Sarah L Dixon Writer

I was delighted to be invited to perform my show at the first ever Midlands Fringe. Over lockdown I made closer friends with Emma, Steve and Dave of the Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists. I knew the PPPs would be safe hands, would set up and promote the festival well, book suitable venues and the festival was even better than I imagined it to be. I loved the design on the flyers and posters.

Friday 25th July-arrival in Wolves

So, for once, the trains behaved and I arrived at The Arena Theatre, just in time to take one of the few seats left unoccupied for the Sold Out headline spot by Lucy Porter. She was warm, funny and assured. It was brilliant to see someone who is so familiar to me from panel shows in real life. Lucy was testing new material out on us and it felt a privilege to be one of the first audiences to hear this. For this reason I will not share any of the themes here. I was chatting to someone about my Jim Bob t-shirt and someone came by and said she liked it and I said, ‘Ah Jim Bob is lovely and I got to interview him in November in Chatham Library.’

I hadn’t looked up or realised the person I was chatting to was Lucy. She had mentioned the Poppies in her show and shared my excitement about 90s music and said she also loved Jim Bob and she had mentioned The Poppies in the show. I looked up and realised it was Lucy and said ‘Ah! Hi, I hadn’t realised it was you.’ She thanked me for being a good focus on the front row, being an attentive and encouraging audience member.

The Pandemonialists also all greeted me with warm grins and hugs and I knew I was in a place I would feel safe to try out my show for the second time.

I went out after the show and hadn’t found any Wolves friends beyond the PPPs who were sensibly getting an early night with hot chocolate… so I went to The Posada, my favourite pub in Wolverhampton, for several reason. They have a beautiful window, a great soundtrack, friendly staff and good beer and whisky. My favourite thing is a small booth that only seats two people, which I love as a little cubby hole to make plans in. I was going to go back to my apartment for the night and then I was walking by The Giffard Arms and decided to go for one more drink on the way home. It as a male-dominant space and I decided to go into the beer-garden to finish my beer. I met 4 people in their late twenties, two men two women. We chatted for about an hour and then they invited me to join them at Planet Night club. I then had a couple of hours in a night club, probably the oldest person by about a decade. I danced a lot and got home way too late.

Saturday 26th July

I woke up a little hungover but excited to catch as many shows as I could. At The Lych Gate Tavern these started with Steve lifting up the roller banner to show it off because the ceiling prevented it standing at the full height. A moment that gave us all permission not to worry about being perfect but just give the hour will could.

Emilie Lauren Jones – Queen of Spades

Emilie’s show was billed as ‘a celebration of weirdness’ and it was journey through exploring identity and neuro-divergence, dating and observation of rituals and questioning of both self and society. Poems were woven skilfully into this set and this was a great way to start my first full day of the festival.

Brendan Hawthorne – Tower Blocks to Factory Gates

There was poetry and song here and connection. I think if I had family or was born or lived on the Black Country I would have understood more of the show and Brendan did ask at the beginning if anyone wasn’t from the Black Country and I was the only person who admitted to not being. I am open to learning more though and found this show entertaining and informative.

Midlands Fringe organisers delighted with successful first event and already looking ahead to future | Express & Star

Change of Venue – Qattery Cafe

We then had a change of venues to The Qattery Cafe. Where they served great cake and tea in beautiful crockery. It took a seat 3 rows back and this is an important point for later on in the afternoon.

Date Night Improv (Autumn & Hannah)

I was looking forward to this one as I had seen Date Night Improv at Wolves Lit Fest Fringe in January and although I knew what to expect this was totally to not know what to expect as a date from history is chosen randomly by the audience and then Autumn and Hannah act out the historical moment. This is amusing and I love the fact they evidently amuse each other by the random tangents they take.

Death of Dr Dr Black

Andrew Stannard

I returned to find my seat had been taken and the place was full apart from a settee on the front row. So, these two shows were more intimate than I expected them to be. I was addressed quite a few times in the solving of the Death of Dr Black and as a lover of both magic and murder mystery I was entranced and loved this show. I got to hold a Rubik’s Cube sealed in a jar too. An elegant, crafted and beguiling show.

Renfield – Corin Rhys Jones

I know these aren’t photos of Renfield but this was an intense and immersive show – where Corin inhabited the character of Renfield so absolutely the madness shone out and I was still front row and in the eye of the manic storm. I was too absorbed (and scared) to take any photos. This was my favourite show of the Midlands Fringe and I was so happy to catch this as I had missed it a few times in Morecambe and I knew Matt had worked on this show with Corin and expected it to be something special, but it exceeded all my expectations.

Stephen K Amos

I know this is not Stephen but I wanted to get one of Steve Pottinger, one of the PPPs who created, promoted and beautifully ran the festival. I hope it comes back in 2026. No photos of Dave and Emma as they were busy in the background.

Stephen was another familiar face and his set was hit and miss for me. Some funny parts of material being tested for Edinburgh. However, the continued return to the fact this small space was an ‘Arena’ being repeated a little too often as a dig at the size of a great venue. Once or twice he could have got away with but it became tired.

I returned to the Posada to do some show plotting and got an early night.

Sunday 27th July

I was quite pacey by my show on Sunday morning. I had a space to hang all my props in my apartment so every time I walked through the hall I grinned thinking of what was to come. Being first on is a difficult spot at a festival, partly because the audience have not been warmed up yet and there is not a tone for the day so you are going to set that at the beginning.

My show at Lych Gate Tavern

So, notes on my own show feel strange but I want to record a little about what I felt went well and what could be improved next time. Firstly, I have decided I need to enlist a tech person even if it is just a friend in the audience. Issue this time with the Bluetooth speaker wasn’t the fact it couldn’t be operated through walls, but that I had like a good audience member I had turned my phone to silent, then walked on and realised I could not play the music without unmuting my phone… Also, I had kept changing my plans for the show and these notes were all hand-written – these need to be set and typed up and then I can make detours if I decide to – I threw myself a little by putting in a poem about Jonn Penney, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin singer, as he is a local legend. This meant I missed out a fire poem though and then wondered why I was so ahead of time, but I added a crowd favourite poem in and stretched some anecdotes to fill my time.

REVIEWS (and then we will return to the other Sunday shows)

‘Sarah L Dixon’s “Fire” – allegedly a spoken word show about being a fan of the 1990s music scene, it was so much more than that. It spoke to me about my own love affair with the 1980s music scene and how music is inextricably linked to our memories, our sense of identity, the way we form friendships, the way we relate to and cope with challenging times and painful emotions in our lives and the way our musical heroes become proxy friends, substitute boyfriends and emotional support mechanisms. I think anyone who loves music, of whatever era, could relate to it, but then I think even people who hate music would relate to it – it wasn’t about music, it was about being human. Courageously revealing, charmingly funny, tenderly poignant, it has to be seen.’

Melanie Branton

First gig of the final day of the Midland Fringe. This was one of my favourite things (like the song), vulnerable, authentic and beautiful were some of the words in my notes on Sarah’s performance which instantly connected me to my memories of music. Playing in a band saved my life in the 80s, and it’s lovely to see such honesty in a performance, ty.
David Price

Sarah L Dixon Muses on Joy of Indie Music at Midlands Fringe

Sarah L Dixon, opened the 3rd day of Midlands Fringe at the Lych Gate Tavern with her show Fire, 90s Indie Music, following on from her recent appearance at the Bay Fringe Morecambe. 

The show’s main focus is music and more music, and its importance to Sarah. This shines through her poems. From discovering her own sound from mixtapes to the heavy, heavy sound of Madchester and beyond, her reading brought back memories of the 90s indie scene.  Dixon’s dropping of band names reminding me of my own adventures in music.  

The poems she read showed us the relevance of music in her life and the support it gave her through the hard times. From evenings at Morecambe Bay to first gig after COVID, Sarah shows us pivotal moments in her life, and adventures enjoyed in following her favourite bands. 

The poems Sarah read can be found in her self-published poetry book, A Bit Like Falling in Love. 

So if you ever have the opportunity to see her show, Then Sit Down*, Fire up the ShoeSaw** and chill, you’re in for a treat.

Christine Loch

*James **Lionrock

Midlands Fringe – Fire, 90’s Indie Music

Full English – Melanie Branton

I was a little dazed after my show and I reckon ideally I would miss the show before mine to get in the zone (but Morecambe proved to me I want to support as many acts as possible so I think that is unlikely if there is a show before mine. There not being a show before mine and everyone milling about made me more nervous, at least another show is a welcome distraction, but if this was high energy like Melanie or Renfield I would have struggled to empty to my head of all the information and intensity).

Melanie’s show was about the history of language and had many entertaining props and audience participation she gave us no choice about but I think most of us were enjoying ourselves by the end of the show. You can definitely feel how enthusiastic Melanie is as a teacher of language and she doesn’t flinch from stretching our brains with so many facts my brain was buzzing on the train several hours later. Brilliant.

Tom Allsopp – Ten Years a Dad

Tom admits to us he had not thought about how he was going to shape the hour and it does feel more like a set of poetry than the other shows but he has the material to carry him though and entertains and connects with us telling stories about a decade of fatherhood and as a parent, of a 14 year old, I felt empathy for a lot of the situations he found himself in. I don’t think you would need to be a parent to understand the humanity in these pieces though and it was good to catch up with Tom briefly afterwards too.

Weight off my chest – Dee

I only caught about a third of this show as I had to grab some food and catch my train and rail replacement bus. What I did catch skilfully linked cocktails and breast reduction surgery and identity. I hope to catch this show again somewhere else.

Thanks so much to the Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists for selecting my show, the warm welcome, a brilliantly curated festival and all the day for poetry, Fringe and Literature. I hope to be back at The Wolves Lit Fest in February 2026 – I hope to have more news about this soon.

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