A younger view on the Fringe Festival
As the Totnes Fringe Festival prepares for four days of large‑scale performances from around the world, organisers have commissioned special community events to match the ambition of this year’s programme.
Local artist Tony Gee has been invited to lead a creative project with the town’s children, culminating in a colourful procession on 9 July.
Gee says the idea grew from the festival’s desire to reflect the international scope of the Fringe within a distinctly Totnes setting. Over the festival weekend, the town will become a hub for performers from across the globe, and the children’s project aims to mirror that diversity through collaborative making and storytelling with workshops at the Seven Stars on the 5 July.
Two free puppet‑making workshops for children aged six and over will take place. Across the day, Gee and a team of local artists will guide participants in creating up to 100 animal and bird puppets, each representing a different continent.
Morning session: 10am–1pm – Click Here to Book
Afternoon session: 2pm–5pm – Click Here to Book
Capacity: 50 places per workshop and booking is required in advance, also please note that punctuality is essential so the group can work together to complete the full collection of puppets.
This culminates in a procession on the 9 July.
The finished creations will form part of a lively procession at 5pm on 9 July. Participants will gather at the Civic Hall before surprising audiences in the Market Square, where a variety of Fringe performers will also be appearing. Due to safety restrictions, the procession will remain within the square. The event will also feature a playful twist for the town: “The Mystery of the Orange Whale”, marking the opening of another Totnes Fringe Festival with a burst of imagination and community spirit.
…and can you help support youth culture?
Another Fringe event: UNWIPED: A living tapestry of Totnes memories takes over the Mansion.
Totnes’ iconic Mansion will be hosting an immersive, multi‑generational performance that asks a simple but urgent question: What happens to a town when its stories fade?
UNWIPED, created by director Sarah Veevers and writer Mich Sanderson, transforms the building’s hidden corridors, grand rooms, and courtyard into a living archive of local memory. Audiences will move through the space as the performance unfolds around them, carried by a cast aged 6 to 86 who have spent months gathering and interpreting stories from Totnes residents in their 70s and 80s.
These lived memories — funny, tender, mischievous, and deeply rooted in place — have been passed directly from elders to younger generations, then shaped in collaboration with professional actors. The result is a vibrant, heart‑warming journey that returns these stories to the community they came from.
The team describe the work as a mission to protect the cultural heartbeat of the town. If local stories stop being told, they say, the spaces that hold them risk becoming empty — wiped clean of the people who shaped them. This performance pushes back, celebrating the richness of Totnes’ shared past while inviting audiences to take part in preserving it.
The organisers are passionate about the project and Sarah told the Pulse that although previously hoped for funding failed to materialise, “the project is steam-rolling ahead regardless as we have so many local people emotionally invested and we can’t pull the plug now!”
An immersive experience for everyone, to ensure the experience is open to all, fully accessible tickets are available, offering a step‑free route using lifts and ramps.
A call to remember
With its mix of movement, storytelling, humour, and intergenerational collaboration, UNWIPED promises a rare kind of theatre: one that feels rooted, local, and fiercely protective of the stories that make Totnes what it is. As the project’s mantra goes: We have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Stay Unwiped.
Details of this event are here and if you would like to help support this event there is a Crowdfunder here