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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 Certain provisions of this legal notice may be superseded by expressly designated legal notices or terms located on particular pages at the Website.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.

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The Riskiest Show on the Fringe

Kate Smurthwaite and political activism are like Italian food and garlic: you probably could have one without the other, but what would be the point?

I’ve never understood comedians doing a work-in-progress in February. It’s an hour of dicking about.

Since her first show in 2006 - and alongside the longstanding Comedy Manifesto and News At Kate, politics and feminism and religion and a goodly chunk of science (oh yes, you will get actual facts from this woman - she has a degree in Mathematics from Oxford, no less) have been the main ingredients of the Smurthwaite Comedy Salad.

This year, she may well have taken leave of her not inconsiderable senses, and will be writing and performing an entirely new, hour-long show every night.

At a Fringe where certain comics are charging ridiculous amounts to watch their “WIP” and where some are charging even more to see the SAME show people paid to see last year as WIP, simply brought back, Smurthwaite is pretty much everything a comedy Fringe should be about.

And we had a chat ...

Have you gone absolutely mental ?

Gone? I mean maybe, but also I always write my shows in a couple of weeks. I’ve never understood comedians doing a work-in-progress in February. It’s an hour of dicking about. Just get on with it. My shows have always been political (to varying degrees) so if I wrote them in March they’d be obsolete by Fringe.

Is this some sort of attempt to get yourself an ADHD diagnosis ?

Almost the opposite. I can’t stand our three-minute-attention-span culture. Being expected to answer messages within five minutes, and release hourly social media updates. I’m really looking forward to a good excuse to ignore everyone and spend ten hours a day writing.

Have you considered an exit strategy if it all goes horribly wrong ?

Yes. If I can’t keep up, which is absolutely possible and arguably likely, I’ll do a best-of the shows I’ve written so far for a day or two until I’m done crying.

Is this one of these set ups like TV improv where all the performers actually have stuff prepared and the set ups are geared to that ?

No. So firstly it’s all based on audience suggestions (in person at shows or by email to [email protected]) so I can't prepare a bunch of material. I'll open the inbox live on stage at the end of the previous show for transparency.

I admit I've pulled together a big file of jokes and skits I've written over the years and not used. And I've written stacks of little one-liner jokes that I may be able to pepper into scripts. But it's down to the public to make sure they ask for interesting, unexpected things. For the Oxford preview I had four emails. None of them mentioned anything I had anticipated. Nothing from my big file was useful.

Do you think you will have FUN with this ??

Yes. I've wanted to do this for years. As various people around me are aware. I'm fifty now and it occurred to me that this is hardly going to be easier when I'm fifty-five so that's why I realised if I'm going to do it, I should do it.

I love writing. I love putting it all together. Structuring shows. I've written material for hundreds of other comedians over the years (not usually whole shows I might add, just extra lines, helping them tighten up a script, figure out the structure, spotting great ideas in their previews that need developing further). I enjoy that side of comedy hugely.

I confess I've no doubt at some point I'll probably decide it's all too much and have a panic and a cry but to be honest I do that every Fringe at some point. On the other hand I'll learn so much from it. I'll come away with so much material to use. I'll be a different comedian. And I'll have a great story to tell.

Do you think the AUDIENCE will have fun ?

There are three ways to enjoy this as an audience member.

The first is just to come along and see a comedy show. I'll post the title and the theme of the show on Instagram the evening before - see what's coming up and come along to a show.

Secondly send in ideas by email or at the show the day before and come back and see what I've done with them. Something really personal to you? Or something you think will be difficult to write comedy about? Something you know about my life or interests that you've wanted me to do a show about?

Thirdly, and I would really love for people to do this... Bring a friend who doesn't know about the story of the show. Don't tell them it's been written in 24 hours. See if they realise. I'd love to know what people think of the shows without the extra credit.

There you have it. A terrific comic putting it all on the line for you.

So just remember, if it all falls apart for lack of decent ideas and suggestions, it will be YOUR fault. No pressure.

Kate Copstick

Probably the most famous critic at the Fringe, Kate has previously been a judge of the Perrier Comedy and Malcolm Hardee Awards. As The Scotsman's chief comedy critic, her opinions have made and sometimes buried the careers of many an aspiring comic. Kate also spends much time in Kenya working with abused women and their families with her Mama Biashara charity, working to set these women up in small businesses, thus making them financially independent.

As Immersive as you can get without ending up in a pie