Comedy Afloat: Reflections on The Floating Fringe in York

There’s nothing quite like telling jokes on a barge. The room’s intimate, the ceiling’s low, and the only heckle you fear is from a passing duck. Performing stand-up in a gently echoing hull, just above the Ouse, adds a strange serenity to the usual pre-show nerves—less gladiatorial, more nautical.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of performing and compering York the Plank — a stand-up showcase that was part of The Floating Fringe in York, staged aboard the beautifully ramshackle Arts Barge moored on the River Ouse. Friday night, I stepped up as a comic. By Saturday, I was compering the same gig, trying to keep both the show and the boat steady.

Running from July 24–26, The Floating Fringe offered a grassroots antidote to more commercial circuits. With its blend of stand-up, theatre, and oddball performance art — some of which teetered closer to the surreal than the stable — it proved that fringe culture is very much alive, even when bobbing gently on a river.

York the Plank

Friday night, I took the stage as Johnny F. Monotone — a name that might undersell the fact I was part of an absolutely electric night. The room was packed, the energy palpable, and with eleven acts on the bill, it was a five-minute sprint for each of us. Chris Booker compered with his usual deft touch, setting the tone and pacing that made a tight show feel breezy. Five minutes might not sound like much, but when you're Johnny F. Monotone, it’s all about the economy of expression — punch, pause, punch, pause, and hope the tension doesn't burst.

Saturday, I returned to the same venue and the same format, but this time as myself — and, more notably, as compere. It was my first time compering since 2019. I managed to sneak in a few topical gags (timely, if not entirely high quality) and kept the momentum going. That is, until Sir Dickie Benson made a surprise appearance halfway through, upstaging me in the most delightful way. It was an evening of managing tone, tempo, and the occasional surreal interruption—exactly what you want from a floating fringe. My heartfelt thanks go out to the other wondeful performers from York (and surrouding areas) I shared both bills with - Michele Siciliano, Katie Lingo, Jamie Clinton, Jimmy Johnson, Saul Henry, Ethan Formstone, John Pease and Louise and Lewis Dunn.

The biggest realisation? I am, at heart, a one-liner comedian. That’s my voice — crafted, concise, rhythmically reliable. I’ve spent enough time analysing other people’s timing to finally recognise my own. I’m not a natural improviser, and that’s fine. The trick now is figuring out how to fold that style — tight, efficient, and punchline-driven — into two key arenas: my stand-up comedy lecture series (especially when gigging academically) and my evolving role as compere. There’s space in the spotlight for precision as well as spontaneity, and I’m starting to see how I might carve that path.

Cultural Significance

The Floating Fringe wasn’t just a novelty — it was a microcosm of what makes live comedy resilient, experimental, and culturally essential. In a time when stage time often depends on ticket sales and social clout, here was a space curated around opportunity, creativity, and the sheer joy of performing - my hats off to the volunteers at the Arts Barge for such a successful few days as well as the masterminds behind it all Alice, Josh, Peet and Kai. 

The barge-as-venue offered more than charm; it reframed the comedy experience. Without the traditional theatre trappings or club clichés, performers adapted to new acoustics, sightlines, and audience proximities. The venue became part of the bit — part frame, part foil. For a researcher of stand-up structure, it was a living case study in how environment influences rhythm, tone, and audience expectation.

This is where my work on memetics and the Comedic Multiform felt especially relevant: the compere intro, the one-liner rhythm, the heckle response—each a replicable unit, mutating just slightly to fit this unusual frame. These weren’t just sets; they were performances shaped by setting, passed down in a lineage of fringe innovation.

The Floating Fringe reminded me that stand-up, at its best, is both rooted and adaptive. It honours tradition while inviting interruption. It’s a form that floats — literally and metaphorically — on whatever platform we give it, be that a stage, a barge, or the shifting tides of audience taste.

Community & Collaboration

What made Floating Fringe feel so vital wasn’t just the setting or the format — it was the people. This wasn’t an elite club of polished acts running the circuit on autopilot. It was a dynamic mix of emerging talent, experimental voices, and fearless organisers who believed in making room for something different. It felt like a gathering more than a showcase — a celebration of shared risk and reward.

Every performer I shared the stage with brought something unique. And every laugh, chuckle, or groan was earned not just on delivery, but on context — a shared understanding that we were all in on something rare, and maybe even a little ridiculous.

The team behind the Fringe deserves massive credit for curating not just a programme, but a space. A space where new material could breathe, where old habits could be shaken loose, and where even the most cynical comic (hi, that’s me) could feel genuinely delighted by the communal experiment of it all.

In short, it reminded me that stand-up doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s always a conversation — and sometimes, that conversation is best had in close quarters, over water, with a beer in hand and a ceiling just low enough to keep your ego in check.

Theoretical Takeaways

If the Floating Fringe proved anything, it’s that performance theory isn’t just an academic exercise — it’s an embodied reality. Every joke told, every beat missed or nailed, every compere segue or spontaneous shift in tone served as live data. And in that environment, the theory didn’t just apply — it flexed, adapted, and occasionally creaked like the barge itself.

This was the Comedic Multiform in action: structure coexisting with chaos, tradition brushing up against innovation, and performers constantly recalibrating to context. A barge may not seem like the ideal control group, but it was a perfect lab. The mechanics of laughter, timing, rhythm, persona—they all played out in exaggerated relief. If a line landed here, it could land anywhere.

And as for my own work? It sharpened something. I don’t need to pretend to be the improviser I’m not. I need to build space into the theory — and into the lecture series — for those of us who thrive in the precision of pre-written beats. That’s not rigidity; it’s a different form of fluency.

Floating Fringe reminded me that theory and practice aren’t opposites. They’re just two perspectives on the same wave.

Closing Thoughts

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat — The Floating Fringe was more than a festival; it was a floating laboratory of laughs, a communal happening that asked what stand-up can be when unmoored from its usual tropes.

It reminded me why I started analysing this art form in the first place — not to dissect it into lifeless parts, but to better understand how and why it lives. How it floats.

Here’s to more pop-up gigs in unconventional spaces. To laughter echoing off wooden hulls. To jokes that land just as hard on water.

And to knowing your comedic voice, wherever the current might take it.