Eastenders star playing her part in keeping the Edinburgh Fringe fresh

Michelle Collins has been acting since she was 18.

But after more than four decades on stage and screen, in shows such as Calendar Girls, Eastenders and Doctor Who, even she wasn’t prepared for the fear of making her debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

“I keep thinking to myself ‘what on earth am I doing?’ I don’t need to do this, and I have to admit it’s absolutely terrifying,” she says.

Her show Motorhome Marilyn is based on a passing glimpse of a real person she encountered years ago on the streets of Los Angeles.

“I saw this woman coming out of a motorhome near the place where the stars are on the pavement,” says Collins. “She was dressed as Marilyn Monroe, in a white halterneck dress, and she popped some money in the parking meter.

“It was the strangest image. I never saw her again but I never forgot her.”

Collins, who is best known for her portrayal of Cindy Beale in Eastenders, began turning that one moment into a play about an aspiring actress with an obsessive interest in Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe.

She worked with writer and actor Stewart Permutt, who she met through festival veteran and friend Miriam Margolyes.

“I found a producer, we decided to take it to Edinburgh, we had a venue, we made posters and a short trailer for the show,” she says.

“And then Covid happened.”

The festival was cancelled in 2020 and greatly curtailed the following year. Everything went on hold.

Sadly, Permutt died last year. But he left his literary estate, including the first draft of Motorhome Marilyn, to Collins.

“He was insistent we should take it to Edinburgh as planned,” she says.

“His name is still on the posters as well as Ben Weatherill who has taken it on.”

That attitude to get the show on whatever the odds is at the heart of the Fringe.

Motorhome Marilyn is one of 1,792 shows announced so far for this August, which also marks the debut of Tony Lankester as CEO of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, the organisation which runs the festival.

He first visited Edinburgh in 2007 on a British Council tour, when he was running the South African National Arts Festival.

“It became evident to me that this was the gold standard for festivals wherever you are in the world, even on the tip of Africa,” he says.

Back then, his was one of seven fringe festivals which had begun working together to further their common aims. Today, more than 300 festivals from around the world are linked in a new network, and he says the advice they share is vital.

“It can be a lonely job running a festival,” he adds. “Just the comfort of knowing that on your phone is a person who is going through the same thing.

“Whether you’re running a festival in Toronto or Prague or Adelaide the issues are the same and the ambitions are the same.”

Having been in the job only a week, he says he’s keen to listen and learn before making any changes.

And he says his previous job at London’s Riverside Studios, which he took up just weeks before the pandemic began, gave him a better understanding of the fragility of the sector.

“When I stepped into the role I inherited a huge amount of debt, we had to go into administration but we emerged from that largely intact,” he says. “Covid continues to hang over everything we do. We have to be a lot more pragmatic and we can’t take anything for granted.”

He says that includes the Edinburgh Fringe.

“A lot of the time, public bodies take the big events that happen on their doorsteps for granted. They assume they’re always going to be there and post covid we can assume nothing.”

Lankester is confident the Fringe Society has “a seat at the table” in discussions with Edinburgh City Council over controversial local issues such as the tourist tax and short-term letting.

The August festivals have come in for a lot of scrutiny in recent years due to their effect on the letting sector in the capital.

The sheer scale of the festival both benefits and strains the resources of the city. But for Lankester, it’s all a question of perspective.

“We can’t necessarily fix Edinburgh’s accommodation crisis ourselves but we need to be there when it is under discussion,” he says.

“The scale of the Edinburgh Fringe is staggering. It’s a mammoth event and has huge impact but the approach I’ve always taken is to not focus on the big number.

“It’s not about the 2.7 million tickets you sell, it’s about the one ticket you sell and one person’s experience of the festival because that’s what’s important.

“No matter how bad the world is, how much the conversation is about economic issues, the artists are still stepping up creating new, fresh, interesting work and we’re enormously proud to create this platform for them,” he says.

And Collins is excited to be playing her part in the festival. She’s currently visiting Edinburgh, months ahead of curtain up, in order to get her bearings.

Having returned to Eastenders in 2023 after a 25-year absence, she’s now on a break from Albert Square and is under strict orders not to discuss whether she’ll be returning regularly.

But she’s aware that there’s no star treatment for anyone at the Fringe.

“I’m going to have to do a lot of things myself. I’ll be doing the get in, the get out, handing out the leaflets,” she says.

“But it’s also a place to experiment. Look at all the shows which have begun here. Baby Reindeer, Fleabag, Big Boys.

“I want it to be good, I want it to be brilliant but it’s a development process. This is something I’ve created, I’ve produced.

“So to get it here at last is quite exciting. I feel I’m in charge of my own destiny.”