Peter Buckley Hill (born 3 March 1948) is a musical comedian and head of the

Free Fringe The Free Fringe (also known as PBH's Free Fringe, after its founder, Peter Buckley Hill) is an organisation that promotes free shows during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, every August. Unlike most event prom ...

at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...

, for which he was, in 2009, awarded the Panellists'

Edinburgh Comedy Award The Edinburgh Comedy Awards (formerly the Perrier Comedy Awards, and also briefly known by other names for sponsorship reasons) are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Establ ...

. In 2008, he was nominated for the

Malcolm Hardee Malcolm Hardee (5 January 1950 – 31 January 2005) was an English comedian and comedy club proprietor. His high reputation among his peers rests on his outrageous publicity stunts and on the help and advice he gave to successful British Alte ...

Award for Comic Originality. He was born Edward Peter Hill in

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River B ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

and educated at Poynton Primary School,

Stockport Grammar School Stockport Grammar School is a co-educational private day school in Stockport, England. Founded in 1487 by Sir Edmund Shaa, a former Lord Mayor of London, it is the second oldest in the North of England, after Lancaster Royal Grammar School, ...

and

Leeds Grammar School Leeds Grammar School was an independent school founded 1552 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Originally a male-only school, in August 2005 it merged with Leeds Girls' High School to form The Grammar School at Leeds. The two schools physica ...

. Graduating from

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

in 1969 with a degree in English, he embarked on a career with BASF AG in Switzerland and Germany. He returned to the UK in 1973 to complete an MSc at

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degree, Master's degrees in management and finance, Master of B ...

. From 1975, he was involved in various small business ventures and in 1980 became a temporary lecturer at the Polytechnic of Central London, now

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...

. He served spells with PCL, South Bank Polytechnic and other educational institutions before becoming Senior Lecturer and Co-ordinator of Computing at ILEA Paddington College. He returned to PCL in 1985, became Principal Lecturer in 1989 and Teaching Fellow in 2005. He gained the degree of Doctor of Education from the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

in 2004. He embarked on a parallel career in musical comedy in 1980, using as a basis material he had written for LBS revues and for the amusement of friends. He found a niche at the

Cambridge Folk Festival The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival, established in 1965, held in the grounds of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is known for its eclectic mix ...

, sometimes at marathon solo sessions lasting up to three hours. Hill guested regularly at folk circuit venues and also played alternative cabaret venues such as the Earth Exchange in the early 1980s. He was present at the outset of the

Alternative Comedy Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe ...

movement of the 1980s, but not central to it. In 1994, he took a solo show to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time. It was savaged by critics. He repeated the experience in 1995, before realising that the basic model of the Fringe needed altering in favour of the unknown or non-established artist. In 1996, he founded the Free Fringe with a single show, Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians, at the Footlights and Firkin. The

works on a moneyless principle: premises charge no rent to the Free Fringe; the Free Fringe charges no fees to the performers (not even voluntary charges) and the performers do not charge the public to get in. For fourteen years, the Free Fringe was financed personally by Buckley Hill; in 2009, a benefit was held to defray the central expenses. Also in that year, Buckley Hill's solo Edinburgh show, ''40 Words'', earned a five-star review from

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

newspaper. Hill stepped down from managing the Free Fringe in 2016. Peter Buckley Hill published a book on his experience of the Edinburgh Fringe called ''Freeing The Edinburgh Fringe'' in 2018. At the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe he performed reading of the book as part of the PBH

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Peter Buckley 1948 births English male comedians Living people Alumni of University College London Alumni of London Business School Alumni of the University of Bristol People from Burnley Comedians from Lancashire