Exclusive:Brian Cox spearheads fundraising drive to help American acts stage Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows

The multi award-winning star of Succession is spearheading a $350,000 fundraising drive to support productions in 2025.

The Dundee-born actor, who lives between New York and London, pledged that he was “doubly invested” in the new initiative, saying it would “strength the cultural bond” between Scotland and America.

He cited the key role played by Jim Haynes, the US-born co-founder of the Traverse Theatre, one of the festival's longest-running venues, 62 years ago.

The Fringe Society, the arts charity which oversees the festival, last month announced Cox as the latest high-profile ambassador of the event.

The new fundraising venture is a spin-off from a “Keep It Fringe” fund launched by Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge to support 50 shows from across the UK at last year’s event. Earlier this week it was announced that the UK Government had agreed a £1 million deal to pay for a two-year extension of the fund to support 360 more shows.

UK-based artists and companies will be able to apply for bursaries of £2,500 to help meet the cost of coming to the event in 2024 and 2025.

The US Keep It Fringe initiative, launched ahead of the annual Tartan Week celebrations, will see grants of $4,500 awarded to at least 50 American acts to help them bring shows to Edinburgh next year.

The campaign is being launched with the backing of airline JetBlue, which is launching its first ever route between Edinburgh and New York this year, the American magazine publisher Playbill, and four US-based supporters of the festival, Heather and Paul Innella, and Scott and Holly Plank.

Cox, who is currently performing in London’s West End, said: “As a Scottish performer who lives in the US, I’m doubly invested in this project to strengthen the cultural bond between our two countries.

"There’s already an incredibly strong shared heritage between Edinburgh and the United States – one of Edinburgh’s foremost theatres for new writing, the Traverse, was founded by a US airman, Jim Haynes, in the 1960s.

"The US Keep it Fringe initiative aims to enable and encourage the next generation of emerging US talent at the Fringe, ensuring that a spirit of adventure and collaboration can continue.”

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy said: “The Fringe has been a touchstone in the careers of so many artists both at home and in the United States.

"Lin-Manuel Miranda came to the festival in his pre-Hamilton days with Freestyle Love Supreme in 2005, while the Broadway hit Six! had its world premiere at the Fringe in 2017.

"We want to make sure that creative pipeline remains active, giving the stars of tomorrow the chance to hone their craft at one of the greatest celebrations of arts and culture on the planet – the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”

Jayne O’Brien, JetBlue’s head of marketing, said: “In line with our mission to inspire humanity, we constantly seek ways to promote the discovery of arts and culture both in the sky, through a robust, diverse in-flight entertainment offering, and on the ground in the communities we serve, such as soon-to-be Edinburgh.

"That is why we are proud to support the US Keep it Fringe initiative to connect artists and performers to the unique, defining opportunities at the Fringe which carve a path for the artistic expression of the future."