Who needs Edinburgh? Camden Fringe begins this week: the details you need

Each August Edinburgh sucks up a whole lot of the UK’s comedy and theatre talent, but there’s another festival much closer to home too, the Camden Fringe.

This year’s Camden Fringe festival began on 3rd August, and there are more than 450 shows across the month. The festival winds down on 30th August.

There are now even more shows than we highlighted earlier this year, when the programme was announced.

Since then the Camden Fringe has expanded to include 41 venues across London.

We highly recommend rifling through the festival’s listing page, although there’s so much going on it may be an idea to filter by “genre,” date or venue. Or you’ll liable to feel smothered by the sheer number of shows within minutes.

Tickets are sold per show, per performance, with no magic wristband on offer to let you spend the entire month swanning between venues.

If you’re mostly keen to see well-known comedians, in our flick through the listings we’ve found Andrew O’Neill on 9th August at Aces and Eights and Abbie Murphy on 20th August at Museum of Comedy.

You may be best of diving into something you like the sound of, and hoping for the best, though. There’s absolutely loads of low-cost theatre available throughout the month.

The Camden Fringe has been around since 2006 and was devised as a way to give performers a more affordable and approachable alternative to the Edinburgh Fringe.

That stands for London-dwelling punters too, of course, what with Edinburgh accommodation costs skyrocketing each and every August.

London is not a cheap city to stay, drink or eat in, but is an ideal Edinburgh alternative for some already London-based acts.

Looking for something higher-profile? Camden’s Roundhouse is also holding a comedy festival this month, with acts including Brian David Gilbert, Ivo Graham, Sarah Pascoe, Jack Rooke and Joe Lycett. It offers shows most days until 18th August.

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