Producer Francesca Moody explains how she selects shows for Edinburgh Fringe
In Edinburgh, theatre producer Francesca Moody, who helped bring the shows Fleabag and Baby Reindeer to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, said that she does not select projects based on their commercial potential. She relies primarily on her own taste and intuition, since attempts to engineer success in advance can harm the story itself, NPR World reports.
The 79th Edinburgh Fringe ended in late August. This year, the festival brought together more than 4,200 productions, ranging from comedy, theatre and cabaret to formats that are difficult to classify unequivocally. For producers, it is a platform for finding works that can continue their lives beyond Edinburgh.
Working on Fleabag
Moody joined Fleabag at the end of 2012, when its writer and performer Phoebe Waller-Bridge had written about one page of text. The producer recalled that she was immediately captivated by the material, although the project did not yet have a finished form, and secured it a venue at the Fringe.
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A week before rehearsals, the script remained unfinished: Waller-Bridge had only notes on sticky notes spread out on the floor. The ending of the production, for which at least three options were considered, was written on a train en route to the festival. The first reviews of the show were mixed, but Moody considers imperfect and unfinished works an important part of the Fringe.
Baby Reindeer and new projects
In 2019, Baby Reindeer, a monologue by Scottish actor Richard Gadd based on his experience of being stalked, premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe. Moody read the script on a train from Norwich to London and decided to produce the show, although she initially did not know exactly how to do it. Five years later, the work became a Netflix series.
At this year's festival, Moody supported three projects: the horror sketch comedy Crybabies: The Scaring, the solo drama Roleplay about feminism, sex and online personas, and the show Garry Starr: Classic Penguins. Hannah Riley, the writer and performer of Roleplay, said the producer encouraged her to work more deeply with the dark parts of the story and take risks. Moody also acknowledged that not every project of hers becomes successful: the satirical musical Berlusconi: A New Musical, which she produced in 2023, was a commercial and critical failure.
