From 1-10 June this year the award-winning venue group Underground Venues will be hosting a programme of comedy, theatre, music and magic at the Old Fire Station, as part of the Oxford Fringe.

We are looking for volunteers to help with front of house – selling tickets, ushering customers and liaising with acts. This is a great chance to get experience in venue-management, meet people / make contacts and work in this newly refurbished Oxford theatre.

Volunteers get the chance to see loads of free shows from a programme including comedians Isy Suttie, Simon Munnery and John Hegley, as well as free tickets to give to friends. Shifts run 5pm-11pm most days but volunteers do not need to commit to all days.

For more information or to apply please contact us on oxford@underthefringe.com or on Twitter at @underthefringe

Some exciting news Fringe fans.

This year, Underground Venues is going to be branching out and running a venue on the Oxford Fringe for the first time.

Yes, the town of dreaming spires, punting, dictionaries and a special comma also has a Fringe festival! Like Buxton and Brighton, it’s a smaller version of the Edinburgh Fringe and hosts a wide range of acts from every genre and all across the world. It’s place at the beginning of June also makes it perfect for Fringe acts heading north to the daddy of them all in August.

The venue we’re running is called the Old Fire Station (OFS). It used to be a fire station (duh!) and then served as a student theatre for some years before closing for refurbishment. It’s now reopened as a state-of-the-art arts centre, fully furnished and can seat up to 158. And it’s position on George Street puts it right in the centre of town, seconds walk from the Bodelian, Sheldonian and Ashmolean (and many others things that rhyme with “ian”).

If you’re an act, the good news is applications are open now – just head to www.underthefringe.com/oxford Due to earlier deadlines however, applications will close on February 15th.

If you’re a Fringe fan, you’ll have to wait til June. The dates are 1st – 10th June but our full programme will be announced at www.underthefringe.com/oxford in March.

We hope you see you all – performers or audiences – there in June.

We are pleased to announce that after a hugely successful 2011 Fringe, Underground Venues will be back at the 2012 Buxton Fringe.

We are currently busy in the process of applying for funding that will help to make our this arm of Thundergree’s work sustainable for coming  years. So wish us luck with that.

We will be open for applications for the 2012 Buxton Fringe at the beginning of February. Check back here then, follow our twitter or go to this page to register your interest.

Hope to see you all in 2012, and here’s to the future of Fringe!

Great news from another of the Underground alumni – this time sketch group Clever Peter.

This group of four very silly men brought their first show to Underground Venues in 2009, before heading up to The Pleasance for the Edinburgh Fringe. They returned in 2010 with their follow-up, previewing Underground once more before being spotted in Edinburgh by the big-wigs of the comedy world.

They’ve now finished creating a show for Radio 4 – much like another Underground alumnus Helen Keen last year. Yaz went along to a recording recently and laughed an awful lot. Thankfully so did other people. You can hear their work – 6 15-minute shows – very soon on Radio 4.

Very clever Peter – well done!

Huge congratulations to Underground regulars Max And Ivan who have just been awarded the Panel Prize by the Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Awards for their rahter incredible Fringe event The Wrestling.

Already well-known for their double-act sketch show, which this year won the Best Comedy award for its run at Underground Venues, the duo organised a breathtaking extravaganza that mixed stand-up comic and professional wrestlers. Although Max  broke his ankle, their efforts were justly rewarded with one of comedies most coverted prizes.

The Fosters Comedy Award started life as the Perrier Award and has started the path to fame for many now-household names. We wish Max and Ivan the best of luck coping with their new found fame and hope still come back to visit next year!

Underground Venues has been honoured once again to host a wide variety of shows before they head up to that Athens of the North (or Reykjavik of the South) – Edinburgh.

This Edinburgh Fringe – the world’s largest arts  festival – kicks off this week (Wednesday for many of the larger venues). We’d like to wish the best of luck to all the Underground acts making the journey. Here’s wishing you many many stars!

If you’re heading up there, do check them out. We’ve seen them already and there are some sure fire hits. You can see a full list of who’s heading up from Underground here. And find out where they’re on at here.

Sadly we will not be heading up with Three’s Company this year – we’re having a year off for the first time in five years. But I’ll be there on my own, working in the Pleasance Press Office if you want to say “hi” (and hang out in Brooke’s Bar with me).

As the last of the acts pack their vans and we remove the last illogically packed box of equipment from the Old Hall cellar, it’s time to say goodbye to Underground 2011 and goodbye to Buxton for another year.

It’s been a big year for both Underground Venues and the Buxton Fringe. Underground celebrated our 6th year with a graduation to the world above ground. Our two Arts Centre spaces had a fantastic first year with a new scale of comedy and drama filling both the 93 and 200 seat auditoriums. This new venture was perfectly complemented by our original atmospheric home under the Old Hall Hotel which, along with its all-day bar, has now firmly established itself as the heart of the Fringe.

Preliminary number-crunching shows sales are massively up on last year – proving clearly both the Buxton Fringe and Underground are attracting more audience each year and have the potential to go further.

Buxton’s place in the Fringe circuit – Brighton in May, Buxton in July, Edinburgh in August – has now been embraced by both acts and press. This year we’ve seen further growth in the number of the country’s finest acts touring to Underground Venues after Brighton or previewing with us before Edinburgh. Respected Edinburgh critics Fringe Guru and Fringe Review have also added Buxton to their dedicated coverage, and we’re pleased to see almost all their visits were to Underground. And they seem to have had a good time – read their coverage here and here.

Underground acts also excelled at the Buxton Fringe awards ceremony – held yesterday. In a year of particularly high quality, we were pleased to see Best Comedy Show, Best Comedy Performer, Best Theatre Production, Best New Writing, Best Young Theatre Production, Best Young Actor, Best Dance and Best Family Show going to Underground (almost a clean sweep of comedy and drama!). See here for the full list.

And good news for the artistic end of our operation – Three’s Company – who received several rave reviews (and an award) for their two premieres this Fringe – Not The Messiah and The Importance Of Being Frank.

So it’s time to start planning and scheming for next year, with hopes to expand our operation once more. During the year we’ll be in Buxton but can be found at @underthefringe or facebook.com/underthefringe

The Brighton Fringe – the largest Frige in England (followed by Buxton!) – has now been and gone. And there’s some great news for a couple of acts heading to us in Buxton later in the summer.

With an all-star cast and writing team, we were expecting great things already from Big Daddy Vs Giant Haystacks. And they have had quite an incredible Brighton Fringe. We’ve just had word they picked up both a Fringe Guru Editor’s Choice Award AND a Latest 7 award for Best Male Performance. We can’t wait to see the show when it heads north to us in a few weeks time.

2011 also sees the latest (and last?) installment of the Bane series. Bane and Bane 2 have already played at Underground Venues, as well as travelling the country, with a string of amazed audiences and awards left in their wake. It should come as no surprise then that this third installment has picked up a Argus Angel Award at the Brighton Fringe, at the start of it’s tour around the country. Catch it – and the other two parts – at Underground this July.

The Brighton Fringe is currently occuring down in the beautiful city of hardened sugar sticks and wooden bridges that go nowhere.

And quite a few Underground acts are appearing there before heading north to our own Buxton Fringe. Not quite as large as Brighton admittedly but still with all the best shows. So the whet your appetite, here’s a selection of reviews from the Brighton Fringe so far.

Looks like we’re in for some treats!

Max And Ivan: Holmes And Watson
Fringe Guru: http://www.fringeguru.com/editorial/brighton-2011/max-and-ivan-holmes-and-watson-preview.html
Fringe Review: http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview/3997.html

Big Daddy Vs Giant Haystacks
Fringe Guru: http://www.fringeguru.com/editorial/brighton-2011/big-daddy-vs-giant-haystacks.html
Fringe Review: http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview/4045.html
The Argus: http://www.theargus.co.uk/brightonfestival/critic/9059255.Big_Daddy_Vs_Giant_Haystacks__The_Old_Courtroom__Brighton__May_27/

The Clock Master
Fringe Guru: http://www.fringeguru.com/editorial/brighton-2011/the-clock-master.html
Fringe Review: http://www.fringereview.co.uk/fringeReview/4063.html

Bane 3
The Argus: http://www.theargus.co.uk/brightonfestival/critic/9062631.Bane_3__Pavilion_Theatre__Brighton__May_28/

Helen Keen: Future Robot Woman!
Fringe Guru: http://www.fringeguru.com/editorial/brighton-2011/helen-keen-future-robot-woman-preview.html

From the Underground Press Office:

Underground Venues are celebrating their sixth year on the Buxton Fringe with the addition of two new spaces to their collection, and their largest programme yet – in every sense of the word.

The Arts Centre Studio and Arts Centre Auditorium – part of the state-of-the-art Pavilion Gardens development – allow space for some big shows and big names, heralding a new era for Buxton Fringe entertainment. Henning Wehn, the self-styled German comedy ambassador to England and star of Radio 4’s The Unbelievable Truth, heads a spectacular line-up of top-class comedy that also includes Isy Suttie – better known as Dobby from Peep Show – and Tom Binns from The IT Crowd and Knowing Me, Knowing You, With Alan Partridge.

Also from the world of Radio 4 comes the long-suffering, much-loved (if fictional) Ed Reardon – star of Ed Reardon’s Week (voted Best Radio Show by the Broadcasting Press Guild). Ed will be taking to the stage for the first time in a specially penned work that both celebrates and bemoans his troubled literary career to date.

The Arts Centre also plays host to some outstanding family entertainment, such as The Maharajah And The Kohinoor, a fascinating exploration of British and Indian history, recently returned from a tour of Californian schools, community centres and Gurudwaras. And the family fun continues back in the main Underground Venues base with something for all ages – from Cowboy Baby, a Texan adventure for under-7s, to Magic? Really?, an unbelievable mix of illusion, comedy, mind-reading and silliness.

And, in amongst these new stars, is a host of original work by Buxton Fringe favourites. Buxton-born Three’s Company, with award-winning playwright Tom Crawshaw, are teaming up with veteran actor and king of the one-man-show George Telfer to premiere Not The Messiah, the irreverent story of the life of enigmatic Python-star Graham Chapman. Last year’s winner of both the Best Actor and Best Play award at the Fringe – Alex Moran – returns in Hyde, a new play by local writer Polis Loizou, whose last hit The Sexes also returns.

Along with a large dose of music, spoken word and experimental, classic and physical theatre, it all makes for a bumper line up 67 vastly different acts (and counting!) From one-man shows to 15-strong spectaculars, from TV personalities to local rising stars, spanning every genre and the length and breadth of Britain (and beyond) – all packed into 4 spaces and 19 electric days – from the 6^th to the 24^th July.

The state of the arts in Buxton has never looked so strong!

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Underground Venues on the Buxton Fringe | 6-24 July 2011 | www.underthefringe.com | @underthefringe
See the website for all show details and maps to all venues and spaces.
Press enquiries and images: press@underthefringe.com
General information: hello@underthefringe.com