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Fringe Comedy shows for as little as £4 #lovemk

MK Festival Fringe 2013

MK Fringe has partnered up with Comedy Cow this year to create an awe-inspiring, side-splitting, howl inducing Fringe Comedy programme. You can catch one of over 50 Comedy acts during the Fringe Festival at venues across MK including: The Crown in Stony, The Chrysalis Theatre, MK Gallery Event Space and the Red Dot Bar at MK Stadium.

Stand up acts include; the hilarious Lee Nelson, the old favourite Patrick Monahan, the Brendan Burns Show, Late Night Gimp Fight, The Beta Males and the impressive Brett Goldstein. But we are doubly excited to be welcoming our favourite home grown comedy pals McNeil and Pamphilon with their wonderful new show Secret Holding Pattern.

Many of the acts we’re presenting are home grown and most are on their way up to Edinburgh with new material that they are keen to test out on audiences at MK Fringe first!

If it’s a full comedy show you want though, on Friday 18th we’re presenting the very special Simon Jay with his new show, Is He a Bit Simon Jay? and also Augustus Stephens’s new show, This Way Madness Lies, on Wednesday 23rd. Both are at The Chrysalis Theatre and tickets are only £4!!

As if that wasn’t enough the Comedy Cow are hosting the Crown’s Big Weekender, a two day Comedy  extravaganza on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th July which includes some fantastic children’s comedy as well as featured acts like: Vikki Stone, Tom Binns, Omar Hamdi and Paul Savage.

So what are you waiting for? For more information and to book tickets have a look at MK Fringe website: www.mkfestivalfringe.com or www.comedycow.co.uk

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Breathing paper and body prints – just a fragment of the MK Fringe events this July

Anna Berry

In the heart of the Milton Keynes shopping centre, local artist, Anna Berry, has been busy for the last two weeks putting together an incredible art installation in an unused shop unit. The piece, called the Breathing Room, has been funded with help from MK Community Foundation and is created entirely from discarded A4 paper which has been donated by companies and organisations across Milton Keynes. Many hundreds of rolled cones have been made by the artist and are fixed to the walls of the space which gentle breathe in and out, creating an intriguing and mesmerising atmosphere. The exhibition, which is just off Middleton Hall, will be open daily throughout the Fringe Festival.

Meanwhile over in MK Central Library you can find the fascinating work of artist Deborah Last in an exhibition called Upper Room. The piece consists of full scale prints of women’s bodies on canvasses which the artist has drawn into. Each of the canvasses has an inbuilt sound track, recording s of the stories of the women who are represented and their contrasting attitudes towards their own body images.

Deborah Last is creating a publication of her body prints and is also running one to one body printing from MK Gallery for one day only on Thursday 17th – so you could have a print of your body done by the artist! Booking is essential for these sessions, to find out more just go to MK Fringe website: www.mkfestivalfringe.com

MK Fringe is also hosting a special three day event in City Square (just outside M&S) which showcases the work of up to 14 local artists who have been asked to perform and exhibit in and around pop-up tents! The three day event is called Pitch: Events in Tents and there’ll be everything from a mini art exhibition in a tent, drawing workshops and puppet making, to a dance performance, an installation of knitted plastic and a mini show about climate change!

This year the Fringe runs from 17th – 24th July, alongside the International Festival and there are some real treats in store.There is also some AMAZING theatre, music and comedy programmed throughout the eight day Fringe Festival, in venues all around MK

Check out the full programme on our website: www.mkfestivalfringe.com

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Street art, surprises and surreal experiences at MK Festival Fringe, 17th-24th July – eight slightly outrageous days

MKFF IMG_0477 (1280x960)The MK Festival Fringe; a (slightly outrageous) eight day programme, showcasing some of the most pioneering outdoor theatre, performance, visual arts, music, comedy and dance. The events are presented within the surreal and vibrant landscape of Central Milton Keynes. Unusual spaces -buses, empty shops and street corners are transformed to become our stages, theatres and galleries; we are featuring invited artists like Boogaloo Stu, as well as special commissions such as Festive Road’s Walking with Giants parade.

A jammed packed Festival Fringe with plenty of surprises! MK Festival Fringe will be based at Milton Keynes Central Library, so pop in and say hello.

For full programme and booking information please visit: http://mkfestivalfringe.com 

Some highlights include:

Breathing Room: an installation specially commissioned by MK Fringe with funding from Milton Keynes Community Foundation and support from thecentre:mk. The piece reuses defunct marketing and administrative print: that which has been generated by the ‘insiders’, the commercial outlets within the shopping centre, and also the ‘outsiders’ – charities and not for profit groups who have no home within the shopping centre – as well as municipal bodies. The civic, the commercial, and the community are represented by means of their print detritus.

The artist has allowed the non-commercial to infest, colonise, and re-claim the public space, in tandem with – indistinguishable from – the commercial. In an almost organic form, they breathe in and out, breaking out of the space.

17th -24th July, 11-4pm everyday, Fringe Space 2, Silbury Arcade, North, door 13-15, thecentre:mk

 

Pristine in Blue: Dwayne’s dad was in debt to a bank and took his own life.  Now Dwayne is involved in a group demonstrating against the bank.  Sabeena, his childhood sweetheart, joins him in an illegal squat, and all seems on track until the arrival of Laurie, a busker friend of Dwayne’s, forcing his values and sense of justice and betrayal to be challenged.  A fast moving play exploring youth and confronting contemporary issues, against an emotional backdrop of love and desire. The piece is written by Milton Keynes based writer, Neil Beardmore and directed by Rosemary Hill.

17th -19th July, 7.30pm each night, Arts Central (above MK Central Station), booking required

 

The Crown’s Big Weekender: Lunchtime kids entertainment features Mike Belgrave(BBC Worldwide’s Best in Town), and Jay Foreman with his “Disgusting Songsfor Revolting Children”. Afternoon action features Vikki Stone with her hot new Edinburgh show, Tom Binns “solid writing and sweet timing”, Omar Hamdi – the topical, political, up-to-the-minuteWelsh-Egyptian funnyman! Paul Savage “Genuinely brilliant, an all-round hoot”(Guardian) and MK’s very own Jimmy James Jones. And those are just a phew! of the actsover this jam-packed weekend.

Comedy Cow are working in partnership with the Fringe to present a variety of comedy events as well as this weekend in Stony Stratford, visit http://www.thecomedycow.co.uk for full listings and booking information.

Sat 19th and Sun 20th July, 12.30pm – late, The Crown, Market Square, Stony Stratford, MK11 1BE

 

The Librarians: ʻThe Librariansʼ is a new site-specific show by Pestiferous for libraries and their communities, using dance, comedy, physical theatre and poetry in an immersive performance. This 20-minute piece pops out of the shelves, to surprise an unsuspecting audience and encourages them to join in and see their local public space in a new way. Four librarians roam the library, archiving, shelving, organising and sometimes flying with their beloved books. The books take on a life of their own and lead us into the library to explore what lies within the pages… The audience will see exotic birds in the Wildlife area, find true love with ʻBlind Dateʼ in the Romance section and get limbered up and ready to read with some ʻBookserciseʼ in the Health and Fitness section. The piece urges audiences to join in and be part of the performance, but does allow apprehensive audience members to be passive observers.  Look out for other Pestiferous shows this weekend.

19th July, (2 shows at: 2pm and 4pm) 1st Floor Reference, MK Central Library

 

Works: Take a shed load of ideas to show the passing world; a demonstration of the fruit of two beautiful minds; earnest companions with overalls. Invention, a pet cat, a cup of tea… and a leap of faith, everyday objects, ramshackle engineering, precise timing and deadpan comedy all come into play in this chain reaction of a show. This is the first show by the recently formed duo Heywood Hix. Over the duration of the piece A Heath Robinson shed contraption is assembled by two workmen to a musical soundtrack; an evolving chain reaction takes place involving: everyday objects, ramshackled engineering, precise timing, deadpan comedy and a catapulting cat. The piece has been directed by Matt Rudkin of Inconvienient Spoof who performed at MK Fringe in 2012.

24th July, 12 noon and 3pm, Queens Court, thecentre:mk

The events listed here show a very small percentage of the Fringe 2014 programme, pick up a green brochure, follow them on Twitter or see the full programme here: http://mkfestivalfringe.com/whats/#all/1/list