increasing costs that was causing Tothill’s nightmares, but rather the deadly disease he had willingly contracted to help him pay them.
Artists taking shows to the fringe shoulder a serious financial risk. The price varies depending on the type of show, but last year three artists revealed costs of between £7,000 and £22,000. Meanwhile, Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Fringe Society, called accommodation costs a “grim reaper” for the festival.
“I wanted to go to Edinburgh in 2023, so I was basically looking up ways of getting windfall amounts,” said Tothill. He settled on a medical study. He’d earn more than £2,000 to be infected with malaria. “I had to sign forms that said I wouldn’t leave the study once I’d been injected. Without medication, it was one of the strains of malaria that does kill.”
Things didn’t quite go to plan. The malaria wasn’t reaching Tothill’s bloodstream as fast as it should have, leading to “serious conversations” where, because the trial was paid per day, Tothill had to deny “sabotaging the experiment for my own financial gain … they wondered if I was drinking loads of G&Ts.” When the malaria did hit, it hit hard. Under the supervision of researchers, Tothill recovered – and, more importantly, gained plenty of material for this year’s standup show.
Megan Prescott, actor and writer, who starred as Katie Fitch in Skins, had ambitions to make a play, but “because of the costs,” she said, “it wasn’t a possibility”. Prescott has always been acutely aware of how financially tough it is to sustain a career in the arts: “People have a misunderstanding of how much you get paid as an actor.” Post-Skins, she had several jobs – waitress, nanny, tour guide – alongside acting. A friend who worked as a stripper suggested: “You could earn the same [as you make as bartender] as a stripper doing less hours, so you’d have more time for acting – and she was right. But I thought: this is career-ending if anyone finds out.”
When the pandemic hit, Prescott joined OnlyFans, posting erotic photos of herself. “It changed my life,” she said. “I’ve had the time, energy and mental space to do creative work, because I’m not working myself into the ground doing a minimum-wage job.”
She turned these experiences into a semi-autobiographical play, Really Good Exposure, about a former child star who’s considering porn to pay the bills. Getting it to Edinburgh is costing “many thousands”, but Prescott had an idea – she’d sell a few of her first fully nude photos. “I’m going to be naked in the show anyway, in a very important scene about contextual and conditional consent. How come I don’t feel internalised shame about nudity there, but have felt [nudity being stigmatised] with OnlyFans? It seemed like a logical decision.”
Other artists turned to crowdfunding. Madelaine Moore, director and co-producer of Son of a Bitch, the debut play of comedian Anna Morris, said theatre makers had to consider cast fees, set building, rehearsal rooms, insurance, then getting to and staying in Edinburgh. Funding options are limited, especially for the Fringe, which Arts Council England does not cover. There’s the Keep It Fringe Fund, which this year awarded 180 recipients £2,500 bursaries, plus the Untapped Award and the Charlie Hartill Fund. “But a handful of artists get those and it’s highly competitive.”
Crowdfunding felt like “a calculated risk” – the play centres on a woman who goes viral when a stranger films her swearing at her toddler, which “feels very zeitgeisty in the wider discussion about motherhood and expectations on women”, plus Morris had an established following.
The cons? “Crowdfunding is a job in itself,” Moore said. “You can only really hit people up once. Especially right now. People do not have spare money.”
Emma Howlett used crowdfunding for her debut show, Her Green Hell, last year. It led to the holy grail of fringe funding: a benefactor. A charitable trust looking for a company to support saw the show and loved it: “They were like, we want to give you a generous grant. Make whatever you want, no strings attached. It has enabled us to take a really big swing this year creatively.”
Howlett had the idea for her new play, Sisters Three, last year – the funding allowed her to immediately bring it to life. She notes that more companies are taking “fallow years between shows” to spend time raising funds. “What artists need is money in our bank accounts,” she said.
In recent years, artists have spoken about opting out of the fringe. Those who do go are taking fewer risks, Moore said: “People are going with fully polished shows that they feel are commercially viable.”
Despite his contribution to medical science, Tothill still had to find more money: “It’s a scandal that this life-threatening situation didn’t even cover the costs.”
• This article was amended on 22 July 2024 to add that Megan Prescott’s play, Really Good Exposure is only semi-autobiographical, and to clarify two comments in the same section.
