A COMEDIAN from Bridport is heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next month with a prime time slot at the world’s largest comedy festival.
Resident MC of the Bridport Arts Centre Comedy Café, Tom Glover, is attending the festival for the second year running, this time sharing an hour with fellow westcountry comedian Luke Honnoraty.
Their show, ‘Small Town Heroes’, features anecdotes of life growing up and living in the south west, in which their home towns of Bridport and Barnstaple often play a starring role.
The pair, who met in the South West New Act of the Year Competition in 2010, will be doing half an hour of stand up each for 15 consecutive nights and hope to perform to hundreds of audience members during the run.
The show is part of the PBH Free Fringe, which means audiences can attend for free and donate what they feel the show was worth at the end, rather than paying a set ticket price.
Their show clashes with the likes of Nina Conti, Ed Byrne, Mark Steel, Patrick Kielty, Reginald D Hunter, Rob Beckett and more but Tom hopes the appeal of a free entry gig will help tempt punters to take a chance on a couple of unknown acts from the south west.
Tom said: “It’s great to just be offered a venue but to get such a brilliant time slot is more than we could have asked for.
“This year we have the time slot everyone wants but we are competing with some huge names so it’s going to be a real challenge to attract the crowds. We’ve spent the last five years honing our material though and are confident we have a show people will enjoy once they’re there.
“If anyone from the local area is heading up to the festival then please hunt us down, come along and say hello. Edinburgh is a long way from home and can feel like it at times so we’d love to see some familiar faces in the crowd.”
The pair are previewing the show at the Cutty Sark Theatre in London this Sunday, August 2nd before taking it up to Scotland for the festival.
‘Small Town Heroes’ will run from Saturday, August 8 to Saturday, August 22, at 8:15pm every night at the Southsider Pub.
If the show is successful then the pair hope to tour and extended version around the south west in 2016.
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