25th August 2014
PRESS INFORMATION FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UNDERBELLY ENJOYS MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR EVER
Fringe Firsts for Chef, Sanitise, Pondling and Spine
Herald Angel Award for Spine
Stage Awards for Chef and Spine
Total Theatre Award for ‘Best Circus’ for Bromance
Holden Street Theatre Award for Mush and Me
Arches Brick Award for Christeene
Foster’s Award Nominations for Sam Simmons and Steen Raskopoulos
Ticket sales up from 2013 totals
Today is the last day of Underbelly’s most successful Fringe ever, critically and at the box office, bringing to an end a spate of award-winning shows, a glittering array of five-star reviews and a programme seen by hundreds of thousands of ticket buyers.
A record four Underbelly shows picked up a prestigious Scotsman Fringe First Award, withChef, Sanitise, Pondling and Spine leading Underbelly’s strongest ever theatre line-up.
Spine also won a cherished Herald Angel, awarded by the newspaper to the best shows at the Fringe overall.
This year’s theatre programme saw Underbelly play host to some of the brightest acting talent at the Fringe, with Spine’s Rosie Wyatt and Chef’s Jade Anoukaboth recognised by The Stage Awards.
Elsewhere Underbelly continues to enhance its reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting producers of circus, with its production Bromance – winners of the UK’s first circus competition, Circus Maximus, in 2013 – being awarded the Total Theatre Award for best circus. Total Theatre Award nominations for circus were also given to Circa: Beyond and Gravity and Other Myths’ A Simple Space.
Other Underbelly shows have won the opportunity to perform to new audiences around the world, with Ideas Tap Underbelly Award Winner Mush and Me, scooping the Holden Street Theatre Award, and with it the chance to perform at the 2015 Adelaide Fringe. Dark cabaretChristeenewill head West to Glasgow as winner of the Arches Brick Award for emerging work.
This was also a successful year for Underbelly comedians, with Sam Simmons and Steen Raskopoulos both nominated for the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
Underbelly is also delighted to report a 2.8% increase in ticket sales on a seat by seat analysis from Fringe 2013. This is on a tickets-sold basis and demonstrates that Underbelly continues to attract a paying audience in the context of a growing, wider Fringe Festival.
Ends
For more information please contact:
Fraser Smith
Head of Press
Underbelly
07801 55 22 85
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Underbelly:
Underbelly is a UK based, live entertainment company. Their events and festivals division operates one of the largest operations at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe selling over 250,000 tickets in 2013. 2014 marks the sixth year of Udderbelly Festival at Southbank Centre and the third year of London Wonderground at Southbank Centre. Elsewhere Underbelly also producesEdinburgh’s Christmas;Comedy Hullabaloo with the RSCin Stratford-upon-Avon; West End Live in Trafalgar Square for Westminster City Council and the Society of London Theatre; and Pride in London. Through their Underbelly Productions arm they produce and promote live shows in London, throughout the UK and on tour internationally. In 2013 Underbelly sold over 750,000 tickets to their various events.