Edinburgh Fringe Chats (#126): The Big House, BLAZE FM

As anticipation builds for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025, we’re catching up with a range of exciting creatives preparing to bring their work to the world’s largest arts festival this August. In this series, we delve into the stories behind the shows, the inspiration driving the artists, and what audiences can expect. Today, we’re joined by The Big House to find out more about Blaze FM.

1. Can you begin by telling us about your show and what inspired it? 

Blaze FM is an explosive piece of political gig theatre with Jungle, Drill and Grime, telling the story of a family-run pirate radio station in the early 2000s. Hughbert, a descendant of the Windrush generation, is trying to raise his two children in a run down council flat in east London. We follow his struggle to keep the radio going. Blaze FM is about community, freedom of speech and censorship. We also get to see the musical journey of inner city London, starting with Jungle and Garage  to Grime and  all the way through to Drill. - X and Anais (cast members)

The Big House is a London-based charity supporting young people at risk of social exclusion through various programmes, mixing theatre and long-term pastoral care to unlock their potential. Our work emerges from our members. It goes through stages of development, from the exchange of ideas in our drop ins to workshops and early read throughs.  Everybody is feeding into it through shared stories, interests, struggles and music. Music is central to the lives of people here and often their parents too. The creative team uses the workshop resources of The Big House to test run ideas and get feedback. Many people in the creative team and in the cast have experiences similar to the themes tackled in the play and even ran pirate radios in the 2000s. We’re coming to represent something that is true to our lives and cultures in an authentic way on a big stage, and that’s special. - Maggie (Director) and Raheem (Assistant Director)

2. What made you want to bring this work to the Fringe this year?

Making our Fringe debut with Blaze FM is an incredible opportunity to bring a raw and dynamic show to a new audience and to share our unique perspective on music and life. We have a duty to share with people who’ve never heard this kind of music, who don’t know about the history of pirate radios, so they understand what those early pioneers did. We also want councils and government officials to come and see what we’re doing at The Big House so they can promote and develop projects just like that in their end and help their young people. None of us have had traditional training, it’s not a show full of RADA actors, so we’d love for young people with similar backgrounds to us to see the power of creativity and get inspired. - Aliaano and Marcus (cast members)

3. How would you describe your show in three words?

Explosive, raw and fun!

4. What do you hope audiences take away from watching your performance?

We hope the audience can realise that when they hear people rapping on the radio, there’s a lot more more to it than just spitting lyrics and making music for fun. Folks have a voice and they should be allowed to use it. There’s messages in the lyrics and there’s people to hold up. We can see Hughbert for example, he’s speaking out on behalf of his community when the government ignores them he says ‘hey, the government’s not going to do this, but we’re here for you and we’re gonna keep it burning.’ It’s a political statement, a chance to be a part of the political conversation as someone from a rundown flat in hackney who wouldn’t be heard otherwise. As entertaining and dynamic as the show is, there are real agendas that were being pushed at the time by the media and politicians and we’re challenging that narrative. We’re talking about freedom of expression, about censorship, deportation, people having their houses broken into, people being scared, having their religion being trodden down. We’re inviting people who might not be as well acquainted with our culture to share this experience and maybe go do some research. Some of their favorite grime artists might have started on pirate radio stations. - Aliaano and Marcus (cast members)

5. What’s your top tip for surviving the Fringe?

Just say “no”, everyone’s going to have  crazy ideas, just say “no”. - Aliaano (cast member)

6. Where and when can people see your show?

Blaze FM is on at Pleasance 2, Pleasance courtyard everyday at 16:45 from the 30th of July to the 25th of August, except the 6, 13 and 20.