Morecambe Fringe Festival looking for actors of all ages and experience

Ever fancied getting involved in films? Morecambe Fringe is looking for actors of all ages and experience, and anyone with an interest in filmmaking.
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“We’re looking for anyone with an interest,” said Fringe founder Matt Panesh, “You can be a professional actor looking to enhance your showreel or a first-timer who’s wanted to give it a go. You may want to get involved on the tech side, lighting, camera, costume, special effects and so on. We’re open to all.”

“We’ve spent the last month developing a core group of writers and sketches, we have about 30 now ready to go, which will form the online content of the Fringe. These will be being shot over the next coming months and going online in September. Then from September we have a series of short films planned, leading to a feature to be shot in June next year. All of these ideas and new partnerships have been born out of the Covid crisis. Thanks to government support I was able to use the Playhouses emergency funds to shift focus to a studio set up. Unfortunately, I think it will be some time before the playhouse opens again as a storefront theatre, but as a studio, we can open tomorrow. I think filming has a real future in Morecambe, it’s an area of growth. What with ITV serial The Bay generating interest, I really believe a commercial operation can come out of here. This is a simple way to give people experience. By utilising different elements I’ve developed over the last four years we have a real chance to create something brilliant.

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“The West End Players for budding actors, writers and so on getting real experience, credits, and stage time to develop; the Playhouse, a venue where we can platform the talent, and whose podcast channel, West End Playhouse Presents... has just been launched with the first series of The Alternative Space Programme. A radio show that combined spoken word talent from Morecambe, the likes of Bryan Griffin, Jim Lupton, June Metcalfe among others, with award winning national and international talent like BBC slam champion David Lee Morgan, Louise Fazackerly, Steve Pottinger and Emma Purshouse, the whole thing stitched together with electronic music made by myself. Of course there’s also the Fringe Festival itself, which grew from a weekend to three weeks, and from 16 shows to 47, we were due to have over 100 performances last year. For this TV/film project I’ve partnered with Harren Data in the US, they’ll be providing post production services to give our sketches and shows a final professional polish we’re unable to, simply due to lack of resources. All of the funding for this, and all my efforts has been hit and miss, hitting my own pocket and sometimes dinner table. To be frank, we’ve received incredible support from some organisations, and surprisingly little from others, but c’est la vie.

“If there’s any one out there who wants to get involved drop me a line at [email protected]

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