I can’t be arsed.

I don’t like the look of that.

I’d rather stay at home again.

What’s on Netflix?

The most exciting part of Edinburgh Fringe – the month-long festival featuring over 4,000 theatre and comedy shows – is taking a last-minute punt on a show you’ve never heard of… and seeing something wonderful.

A performance by someone you’ve never heard about something you are not really interested in – but which captivates you and gives you and unforgettable experience.

When this happens, when you’ve spent 55 minutes watching a shows in an overly hot, cramped cavern room, you know you’ve arrived at the Fringe.

Of course, not every experience at Edinburgh Fringe – or Edinburgh Festival Fringe to give it it’s proper title – is like this.

There are some average shows, there are some stinkers. For every show which sells out a 1,000-seater theatre there are 100 shows which struggle to get audiences into double figures.

There are big hitters at Edinburgh Fringe. Comedians off the telly, household names with guaranteed sell-out crowds. And there are even performers and comedians who are not household names but who do have such a strong following that they too are pretty much guaranteed sell-out run sin Edinburgh.

However, it is the unknown performers – the ones we have not heard of, the ones at Edinburgh for the first time or the ones at the early stages of their career – where the rich rewards are. The shows which start selling-out because of word-of-mouth appreciation, or the shows so off the wall and unusual that words can’t describe their genre – these are the ones which literally have to be seen to be believed.

I’ve been bringing shows to Preston since 2017. And most of them have been the brilliant shows I’ve seen in Edinburgh and have wanted to bring to a Preston audience.

It started with Joanne Tremarco’s Women Who W*nk, an indescribable improvised one-woman show which I heard about while I was in Edinburgh in 2016. It had started it’s Edinburgh run with around a dozen people in the audience and finished with about 150 people, most of which were crammed in sitting on the floor of the performance space.

Garry Starr (Damien Warren-Smith) is a performer who has had residences in Las Vegas and now sells out at Edinbugh Fringe – and at festivals across the world – playing to 1,000+ audiences. In 2018, he performed for an about 30 people at Vinyl Tap in Preston on a cold Sunday night. The show was absolutely remarkable. I still get people mentioning it to me now.

There have been many other brilliant shows and brilliant performers and poets who have come to Preston, either as one-off show or as part of Lancashire Fringe Festival. There are too many to mention. F*ck You, Pay Me, Juliette Burton, Louise Orwin, Garry Starr, Harry Baker, Suzy Homemaker, Kevin Gilday, Luke Wright, How To Be a Better Human, Jonny Pelham, Rock N Roll Suicide.

But these shows don’t get devised, created and born in Edinburgh.

They come from months of hard work away from the bright lights of the world’s biggest fringe festival. They come from small rehearsal spaces in towns and cities all over the UK and beyond. They come from development nights in London, Brighton or Bristol. I’m proud to say some of them come from work-in-progress performances in Preston – Lancashire Fringe festival in particular has made huge efforts to support and develop new shows.

Which brings us to Ayse Balkos’ Canine Teeth – exactly the kind of show we are talking about here. It’s a show you’ve never heard of. It covers a subject you know nothing about. It’s new and in development.

But it could be the best thing you’ve ever seen. It’s worth a punt.

Above that, it’s really important to support new work, otherwise we won’t have exciting new theatre shows and performers going on to bigger and better things.

That’s why I’m giving a platform to Ayse – to give her the opportunity to perform in Preston, develop as an artist and get her show to the point where it can take on Edinburgh Fringe and the world.

I’ve seen some amazing one-women shows in Edinburgh, and in Preston, and these confessional, confrontational one-women shows are the most exciting and growing areas of contemporary theatre.

Canine Teeth is a work about grief, gender, economic and social discrimination – a young women’s relatable experience.

And it’s a cheap night out. When Arena gigs cost over £150 per ticket and when similar shows in other towns and cities, you can see Canine Teeth for as little as £7.

Tickets are available from Skiddle, the Preston-based ticketing company.

Canine Teeth is at The Ferret on Wednesday, May 10, 2024.

Come and support Preston’s world-famous music venue, support the performer and support live theatre in Preston. It’s a win-win for all of us.