University of Portsmouth students put together White Swan Fringe Fest, a fringe theatre festival for 'all the community'

But there are others which have sprung up in recent years – including in Brighton and Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.

However, a group of University of Portsmouth students are bringing the fringe spirit here to the city.

White Swan Fringe Fest runs in the city centre from March 13-24. Running out of the White Swan Building, which is immediately behind New Theatre Royal, nine newly created companies will be putting on free shows, ranging from dance to a reinterpretation of Shakespeare, an adaptation of a 19th century poem, new dramas and a film screening.

The building was developed with New Theatre Royal to provide bespoke facilities for the university’s theatre students. Across three floors, it has rooms and equipment for students to learn, train and master all stages of the performance process

And although the festival is created by students, they are keen to make it open to everyone.​

The seeds of the festival were sown when the third year Drama and Performance and Musical Theatre students were tasked with creating a company and putting on a piece of original work.

Co-festival producer Jan Galazewski explains: ‘Usually all of the companies would go out to different venues around Portsmouth and find their own venue to put their show on.

‘This year we've done it as a fringe festival out of our usual building – The White Swan Building.

‘The whole fringe festival idea is a new one, but we're hoping that it will carry on after us.’

Co-festival producer Dalila Silva adds: ‘Our lecturer saw the opportunity for a fringe festival as there's never been one here in Portsmouth before.’

‘Portsmouth has a lot of cultural capacity and there are various theatres here,’ notes Jan, ‘we're just trying to bring something new to the city to complement that.’

And although this does count towards their degree, the team were keen to make it something more than just a part of their course.

‘It does count towards our final grade, but we've tried to push beyond that,’ says Jan. ‘We could have very easily made this a closed event, but we fought against that and wanted to make it a community event. We want it to be open to everyone.’

This way of thinking has fed into the way the team has presented the festival.

‘From the start,’ explains Dalila, ‘when we were thinking about the marketing, building the website and making posters, we didn't want anything to shout: "This is a university event," we wanted it to be inclusive of the local community.’

With nine companies and 18 performances over the 12 days, Dalila and Jan won’t be performing.

‘We have definitely got enough on our plates without performing as well,’ laughs Dalila. ‘We've been producing and production managing the entire thing – we've done everything from marketing, the website creation, all of the admin, booking spaces, that's the part we've been in charge of, and then on the day we'll be working as venue managers.’

With many participants wearing multiple hats, Falling Leaves Theatre’s members are typical.

Naomi Thatcher is their artistic director, co-designer, production manager and performer. Describing their show, Naomi says: ‘We are an all-female and non-binary theatre company and we aim to flip the script on Shakespeare, so we're putting on a modern rewrite of As You Like It, using all female and non-binary actors. In Shakespeare's time it would have been all men on the stage, so we're flipping that.

‘We're using modern outfits and costumes and maintaining the original storyline, but it’s completely rewritten by Amy.’ That would be Amy O’Sullivan who is also marketing manager, stage manager, co-designer and performer.

‘We're also looking at having the male characters with he/him pronouns,’ Naomi adds ,’but having them in feminine outfits, and then our female characters will be in masculine outfits, and using she/her pronouns – it’s mixing things up a bit.’

​’There's been a lot of learning as we go!’ adds Amy.

Connected Dance are the festival’s sole dance-based company. Artistic director, director and producer Leah Floyd says: ‘We are a company which acknowledges dance as a mode of communication. We focus a lot on the concept of emotion through motion and how that's uniquely experienced by individuals. We're a company of five girls, and we've been working on our final piece which is an archive of all of the work we've created – solos duos and group work as well. It's all about emotional connectivity and the psychology behind dance.’

With the original impetus for the companies’ creation being part of their degree course, it was easy to bring people on board for the festival, but it has already extended beyond that.

‘We've got a team of 10 volunteers as well who'll be helping us with front of house stuff, technicians, stage hands – all of that side of it,’ says Jan. ‘And I know some of the companies cast people outside of those doing the module

‘It's been a really good experience, and I think a lot of people do want to get involved – they want to be on stage, they want to help.’

‘There's a lot of people interested in the technical side of theatre,’ says Dalila, ‘so we had a lot of interest in that, so that people could get some industry knowledge and see how things work behind the scenes.’

And while all of the students taking part this year will have graduated and hopefully found employment, they hope this is just laying groundwork for future fringes.

‘We'll be passing the baton,’ says Jan, ‘we won’t be directly involved, but the people who are already considering taking on our roles have asked us to be their mentors.

And Dalila concludes: ‘This is something we're proud of, so we want to see it thrive next year as well.’

How to see the shows

​White Swan Fringe Fest runs out of the building of the same name on White Swan Road.

There are nine different shows running from March 13-24, by Annointed Theatre Company, Connected Dance, Decorum, Falling Leaves Theatre, inMotion MID Theatre, Odd Socks, The After Club and The Blended Theatre Company.

Tickets to all performances are free, but must be booked in advance due to limited capacity.

Go to wsfringefest.wixsite.com/whiteswanfringe