On The Fringe
Title image Danielle Mcliven by Julie Mullen.
We are in Canteen café, The Mansion, sipping flat whites and sinking into the unapologetically soft tangerine cushions. I am with Danielle, artistic director of ‘Moveable Type Theatre Company’. She is mid-flow, sharing her vision of the Totnes Fringe Festival. I’m pumped and — like everyone who hears about the project — on board. This is Totnes, after all, a town where creativity is currency, and today the market rate is set by one woman, Danielle Mcliven.
She continues, “You see I grew up in Totnes and went away to train to be a director in London. I feel, unlike many other countries, the UK has a huge inequality when it comes to exposure to theatre. If you live in a small town, you may never access it: the stage door might as well be a portal to another dimension — unseen, unopened. Touring companies are vanishing, funding is evaporating, and schools? Forget it. So, what we’re doing is stepping into that cultural vacuum, filling a space people don’t even realise is empty.”
First came the callout, she explains. “I sent an email in early January to all the theatrical links I could think of. I was shocked, the Seven Stars pub was heaving with actors, playwrights, technicians and theatre-lovers, all chomping at the bit to be part of something like this. Totnes has always had music, poetry, art, storytelling. But theatre? That’s been the missing limb.”
Well, that’s until Danielle arrived three years ago with ‘A Play, a Pint and a Pasty’ at The Barrel House and surgically stitched it back onto the town’s cultural body. Every play staged upstairs has left audiences absorbed, sometimes laughing but always questioning. Theatre is not a passive pastime; it’s an experience. And Mcliven, it turns out, is not just a director — she’s a conjurer. She sees talent where others see obscurity, breathes life into new writing, and has a knack for spotting a story worth telling.
And now, she wants more. A full-bodied, full-blooded Totnes Fringe Festival. The kind that sprawls across town. The sort where theatre is unavoidable, where it creeps into your day invited and welcome. An old friend! There it is, in front of you, a street performer, beckoning you to joy! A storyteller or play, enticing you in.
Danielle explains, “There is already a town generosity behind the project. Tracie Gillies from The Barrel House and owners Sarah and Richard Kidd — they’ve thrown their weight behind this idea. The town council has given us the thumbs up. Doors are being flung open in places like Leechwell Gardens, Guildhall and Civic Hall, but our vision is to obtain permission for more experimental locations” — the launderette, Castle bookshop, the Castle itself?
The website is up. Crowdfunder live. The doors are open. The tickets? Sensibly priced, because this isn’t just about making theatre, it’s about making theatre matter.
The Totnes Fringe Festival is coming to town and everyone, but everyone, is invited. Weekend of July 11th, 12th, 13th, 2025.
The crowdfunder for supporters is here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/totnes-fringe-festival/