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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Fleabag and Baby Reindeer superproducer Francesca Moody: ‘The next best play can come from anywhere'
Francesca Moody's name is a sign to pay attention. The Olivier-winning producer discovered the plays that led to two of the most successful TV shows in recent memory: Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. If a show has Moody's backing, it has a higher-than-average chance of soaring to success. But as Moody's recognition has grown, so has the pressure to create a hit. 'That is exciting,' she cautions as we slip into a small glass-walled room in her office off London's Leicester Square. She looks surprisingly calm given the restaurants' worth of plates she's spinning. 'But it's also terrifying. The stakes are higher than they used to be.' She's busy unleashing a new set of shows across the US and UK – including an entire miniature festival at the Edinburgh fringe – and has another Netflix show in development. Risk is part of the producing game, and Moody's threshold is high. She hadn't raised the money for Richard Gadd's Baby Reindeer until the week it was due to go on at the Edinburgh fringe in 2019. At that point, she didn't have much of a buffer for the money not coming through. 'I don't know what I would have done,' she concedes. These days, she has greater financial stability. But there's also more hanging in the balance. 'It's our company's money,' she says, 'our investors' money, and ultimately my name.' Moody now runs her own production company, Francesca Moody Productions, which has a knack, as she puts it, for 'finding unusual, kooky, sometimes auteur-led work that doesn't always immediately feel commercial'. It currently has nearly a dozen scripts at various stages of development, plus a film in the works and a first-look deal with Phoebe Waller-Bridge's production company. 'There are a few ideas on our plate now that we're just itching to get in the room,' Moody says. The list sounds exhausting, but she seems energised. Failures do happen. 'Things go wrong every day,' she says, 'on the good stuff, too.' But some mishaps are more marked than others. 'We had a musical called Berlusconi,' a cautionary tale about the former Italian PM, 'which was universally panned by critics.' She says it casually; this job demands rolling with the punches. 'I stand by the boldness of the idea, and it was such a collegiate group of creatives, it was almost comical that it didn't hit in the way we were expecting it to.' Good or bad, the role is all-consuming. Moody admits to an 'almost unhealthy relationship' with her work. 'It's so much more than a job,' she explains, searching for the right description for what fuels her. ''Vocation' sounds horribly wanky, but it's so all-defining. It would be really hard for me to unpick who I am without this.' And how does she spot a hit? She talks about intuition. 'I always think Fleabag is a great example of trusting your gut.' She first met Waller-Bridge and Fleabag's director Vicky Jones in Soho Joe, a now-defunct pizza place next to London's Soho theatre, to discuss producing a play they had commissioned. 'I remember it as a whirlwind of ideas,' says Moody. She was nervous and Waller-Bridge made her laugh. When she later heard about a short piece Waller-Bridge had written, which eventually became Fleabag, she leapt at the chance to work with her. 'I knew that Phoebe was an incredible actor who could spin comedy and tragedy on a dime,' she says. She locked Waller-Bridge in a room until she finished Fleabag. Her nose has continued to serve her well. She first read the script for Baby Reindeer on a train and didn't get off until she'd reached the last page. And it only took one song for her to fall in love with Jon Brittain and Matthew Floyd Jones's comedy musical Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, which leapt from the fringe to the West End. 'You have to start with: Do I love this show? Is it like anything else I've ever seen before? You have to be 100% all in.' As with most of her hits, the Edinburgh fringe was the birthplace for Weather Girl, Brian Watkins' unsettling climate-comedy, which sees a weather reporter smiling her way through the apocalypse. This prophetic eco-monologue played in Edinburgh in 2024, sold out at Soho theatre earlier this year, and is soon transferring to St Ann's Warehouse in New York. On first reading, Moody says, 'it hooked me'. But she knew it needed work. Her team helped to guide it into what it is now: an absurd comedy that quickly tumbles into giddy climate disaster. 'I always try to think about the audience and whether they will connect with a character, so my notes on Weather Girl were largely bound up in that – but it was all there at the beginning,' she says. The show is currently in development with Netflix – and may well be another next big thing. On the other side of the world at the Edinburgh fringe, Moody is ushering in a new roster of shows. 'Edinburgh's not a place to be making money,' Moody says. 'It's a place to be investing.' This year, her investments include three shows and an entire month-long festival-within-the-festival. The first show is Ohio, an autobiographical folk drama by married couple and award-winning musicians the Bengsons, which gathered a keen following in the US and already has a transfer to south London's Young Vic planned. She's also bringing Seiriol Davies' camp historical musical How to Win Against History back to the fringe. (It started there nearly a decade ago.) Her third show is Garry Starr: Classic Penguins. 'It's the best version of clowning I've seen,' Moody says, 'and the most beautiful holding of an audience through quite exposing audience interaction.' She compares it to Julia Masli's cult hit, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. In recent years, Moody's name has become synonymous with success at the festival. 'We understand the conditions you need to facilitate a sense of something being exciting,' Moody asserts. 'That's 25% of the way there, in terms of building a bit of a hit.' A producer has to create more demand than a show can satisfy, she says. That means choosing a small enough venue that you can sell a show out and create a buzz. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Next comes the image: 'In a world that seems to be increasingly obsessed by star-led revivals or existing bits of adapted IP, you have to make a show feel like its own bit of original IP.' She points to Weather Girl. The eye-catching marketing image, of the lead actor's grinning face drowning in a pool of bright red, did a lot of work to make the new show recognisable. Perhaps most exciting is Moody's upcoming collective endeavour. As her company grows, she worries about 'not being in the weeds in the same way I used to be, creatively'. To rectify this, she wants to get back to her roots in fringe theatre and support artists in this prohibitively expensive climate. 'I came up through the fringe at a time just before it started to get really difficult to make work there,' she says. 'You couldn't make a show any more in the way we made Fleabag in 2013. Our two-bed flat was like £2,000 for the month. You'd be hard pressed to find that for less than six or seven grand now.' After many conversations about the difficulties of producing work, Moody decided to 'put our money where our mouth is'. The result is Shedinburgh. Originally conceived with writer and performer Gary McNair and producer Harriet Bolwell during the pandemic, it started as a digital festival where shows were livestreamed from two small sheds in London and Edinburgh. This year, they're turning the idea into an intimate, 100-seat live venue for the duration of the fringe. 'It was too good an idea to let go of,' she says. The programme is eclectic, with the 'shed-ule' consisting of one-off performances of old and new work from the likes of Sophie Duker, Maimuna Memon and Christopher Brett Bailey. Paying artists' travel, accommodation, plus a fee or a box office split, whichever is higher – an inversion of the typical method at the fringe – the project is made possible by investors who believe in its ethos. 'We wanted to imagine a bit of a utopia,' Moody reasons. 'It's a love letter to the fringe.' The fringe used to feel like a level playing field. 'Once you're there, the literary manager at the National Theatre can see your show. The theatre critic at the Guardian can see it. I can see it. Now, it's so much harder to just get there.' She places these struggles against wider concerns about the 'death of fringe theatre' – particularly with the recent cancellation of London's Vault festival – where so much emerging work begins. Shedinburgh is determinedly creating opportunities in spite of these difficulties. 'Theatre is my first love,' Moody says. 'We want to reinvigorate that sense that the next best play can come from anywhere, and inspire others to do the same.' Shedinburgh runs 1 to 24 August; Ohio is at Assembly Roxy, Upstairs, 30 July to 24 August; How to Win Against History is at Underbelly, George Square, 30 July to 24 August.
Scotsman
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
'I couldn't have brought first show to Edinburgh Fringe now', warns Baby Reindeer and Fleabag producer
Baby Reindeer and Fleabag producer Francesca Moody first brought a show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2011. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... When star Edinburgh Festival Fringe producer Francesca Moody brought her first theatre show, The Ducks, to Edinburgh in 2011, the full cost of the run was £10,000. 'You just can't do that now, because that's what the accommodation is going to cost you on its own,' says the Baby Reindeer and Fleabag producer. 'I certainly would have struggled to take work for the first time up there now. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Francesca Moody is the producer behind Fringe hits including Baby Reindeer and Fleabag. | Rich Lakos 'I say that in the knowledge that there are lots of barriers to access that don't exist to me. I grew up in a very comfortable, middle-class upbringing - but I certainly think it would have been far tougher.' Now revered in the industry for her two hit shows, both of which have gone on to become major TV productions - as well as last year's critically-acclaimed production Weather Girl - Ms Moody is on a quest to return the Fringe to the hotbed of new work and raw talent it once was. Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, starring Richard Gadd, began as a one-man Francesca Moody Productions show on the Fringe. Through her company, Francesca Moody Productions, she is launching a new venue Shedinburgh in Edinburgh College of Art's Wee Red Bar. Venue organisers have promised to 'flip the traditional Fringe model' by paying artists to perform and has called on funding from the Scottish and UK governments, as well as philanthropists and corporate sponsors, to help support performers. The soaring cost of appearing in the Fringe has been cited as one of the major barriers for artists performing in Edinburgh, with some, especially those outside of Scotland, forced to abandon plans of performing entirely, or stay as far away from the capital as Glasgow or even Newcastle. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Originally conceived as a digital operation during the pandemic, the revival of Shedinburgh is already one of the most talked-about topics of this year's Fringe, not only because of its founder's iconic status, but as a potential blueprint for other venues. Artists will perform for one night only and while they will be paid, they will also be funded for their accommodation and travel expenses. The initial line-up includes comedians Jayde Adams and Mark Watson, as well as a range of up-and-coming artists. However, further shows are still to be announced, with special 'secret sets' to be revealed during the festival. For audiences, 'pay what you can' tickets will be available for every show. Ms Moody says: 'As a company and an individual which had so much success at the Fringe and was able to make it work there at a time where it felt a little bit more like a level playing field, I think we just feel really passionately that we wanted to try and find new ways of reimagining that Fringe model. 'At the same time, we want to have a chance to platform some really exciting and interesting emerging artists alongside some well-known, prolific makers who maybe haven't been to the Fringe more recently. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'We want to make a real commitment to thinking about how we can make sure that the Fringe that we know and love and that has been so significant to our success can be that for other artists and producers and theatre makers and comedians and musicians as well. It's increasingly challenging to be able to do that.' Fringe Society data released last year suggested that a 150-capacity play from a Scottish-based company with 12 performers would cost an average of around £25,000, with an international dance or physical theatre show in a 60-capacity venue coming in at around £19,000. Accommodation, meanwhile, now averages out at well over £100 a night for a single room. Ms Moody says: 'Accommodation in particular, has become just inaccessibly expensive, and it means that the majority of the work that gets to the Fringe, is either work that's already backed by somebody with money, which requires you to have, you know, established yourself a little bit in the industry and made some meaningful relationships as an artist, or just super commercial work. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'There's definitely a place for that in the eco-system. But when you think about the really amazing artists and shows that have come out of the Fringe over the last 75 years - the brilliant, game-changing, cultural moments and pieces of work from artists who were doing it unencumbered by other people and voices and who were giving themselves permission to just be a bit scrappy and and try something out and not be afraid to fail. 'Then obviously that becomes harder when things get more expensive, because there's more pressure on success as well. I certainly think there are people who are being priced out of the Fringe at the moment.' Phoebe Waller-Bridge with her 2013 Fringe First award for the original production of Fleabag. She points to other initiatives from other venues and the Fringe Society, to find new routes to accessibility for artists. 'What we're doing, we're not doing in isolation,' she says. 'We're not reinventing the wheel here. There's the Free Fringe, which has been doing it for a really long time. But I think it's the responsibility of all of those stakeholders and folks like me who've had some success to try and level the playing field in some way again. If we don't keep reimagining it, then the problem is only going to get bigger.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ms Moody admits that Shedinburgh, which she describes as a 'subsidised project', is unlikely to break even this year, but insists lessons can be learned from the process - not least utilising other available funding. She says she hopes the structure would spark a conversation around how guarantees are paid to artists, rather than artists paying guarantees to venues. 'Work at this scale is really where all the really great things start,' she says. 'My hope is that the legacy, amongst other things, is that some of the shows that are new are built into other things, and that this is the start of that for those artists who are performing in Shedinburgh.' However, she admits changing the existing Fringe model more widely would require 'some serious remodelling' and called for funding from various sources to support artists. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Other venues should be able to replicate it,' she says. 'But all venues have a bottom line they have to hit. So, whether they'll be able to replicate it to the level that we've managed to structure it at this time, I don't know, but what I do think it's showing is that there's a need for more investment in philanthropy at this level of making work.' She adds: 'There's less public funding than ever for the arts. There are ways of procuring public funding to make your work at the Fringe, but they are super limited. So I think it's about saying 'is there more investment that could be made to help us to reimagine the ways that we make the festival possible?' And then is there more that can be done from a philanthropic perspective and from partnerships at a sponsorship level in order to support work at this scale? 'We need funding from from the Scottish Government, from central government, the arts councils, grants and foundations, philanthropy from individuals. We don't have a great culture of philanthropy in the UK in the way that they do in the States. Corporate sponsorship is one very valuable way of achieving investment in the arts, and I certainly think that there could be more of that. It's an eco-system, money needs to come from multiple sources.
