YOUTH Fringe Frenzy

Each year, a staggering 250 Fringe Festivals across the globe showcase hundreds of thousands of artists and performers. 19 million people see roughly 170,000 performers in 60,000 shows, some free, others ticketed. This equates to 8 million Fringe tickets sold in over 6 thousand venues across the globe. As the 15th edition of YOUTH is published, we are at the tail end of the granddaddy of them all, the 71st Edinburgh Fringe Festival, while simultaneously poised on the precipice of three more Fringe Festivals which are all set to begin in the coming days and weeks. In this edition Nora Costigan shares her picks of what’s on offer in Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Sydney, while Dave Coffey looks at the comedy highlights of the Dublin Fringe and a strand of theatre made by young people for young people called Young Radicals. Go forth and see some whopper shows!

Some ‘Dam Fine Fringe Theatre

Amsterdam’s Fringe Festival is smaller in scale than many of its international counterparts but it pack a creative punch just as strong. It describes itself as an ode to the “madness of the stage and to independence of spirit”, whilst also identifying as a “plea for artistic freedom”, so far so Fringe you might say, but there is a fresh and inclusive twist.

New Young Radicals

One of the most exciting aspects of this year's Dublin Fringe Festival is a strand called Young Radicals. Presented in collaboration with Collapsing Horse, who are known for luring in adult audiences with wide-eyed fantasy shows, Young Radicals is just the opposite. This is theatre made by young people for young people, with adult themes woven through.

(Down) Underground Fringe Theatre

The Aussies like to Fringe just as much as the rest of us and Sydney’s follows the trend of its bay, its harbour and its opera house of being sprawling, and beautifully designed. Beautifully designed you ask? Yes, this year the Sydney Fringe has commissioned a festival print to embody the spirit of fringe designed by Stavroula Adametis of Frida Las Vegas, an acclaimed pop art fashion brand.

Comedy On The Fringes

Dublin’s Fringe Festival has far less comedy than its Edinburgh counterpart, but every year it seems like more and more cracking comedy shows are added to the line-up. Here’s our top picks for the must-see comedy shows of 2018.

The Big One (Edinburgh)

The Big One. The Behemoth. The Arts Juggernaut. Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the biggest arts festival in the world and also the world’s longest running Fringe Festival, having been running since 1947. For 25 days in the month of August, both city and festival become one as Edinburgh hosts an unimaginable amount of shows across every possible discipline held within 317 venues across the city. So basically every theatre, playhouse, pub, street, nook and cranny the city has within its long fallen walls.