Buxton Fringe Announces Awards for 2025

Buxton Festival Fringe held its eagerly-awaited Awards Ceremony in The Serpentine Community Garden’s polytunnel on Sunday July 27th with Fringe Chair Ian Bowns (pictured) presenting the event for the first time.

Ian pronounced it a “really good year” and praised performers for delivering “a wonderful Fringe”, something “reflected in the number of categories and nominees and the strength of entries”.

He went on to thank the Fringe committee, the awards’ judges, reviewers, Fringe desk staff, Fringe Friends, financial backer High Peak Borough Council, Morrisons, Parkwood Leisure, Lomas Distribution and the Serpentine Community Garden for hosting the ceremony as well as many other supporters in the town including local media and the soon to close Vision Buxton. He was also keen to acknowledge the work of countless behind-the-scenes volunteers

Before moving on to the awards, Ian reminded the audience of special anniversaries with Buxton’s The Shakespeare Jukebox and Underground each celebrating 20 years and Chapel-en-le-Frith Morris marking 50 years.

The Jukebox, recipient of the Street Theatre award, was among the local acts with reason to celebrate. There were also wins for New Mills-based Utopia Unlimited (Lie Jennings, Youth Actor), Buxton’s REC Youth Theatre (Youth Ensemble), Peak District Artisans (Visual Arts Event) and Burbage Band for Burbage Works – Heart of Brass (Film).

In other key awards, Charis King’s Wummy won Theatre Production, Lexi Wolfe and Patrick Kealy won acting awards for The Baker Street Ladies and Fiction Romance respectively, and Shadow Syndicate from Nottingham won Youth Production for Dr Korczak’s Example. Stacey Cullen won New Writing for the play, Overwhelm. Also in Theatre, The John Beecher Memorial Award went to Play Nicely Theatre’s There is a Light and a Whistle for Attracting Attention.

In Music, there were awards for singer Hannah Brine, Manchester Recorder Orchestra, Cheshire Chamber Collective, jazz and blues artists Bob Hall and Hilary Blythe, classical guitarist Ed Billingham, Ordsall Acapella Singers, and musical theatre celebrators, Robert Hazle & Helena Northcote.

Visual Arts featured awards for Peak District Artisans’ Art at the Crescent and PDA sculptor Ian Patrick Palmer.
Comedy awards went to Will BF (Show) and Alasdair Beckett-King (Stand Up).

Stockport musicians Darren Poyzer and Trish Plant won the Spirit of the Fringe award for everything they did to support the festival and bring it to others, and, as Ian put it, “personifying fun and entertainment with a serious side to them”.

See https://buxtonfringe.org.uk/awards2025.html for the full list of awards and nominations. Video footage can be found on the Buxton Festival Fringe’s YouTube channel and the Fringe website: https://www.buxtonfringe.org.uk/galleryvideos.html