Saved articles

You have not yet added any article to your bookmarks!

Log in

Don't have an account yet? Sign up

Create an account

Already have an account? Log in

Login Reminder

Remember your password? Log in

Terms of use

ATTENTION: This legal notice applies to the entire contents of the Website under the domain name broadwaybaby.com (Website) and to any correspondence by e-mail between us and you. Please read these terms carefully before using the Website. Using the Website indicates that you accept these terms regardless of whether or not you choose to register with us. If you do not accept these terms, do not use the Website. This notice is issued by the publishers of Broadway Baby ("the Company").

1.1 - By accessing any part of the Website, you shall be deemed to have accepted this legal notice in full. If you do not accept this legal notice in full, you must leave the Website immediately.
1.2 - The Company may revise this legal notice at any time by updating this posting. You should check the Website from time to time to review the then current legal notice, because it is binding on you. Certain provisions of this legal notice may be superseded by expressly designated legal notices or terms located on particular pages at the Website.

2.1 - You are permitted to print and download extracts from the Website for your own use on the following basis:
(a) no documents or related graphics on the Website are modified in any way
(b) no graphics on the Website are used separately from the corresponding text
(c) the Company's copyright and trade mark notices and this permission notice appear in all copies.
(d) you do not abuse the Company's database rights by re-creating a local copy of our data in any part.

2.2 - Unless otherwise stated, the copyright and other intellectual property rights in all material on the Website (excluding promotional images of shows provided by their producers) are owned by the Company or its licensors. For the purposes of this legal notice, any use of extracts from the Website other than in accordance with clause 2.1 for any purpose is prohibited. If you breach any of the terms in this legal notice, your permission to use the Website automatically terminates and you must immediately destroy any downloaded or printed extracts from the Website.

2.3 - Subject to clause 2.1, no part of the Website may be reproduced or stored in any other website or included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without the Company's prior written permission.

2.4 - Any rights not expressly granted in these terms are reserved.

3.1 - While the Company endeavours to ensure that the Website is normally available 24 hours a day, the Company shall not be liable if for any reason the Website is unavailable at any time or for any period.

3.2 - Access to the Website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or for reasons beyond the Company's control.

4.1 - Any comment you post to the Website shall be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. The Company shall have no obligations with respect to such material. The Company and its designees shall be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use such material and all data, images, sounds, text and other things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes.

4.2 - You are not permitted to use the commenting system to engage in ad hominem attacks on a Broadway Baby writer or use 'sock puppet' accounts to support an argument. You are welcome to use the commenting system to submit your own opinion about a show, but it is not provided as a platform to criticise the Company or its staff.

4.3 - You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from the Website any material:
(a) that is threatening, defamatory, obscene, indecent, seditious, offensive, pornographic, abusive, liable to incite racial hatred, discriminatory, menacing, scandalous, inflammatory, blasphemous, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy or which may cause annoyance or inconvenience; or
(b) for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals; or
(c) which constitutes or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in any country in the world; or
(d) which is technically harmful (including, without limitation, computer viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data).

4.4 - All listing data on the Website including images and text is the sole responsibility of the person(s) or company who originated such content and we take no responsibility for any content contained therein.

4.5 - You may not misuse the Website (including, without limitation, by hacking or screen scraping).

4.6 - The Company shall fully co-operate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing the Company to disclose the identity or locate anyone posting any material in breach of clause 4.2 or clause 4.3.

4.7 - Images for all listings on this site have either been supplied to us under clause 4.3(b) & 4.4 or via a festival data feed such as EdFringe.com which has similar terms, and as such all claims for unauthorised use should be directed to the company or person(s) who created the original listing.

5.1 - Links to third party websites on the Website are provided solely for your convenience. If you use these links, you leave the Website. The Company has not reviewed all of these third party websites and does not control and is not responsible for these websites or their content or availability. The Company therefore does not endorse or make any representations about them, or any material found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to the Website, you do so entirely at your own risk.

5.2 - If you would like to link to the Website, you may only do so subject to the following conditions:
(a) you do not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of the logo of Broadway Baby;
(b) you do not create a frame or any other browser or border environment around the Website;
(c) you do not misrepresent your relationship with the Company nor present any other false information about the Company;
(d) your website does not contain content that is distasteful, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or otherwise does not comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

5.3 - The Company expressly reserves the right to revoke the right granted in clause 5.2 for breach of these terms and to take any action it deems appropriate.

5.4 - You shall fully indemnify the Company for any loss or damage suffered by the Company or any of its group companies for breach of clause 5.2.

6.1 - Each registration is for a single user only. The Company does not permit you to share your user name and password with any other person nor with multiple users on a network.

6.2 - Responsibility for the security of any passwords issued rests with you.

7.1 - While the Company endeavours to ensure that the information on the Website is correct, the Company does not warrant the accuracy and completeness of the material on the Website. The Company may make changes to the material on the Website, or to the listings described in it, at any time without notice. The material on the Website may be out of date, and the Company makes no commitment to update such material.

7.2 - The material on the Website is provided "as is", without any conditions, warranties or other terms of any kind. Accordingly, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the Company provides you with the Website on the basis that the Company excludes all representations, warranties, conditions and other terms (including, without limitation, the conditions implied by law of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and the use of reasonable care and skill) which, but for this legal notice, might have effect in relation to the Website.

8.1 - The Company, any other party (whether or not involved in creating, producing, maintaining or delivering the Website), and any of the Company's group companies and the officers, directors, employees or agents of any of them, exclude all liability and responsibility for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party (including without limitation, any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any loss of income, profits, goodwill, data, contracts, use of money, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, and whether in tort (including without limitation negligence), contract or otherwise) in connection with the Website in any way or in connection with the use, inability to use or the results of use of the Website, any websites linked to the Website or the material on such websites, including but not limited to loss or damage due to viruses that may infect your computer equipment, software, data or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing the Website or your downloading of any material from the Website or any websites linked to the Website.

8.2 - Nothing in this legal notice shall exclude or limit the Company's liability for:
(a) death or personal injury caused by negligence (as such term is defined by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977; or
(b) fraud; or
(c) misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter; or
(d) any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

8.3 - If your use of material on the Website results in the need for servicing, repair or correction of equipment, software or data, you assume all costs thereof.

This legal notice shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law. Disputes arising in connection with this legal notice shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Do you agree to our terms? Sign up

The Fringe Traveller’s Next Stop: Toronto

After more than a decade of spending my summers hopping between fringe festivals, you get used to seeing familiar faces.

Toronto promises the thrill of the unknown

The same performers pop up in different cities. The same reviewers congregate in festival bars. The same producers are forever trying to persuade you that this is the year their show will become the next big Fringe hit. Occasionally, if you’re particularly unlucky, you even bump into an ex-girlfriend you’d rather had remained several hundred miles away.

Whether it’s Edinburgh, Prague, Amsterdam or Stockholm, the European fringe circuit has become a wonderfully interconnected community. Head further afield to Adelaide and there’s still a good chance you’ll recognise half the programme.

Toronto, though, feels different.

As I packed my suitcase and prepared to fly across the Atlantic, I found myself doing something I haven’t done for quite a while: opening a Fringe programme where almost every company was completely new to me.

There were a few familiar names. Jon Bennett. Andrew Silverwood. Keith Brown. But page after page introduced artists I’d never encountered before, and that is genuinely exciting.

Toronto Fringe sits at the heart of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF), a network stretching across Canada and the United States. While Europe has its own informal Fringe circuit centred around Edinburgh, North America has quietly built its own, connecting festivals in cities including New York, San Diego, Tampa, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

The more I read about it, the more I found myself wondering whether I’ve planned retirement all wrong. Forget cruises and golf courses. Give me a campervan, a notebook and a summer driving from one North American Fringe to another. If I win the lottery before then, I might even bring that plan forward a few years.

But first, Toronto.

Running from 30 June to 12 July, this year’s festival features more than 120 productions spread across venues throughout the city. Picking highlights from such a varied programme is almost impossible, but here are a handful that found themselves on my ever-growing "must-see" list before I’d even boarded the plane.

Clowns Reading Shakespeare (Panoply Theatre Collective)

Some titles simply refuse to let you keep scrolling. A troupe of clowns trying to decide which Shakespeare play they should perform sounds like exactly the sort of gloriously ridiculous idea that fringe festivals exist to celebrate. Hamlet? Macbeth? Romeo and Juliet? Apparently not even the performers know.

Every Fringe Show You’ve Ever Seen All At Once (Bradnen Kane Production Company)

As someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time at fringe festivals, this one almost feels written specifically for me. The concept is brilliantly simple: every Fringe show you’ve ever seen, ever will see and never will see… all compressed into a single sketch revue. If it lovingly pokes fun at every Fringe cliché we’ve all come to know, I’m entirely on board.

Evie & Alfie: A Very British Love Story (Pork Chop Express)

Even after flying 3,500 miles, Britain still manages to find me. Created by Fringe favourites Alex Dallas and Jimmy Hogg, this follows a retired couple navigating life through cups of tea, birdwatching and quiet reminiscence. I’m curious to discover how quintessentially British humour lands with Canadian audiences – although I suspect good comedy translates remarkably well.

My Life as an “Inspirational Porn” Star! (Gabrielle Leonore)

One of the most intriguing autobiographical shows in the programme. Having already enjoyed success at Tampa Fringe and Edinburgh, it arrives in Toronto with strong recommendations and the sort of subject matter Fringe audiences often embrace.

Andrew Silverwood: Love Thy Neighbour (Andrew Silverwood)

Andrew Silverwood is one of the few names I immediately recognised from the Edinburgh circuit. His latest show mixes weddings, olives, strip clubs and war – which is either an extraordinarily eclectic holiday itinerary or classic Fringe storytelling.

110% Wizard (Keith Brown)

Award-winning family magic, storytelling and Keith Brown’s wonderfully understated style. Sometimes the simplest Fringe pleasures are the best ones, and Keith has built a reputation for exactly that.

The First Vampire (Monster Theatre)

This production explores the bizarre and fascinating origins of the vampire in literature, complete with Lord Byron, poetry, blood and gothic storytelling. It sounds like exactly the sort of inventive theatrical history lesson Fringe audiences love.

Of course, every seasoned Fringe-goer knows one important truth. The shows you spend weeks planning to see rarely become your favourites.

Instead, it’ll be the production squeezed into a tiny venue with the impossible-to-pronounce company name and the flyer thrust into your hand five minutes before curtain-up that you’ll still be talking about months later.

That’s the joy of Fringe. And that’s exactly why I’m looking forward to discovering Toronto.

Nicholas Abrams

Nick runs Broadway Baby's Brighton operation.