Edinburgh 2007
About
2007 was the first ever year of Forest Fringe. Tony Blair had just resigned as prime minister and the world was beginning its spiral into financial collapse.
Deborah Pearson was invited by the Forest Café in Edinburgh to curated a programme of performances for the deconsecrated church hall above the café. They gave her £1,000 to help make this happen but then without telling her spent most of this on wood. In this first year Forest Fringe didn’t have a theatre license so technically everything that took place was a workshop.
Events included a stand-up gig by Reggie Watts, David Overend’s Demises (featuring amongst others Deborah Pearson, Harry Wilson and Kieran Hurley) and Exposures, an instruction-based performance by Andy Field, who would join Deborah as co-director for subsequent years.