Morecambe Fringe and putting Lancashire on the comedy map: ‘We had a statue of a comedian, but no comedy night – that wasn’t right’

A burgeoning poet armed with expletive-laden verses, a one-man-band of a thespian swimming in the waters of solo theatre, and a festival producer with an unparalleled passion for new and ambitious entertainment, he’d just been evicted.

“I woke up with a hangover in Morecambe and thought ‘‘how did I get here?’” he says. It was 2016, and little did Matt know it, but he’d just floated back home. But, from the very start, there was a passion for performance. Where did that come from?

“I’ve no idea!” says an incredibly young-looking 49-year-old Matt, flashing an irresistible smile. “I really got into it in secondary school - I played Fat Sam in the production of Bugsy Malone and I was so skinny they had to stuff me full of tights and one fell out, so it looked for the world as if I had a massive condom swinging in front of me!” Matt fell in love.

Despite his keen desire to go to drama school, financial barriers soon put paid to such dreams and so he embarked on a Higher National Diploma in TV operations instead, getting to grips with cameras, lighting, and editing. Over time, he forgot all about performing until, in 2003, he found himself in a pub in Withington.

“Mike Garry got up in between two bands and recited some poetry and I just thought ‘can you do that; is that allowed, what’s going on here?’” says Matt. “That’s how I got into performance poetry, which became my route back on stage. Suddenly, the floodgates were open. It was pure ego! I’ve always loved being the centre of attention.

“But I also had things to say and poetry is the easiest form of the written word,” he adds. “You don’t need character arcs; you don’t have to spell correctly or use grammar. All you have to do is go ‘that’s a poem’ and nobody can tell you different. It’s like painting: all you have to do is kick three tins of paint onto a canvas and go ‘that’s a painting’!

“It might not be a very good painting, but it’s a painting!”

Desperate for stage time, Matt embarked for North America, touring their myriad fringe festivals and cutting his teeth before returning to the UK and heading north to Edinburgh, which he calls his ‘real route in’. “That’s what I love about Fringe: it blurs amateur and professional. I moved from poetry to solo theatre and I was loving it.

“But I dried up after the initial torrents and you start second guessing yourself,” he adds. “I’d burned myself out - I was programming for the Free Fringe at the same time, and it’s a wonderful organisation… but we had 80 shows and 1,000 performance spots over three weeks.”

That’s when the jaded performer in need of recuperation washed up on the Fylde coast.

“My friend had a house that needed looking after in the West End so I stayed and quickly realised the town had a statue of a comedian but no comedy night,” says Matt, still incredulous. “That just wasn’t right. So me and my mate Nick Awde started Morecambe Fringe to reconnect Morecambe to its heritage of performing, entertainment, and tourism.

“We had this amazing beautiful town full of amazing sunsets, but it was disconnected from entertainment, so we brought in battle-hardened Edinburgh warriors from my contact book!” he adds. “People who get up in front of four people and give them a show as if they’re in front of 4,000; people who’ve done it on a wet, windy night in Edinburgh.”

Morecambe Fringe started off life as a two-day event with 15 shows, recruiting rock band Hawkwind to play at the second edition as part of Hawk Fest at The Alhambra. “We filled the place and the West End came to life,” says Matt. “The Victorians are like the Romans: morally and ethically dubious, but fantastic designers.

“It was almost as if someone had dusted everything off, watered it, and all these seeds had started to grow again,” he adds. “We ran workshops and more shows, changing the time of year the Fringe was on so we got people on the way up to Edinburgh to perform alongside local talent because it’s always been about creating careers in the industry for people.”

Having been involved in the performing arts all his life as a poet, actor, producer, and director, Matt quickly became something of a one-man powerhouse behind the ever-growing Morecambe Fringe, a smorgasbord of spoken word, music, theatre, poetry, prog rock, cabaret, and comedy festivals which has emerged as one of the UK’s most eclectic events.

But the Fringe is far more than just an ad hoc circus. Designed with far more lasting impacts in mind, it has revived the performing arts scene in the town, providing quality entertainment to a community which missed it. Having taken inspiration from big events in unlikely places such as Winnipeg and Edmonton, Matt is putting Morecambe on the cultural map.

And, this year, he’s going back to his poetic routes with the upcoming inaugural Morecambe Poetry Festival.

Set to take place between September 16th and 18th, the three-day extravaganza at the iconic Winter Gardens stage on Morecambe Promenade will play host to the likes of Dr John Cooper Clarke, Mike Garry, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Henry Normal & Lemn Sissay, Atilla the Stockbroker, John Hegley, Kate Fox, and TS Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor.

Also primed to give invaluable stage time to a vibrant line-up of the country’s most exciting emerging writers, including a handful of locals, Morecambe Poetry Festival will be - in Matt’s eyes - a place where poets can mingle, where publishers can scope out new talent, and where the public can get a taste of the humming UK poetry scene.

“It’s about bringing people into Morecambe with big name acts whilst giving people the opportunity to learn how to use their voice,” says Matt. “Because what’s the point of freedom of speech if you’ve not got a platform and you don’t know how to speak? That’s why it’s vital there’s a safe space for performers: you only learn where the line is when you cross it.

“You can only develop an act with stage time in an environment where it’s safe for you to mess up, otherwise you don’t try anything,” he adds. “That combination of inspirational people coming in and a community throughline of developing talent is what Morecambe needs. The idea was to create a scene and there’s a real vibrancy here now.

“Even the guy who sees there’s a show on and goes ‘bloody drama’ is still slightly happier than the guy who walks past a place that’s shut!” says Matt with a laugh. “Performing is a lifeline: we have people with issues with drugs, alcohol, confidence, mental health... One guy said working on the panto led to the longest stretch of time he’d ever been off heroin.

“And the poetry festival is just a dream come true as well: it’s like you’ve asked ‘80s me who he wanted to see most in the world of poetry!” says Matt, hands animated with excitement. “It’s gonna be a scream! Heart palpitations; I’m over the moon!”