Three Shows, One Company, Ten Years of Edinburgh Fringe: Fake Escape’s Biggest Festival Yet

What do Britney Spears, The Breakfast Club and 1930s Hollywood have in common? This year, Fake Escape is bringing them all to the Edinburgh Fringe. As the company celebrates its 10th anniversary, we spoke to award-nominated director David Shopland about creating three very different shows, the enduring power of pop culture, and why these stories still resonate today.

Fake Escape is celebrating its 10th Fringe anniversary this year — how does it feel to be marking that milestone with three shows?

It’s quite unbelievable that so much time has passed! Increasingly, our entire year becomes shaped around the festival and what the next offering from Fake Escape will be, and of course, this year felt that way perhaps more than any other. We have never produced three shows at the festival in the same year before, and certainly not at three separate venue hubs, so there’s been a lot of various plates, bowls and countless other crockery we’ve had to keep spinning, so at the moment it feels a little like we’re in the eye of a storm - but we’re also ridiculously excited to be celebrating 10 years since we first debuted at the world’s largest arts festival!

You're imagining The Breakfast Club's sixth member and rewriting the film around them in Don’t You Forget About Me — what was it about that world that made you want to explore it?

The Breakfast Club has been one of my favourite films for as long as I can remember. Despite being born at the very tail-end of it, for some reason, I have always gravitated towards the 1980s pop culture, sound and visual output. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m also always drawn to films or TV episodes that are relatively confined to a single location, unfolding in near real-time, likely because it probably feels closer to a stage play than something on celluloid! The five archetypes depicted in the film cover the entire emotional range of what it means to be human on the cusp of adulthood, and whilst being a fun and escapist classic, I think there is something very philosophical at the film’s core. It’s that combination of humour, heart and thought that I wanted to explore and emulate in my own production.

The show (Saving Britney) has been to New York and toured the UK, but this is the first year it is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe. Why has now felt like the right moment to bring it here?

The truth is co-writer/performer Shereen Roushbaiani and I actually initially created Saving Britney with the express purpose of taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe. The problem was that we happened to create the show in March 2020… and I think we all know what happened next! Coming out of the pandemic, we were debating taking the show to the 2021 socially distanced festival that was put on that year, but we got the offer of performing in London’s prestigious Old Red Lion Theatre after 425 days of closure for a three-week run- and we couldn’t turn it down! The popularity of the show skyrocketed, and we ended up taking it all around the country and Off-Broadway in 2022 - so at that point it felt like we’d said everything we needed to. However, we always knew it had to come to Edinburgh one day, as it was always meant to be performed here, and there have been so many more revelations about Britney’s life, not to mention the publication of her book, since we last produced the show. We felt like there was more to say.

Nathanael West's novel (Day of The Locust) is almost a century old, but its portrait of fame, failure and mob hysteria feels very current. What made you want to tell this story now?

As you’ve so correctly hit upon, the portrayal of Los Angeles aflame with rioting, corruption and a fame-hungry populace could be easily placed in the 2020s as much as in its original 1930s setting. It was this idea of cyclical history that felt particularly exciting to explore, and the almost eternal allure of fame, as well as the contemporary socio-political landscape of California and its ecological difficulties in the face of climate change. These themes sparked an enthusiasm in me and collaborator Callum Patrick Hughes to reflect on this incredible novel and drag it kicking and screaming into the modern day!

Premiering two brand-new shows while also bringing back a proven hit is a big undertaking — how do you manage that creatively and logistically?

The answer has been that we’ve been blessed with a very long lead-in time. Although 2 of the 3 productions are brand new, one of the scripts for these productions was essentially finished nearly a year ago, and whilst the other is still being created, the idea for it dates back almost as long too. Therefore, we’ve had around 10 - 11 months to put everything in place so that we can get the shows from page to stage. Having been around the fringe for a decade, it also helps that we have very strong relationships with most of the ‘Big 5’ venues and were able to secure slots very early.

Looking across all three shows, is there a thread that connects them, or did they come together more by coincidence than design?

This is a really interesting question, because I actually think the answer is both. As mentioned, we have wanted to perform Saving Britney here for some time, and Don’t You Forget About Me and Day of the Locust were both created independently of each other, so on the surface it definitely feels like a coincidence. However, when you look closer, it becomes clear that all three productions explore the power of pop culture, memory and understanding your place in the world.

Fake Escape is bringing Day of the Locust, Don’t You Forget About Me and Saving Britney to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.

Day of the Locust is at Pleasance Courtyard, Attic, 5 – 30 Aug 2026 (not 17, 24), 12:50. Ticket information here: Day of the Locust | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Don’t You Forget About Me is at Assembly Roxy, Downstairs, 5 – 30 Aug 2026 (not 17, 24), 14:20. Ticket information here: Don't You Forget About Me | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Saving Britney is at Underbelly George Square,Bluebell, 5 – 30 Aug 2026 (not 17, 24), 18:15. Ticket information here: Saving Britney | Edinburgh Festival Fringe