2014 Edinburgh Fringe

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Stop the press! Not only has Fringe favourite Tim FitzHigham written his show before the end of July this year, but he's actually performed two previews of it before Easter!! This August, the much-loved Spirit of the Fringe, multi-award winning, Perrier nominated comedian and adventurer puts his gambling days behind him (for now, anyway) to lift the lid on the most secret society in the world - the Hellfire Club - in his 12th solo Fringe show (17th Edinburgh in total).

In 1719 a very secret, ancient society (that may have been the real reason Caesar conquered Britain) went public. Perhaps by accident, madness, love or monumental drunkenness Phillip, Duke of Wharton, took the club public. Within two years it had been outlawed by the state. It went back underground - literally into a cave - and passed into legend but perhaps not retirement. The men and women that made up this club, it's practices and the fact that it may still run the world right now is an intrigue that still fascinates (Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code for example). But how did expeditionary comedian Tim FitzHigham get involved? This is the show that all his shows seem to have been leading to...

In 2003, Tim got lost in a paper boat and created the sensational show Paper Boat, spending a night in the original Abbey Building occupied by the Hellfire club. In 2006, Tim got lost in Spain coming across members of a secret society, alleged successors of the Hellfire Club. His 2008 Captain Richard Burton show again brushed him into these illuminated ones. In 2011, he started gambling on a roller coaster that led to three years of high stakes white knuckle injury inducing hilarity. At every point in his gambling researches he hit a wall, and that wall was the Hellfire Club; Buck Whalley (The Gambler - 2011) was a member, as was the Duke of Queensberry (Stop the Pigeon - 2012), so too was Bauchamp Bagnel (Challenger - 2013). Then came the letter...

Tim gets some fantastically random stuff through the post, but one coded letter plunged him headlong into uncharted seas. Who wrote it? Was it Dan Brown? Exactly what did it mean? Was it a current member of the Hellfire Club and what did it lead Tim to take on? This is why Tim had to take on the club that has shadowed his life for over ten years...this is Hellfire. Come, enjoy, laugh and see more than ever before. And if Tim is a member of the club himself, now would be the time to reveal it...

Having rowed the channel in a bathtub, paddled up the Thames in a paper boat, lived as a medieval knight errant for a year, Morris Danced from London to Norwich and tackled a whole host of the world's weirdest wagers, Tim is never going to give himself an easy time in preparing for the Fringe. The twice World Record holder's unswerving devotion has seen him break various bones in his body, re-mortgage his house, contract a flesh eating microbe, collapse of dehydration, be blinded in one eye for six months, spend nights with the Leith Police, survive minor concussions and be hospitalised with a bone-marrow-eating infection, among a further catalogue of injuries and stunning disasters - all to create shows that make people smile.

Last year, Tim's 2011 critically acclaimed show The Gambler was commissioned for a pilot on Radio 4 and this spring it has developed into a full series, featuring a stellar line-up: Dame Ellen Macarthur, Sir Matthew Pinsent, Kriss Akabusi, Marcus Brigstocke, Alex Horne, His Grace The Duke of Buccleuch and HM Royal Marines. His CBBC science series Super Human Challenge was a ratings smash hit, and this April Tim is touring The Gambler in New Zealand for the first time ever.

Tim will also be appearing in Flanders and Swann, This is your Trial and Fool Circle at this year's Fringe.