Superproducer Francesca Moody on her season at the Other Palace

Fleabag producer Francesca Moody discusses reinvigorating the London fringe theatre scene with bold and original work at the Other Palace.

Summary

• Francesca Moody is the producer behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer
• She is having a stellar season in London, with 'Shedinburgh' at the Young Vic and a series of transfers to the Other Palace
• Shows in the Other Palace season include An Oak Tree, Garry Starr Classic Penguins and Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible is Going to Happen

Francesca Moody has been busy. The theatre producer who remains impossible to discuss without referencing her Edinburgh Fringe successes – most prominent among which are Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, with dark comedy Weather Girl and crime musical Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder! not far behind – is extending the reach of her production company, transporting a steady stream of projects from the Scottish capital to the London stage. “I definitely feel the pressure,” she says, acknowledging that there’s been more of it – financially as much as reputationally – with each title she’s extended her name to.

Before her season at the Other Palace Theatre began in October, she was overseeing 'Shedinburgh' at the Young Vic, which featured revivals of some of her all-time favourite fringe hits as well as new work by both promising and established writers. Meanwhile, two shows she took to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, Hannah Reilly’s Roleplay and Crybabies: The Scaring, have transferred to Soho Theatre.

It is a time of mobilisation for her work. “I think the concept of bringing any of these shows to London is this concept of really celebrating and extending the life of shows we believe more people should see,” she says. “It’s about reminding people these shows all started their lives in tiny little rooms and have grown into these bigger, more significant pieces of theatre.”

Her Other Palace season is case in point. Kicking it off is Tim Crouch’s poignant theatrical experiment An Oak Tree, in which Crouch plays a stage hypnotist and invites an actor to join him on stage as a grieving father – for one performance only, and having not read the script. As in recent runs, the line-up of actors taking part is notably starry, with Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Lester and Tanya Reynolds among those taking a turn. Moody describes the show as “thoughtful, beautiful, meaningful and clever”.

Opening soon afterwards is another Edinburgh Fringe favourite: Australian comedian Damien Warren-Smith’s Garry Starr Classic Penguins, in which Warren-Smith as Garry – naked but for some flippers or other similarly futile accessories – attempts to rattle through the Penguin canon to save the books from extinction. “Wonderfully silly, irreverent, surprising” and “so entertaining,” is Moody’s verdict.

Last but not least is Marcelo Dos Santos’ Fringe First Award-winning Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible is Going to Happen, starring Steven Webb. In it, Webb plays a neurotic stand-up comedian who thinks he’s finally found Mr. Right, until his new boyfriend announces the act of laughing could kill him.

Is there a through-line between the three shows? “They all have a playfulness,” Moody says, adding that collectively, “the season represents FMP’s breadth and depth”. Each of them is also, effectively, a one-person show – even An Oak Tree, which Crouch performs alongside an actor who turns up unrehearsed, is ultimately carried by him. But Moody points out that while she’s known for one-person shows, “cast size isn’t something that’s driving my decision-making around programming”.

A stronger commonality, she says, is her attraction to original work rather than adaptations of intellectual property. Another is that the works are “accessible” and “something everyone can engage with. My pet peeve is going to a show and not quite getting it or I don’t understand it because it’s been presented in an over-intellectualised way”. While the works she’s fostered contain plenty of darkness – and sadness too — she does like there to be at least “a sense of comedy… it doesn’t have to be a comedy, but humour is a fantastic way of Trojan Horseing in ideas.”

The timing of her London takeover is not incidental. Though Moody points out she’s not alone in her efforts to “protect the pipeline”, and that other producers and venues “are all doing their version of what we’re doing”, opportunities to bring shows here are dwindling.

“It’s become more and more difficult,” she says, citing the permanent closure of Vault Festival – which was like a mini Edinburgh Fringe, unravelling underground in tunnels beneath Waterloo station – in 2024. Her focus, she says, is “trying to reinvigorate that energy in London” and remind people “scrappy, unusual, original work is some of the most exciting stuff to be engaging with.”

There aren’t a great number of spaces that could support such an undertaking, though, and “that’s why the Other Palace feels exciting for us – it’s this really visible venue”, she says, adding that she hopes the programming will create “festival energy”.

Despite the challenges facing fringe theatre right now, Moody is hopeful. “There’s a huge number of barriers for artists in general… there are systemic problems that are wider than just fringe, but I am hopeful because I believe art always finds a way.”

Success is a two-sided coin, mind. While Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd made their names on stage, both are now enjoying the more lucrative world of screen-writing. As Moody’s own name and brand continues to grow, is there a risk theatre will lose her to TV and film too? “Who has a crystal ball?,” she laughs. “But I’d say the reality is I really believe in this holistic way of imagining work, I believe in the pipeline, I believe one feeds the other in a beautiful way. I think the truth is we’ll always have our feet in the fringe in one shape or form, because it’s where we find the most interesting writers and artists,” she says, reassuringly.

“As we become more successful – whether that’s in theatre or film or television or audio – all of that stuff has to feed this, or otherwise what’s the point?”

Book An Oak Tree, Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible is Going to Happen, Garry Starr Classic Penguins tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

This article will appear in the November 2026 issue of London Theatre Magazine.

Photo credit: An Oak Tree, Fleabag, at the Olivier Awards. (Photos by Pamela Raith, Matt Humphrey, Emilio Madrid)