Published: 22 July 2010
by JOSH LOEB

MORE than 200 acts are set to perform at this year’s Camden Fringe festival – and many of the shows are well suited to the locality. 

On August 6 at 6pm, Chalk Farm’s Roundhouse will host a celebration of the Regent’s Canal by self-confessed canal obsessive Bill McGarry. Mr McGarry has come all the way from Liverpool to perform the show, The Camden Navigator, which guides us through the history of the canal from its eccentric founding fathers to present day regeneration.  

The show starts with characters walking on the towpath in modern times,” he explains. “Then there is a time flip and we go back to meet those associated with its beginnings: Nash [the architect of Regent’s Park] and Congreves, who was involved in installing some of the locks.”

A very old profession is  examined in a play about Westminster Council’s attempts to cleanse Soho of sex workers in To Dismember by award-winning playwright Kay Adshead. The play examines the consequences of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, which working girls argue would make their work less safe and lead to an increase in violent crime against them. (Lion and Unicorn, August 7-8, 5pm/Sat. 3.30pm.) 

Gun and knife crime is under the spotlight in Zip: A Street Dance Musical – a play devised by local people in workshops held above O’Reillys in Kentish Town with the help of Ray Shell from local theatre company Giant Olive. The play is on at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, Kentish Town, from August 27-29.

On August 13, 20 and 27, The Fix – the brainchild of Camden Town-based comedy promoter Harry Deansway – will be holding a night at the Camden Head showcasing the best new local talent as well as big name special guests.  

OOK! and the Terrible Thing That Happened – a comic mask play for children – is on from August 10-12 at 3pm at the New Diorama Theatre, Triton Street, Euston, NW1.

• The Camden Fringe runs  from August 2-29.
See www. camdenfringe.org for the full programme. For tickets call 08444 77 1000