Aim

I'm crowdfunding to cover upfront costs of taking Giro Baby, a solo show written/performed by me (Sophie Sandor), to Edinburgh Fringe 2026!

INTRODUCING

Giro Baby is a comedy-drama written and performed by me (Sophie Sandor), and directed by Conor McCarron. It's a one-person play and it's premiering at Edinburgh Fringe, from the 7-29th August 2026. This is my debut Edinburgh Fringe performance too. 

Thank you to Emergent Ventures who have already contributed $5,000 to make Giro Baby at Edinburgh Fringe 2026 happen.

And this is my last ever crowdfunder! After eight years of crowdfunding productions for stage and screen. Thank you for the continued love and practical support since 2018 that's made my independent projects a reality. 

Everything on this Crowdfunder page is authored by me (Sophie Sandor). If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Or on Instagram, where I'm @sophiesand0r.

EDINBURGH FRINGE

We have been offered a prime time slot for a full Edinburgh Fringe run of Giro Baby, at Jade Studio on George Street. Tickets go on sale at the Edinburgh Fringe Box Office from Wednesday 1st April 2026, here: www.edfringe.com/tickets. 

Giro Baby is showing at Edinburgh Fringe from the 7th until the 29th August at 4.15pm each day, in Jade Studio on George Street.

PREVIEW

There's a London preview at The Cav (pub) in Stockwell, 128 Hartington Rd, SW8 2HJ — 8.30pm, Wed 15th July 2026. 

Featured above are stills taken by Stuart Edwards for the Giro Baby poster.

GIRO BABY

From Scottish underclass to teenage Westminster career, Giro Baby is a noughties-set modern British trip inside the eye of your mind. 

An all-night chippy and town-centre tower blocks backdrop a prudish schoolgirl’s path to politics when she's seduced from her studies to the streets, in favour of plunking it and partying — before U-turning. Paved with pink shell suits, Playboy garms, and Britpop’s parting cries. A portrayal of ambition, social mobility and culture shock within one’s home country when you’re being brought up from the bottom. 

COST

You do not necessarily need to contribute via a “reward”. You may contribute freely, any amount you wish. Furthermore, speak to me if there's a particular reward (e.g. advice, or delivering a talk or performing at your organisation, or a ticket to a specific performance) you are interested in in return for a contribution. I would be most happy to discuss.

In total the Edinburgh Fringe venue, at which Giro Baby is showing, and which is situated in The Royal Society of Edinburgh, costs £9,072.00, and two thirds of that is due by the 15th May 2026. This crowdfunder is to pay for said latter two thirds owed.

In this instance, the money going into the production is made back via Giro Baby ticket sales, however the venue fee is upfront, and said ticket sales aren't released to me til September 2026. 

Prof. Tyler Cowan's Emergent Ventures made an incredble difference by contributing $5,000 to fundraising efforts to part-pay for the venue, and now I'm crowdfunding to cover the remainder (£6,350.40) of the upfront venue fee. Plus accommodation during the Fringe, Giro Baby PR/marketing in advance, and Crowdfunder platform transaction fees.

Thus taking the total being crowdfunded today to £7,500.

The 65-seat thrust theatre, Jade Studio on George Street, where Giro Baby will be showing.

SOPHIE SANDOR

I’m the creator of Giro Baby, which I’ve adapted from a story originally envisioned for screen, when, in 2022, I penned it as a feature-length script called Dig Out Your Soul. It's a story I've wanted to tell since prior to many of the events contained within the larger story even happening. I grew up in Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland before moving to South London as a teenager. I now live in Scotland again.

My first inspiration to become a writer for screen and stage, and a moment that changed my life, by virtue of how much I related to the sentiment and enjoyed the style, was seeing Neds (2011), directed by Peter Mullan, at Ayr Odeon Cinema when I was 16, which is the most perfect segue to…

CONOR MCCARRON

The director of Giro Baby is Conor McCarron, an actor and director from Glasgow.

Known also for his starring roles in Catch Me Daddy (2014) and Dog Days (2023), McCarron's debut role was his casting at an open audition as the lead in the above-mentioned cinematic portrayal of Peter Mullan’s part-autobiographical story, Neds. 

He teaches acting in Glasgow too @conormccarronacting.

STUART EDWARDS

Stuart Edwards, a documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Glasgow, is creating the photographic content for Giro Baby. His films have screened at more than 80 festivals worldwide, including IDFA, AFI Docs, Big Sky, Aesthetica, Moscow International Documentary Film Festival, and Glasgow Short Film Festival.

He was recently named a Portrait of Britain 2026 Volume 8 winner by The British Journal of Photography.

YOU 

As I mentioned, this is my last crowdfunder. Future projects, post this incredible opportunity that is Edinburgh Fringe 2026, will be brought to fruition via new means. 

From my first crowdfunder in 2018 (raising £300 to enter my short, zero-budget film Tianah (2018) into film festivals) to my crowdfunders each totalling between £6,000 and £11,000 to make Teaching the Poor to Fail (2019), Intrusion (2020), and Room for Ramona (ongoing) — a documentary, fictional film, and musical, respectively — it's all undoubtedly been made possible thanks to you.

And countless other projects you directly supported by viewing and engaging with content, from music videos interviews to a mockumentary.

In particular, creating Room for Ramona was a befitting stepping stone to Giro Baby. Giro Baby was the first ever concrete artisitic idea I wanted to bring to life in some form, and learning how to express, format and produce sotry for stage via Room for Ramona was brilliant training ground.

Online and in real life I've also experienced a tremendous level of community and loyality surrounding my efforts to bring writing to life on stage, from stand-up comedy in Brighton, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and soon Glasgow(!), to putting on my sketch comedy show (Uncouth Chic) at the 20th Brighton Fringe Festival in 2025.

It would all be meaningless without having you there to show it to and share it with.

INSPIRATION

Authors Alan Warner, Irvine Welsh, James Kelman and Janice Galloway, and directors/screenwriters Amma Asante, Andrea Arnold, Ben Wheatley, Brian Percival, Daisy-May Hudson, Dominic Savage, Gurinder Chadha, Ken Loach, Lynne Ramsay, Mike Leigh, Paul Andrew Williams, Paul Laverty, Peter Mullan, Samantha Morton and Shane Meadows are people whose content and style very much reflect how I imagine my own motion pictures and writing being actualised.

Comedy, too, inspires my art and my existence. From where it started for me as a child with The Karen Dunbar Show, Peter Kay, The Thick of It, Still Game, Little Britain and Trigger Happy, to discovering, post-2023, Brian Limmond and Ricky Jervais, and my passion for 2010s and 2020s series Alma's Not Normal, Big Boys, Big Mood, The Cleaner, Crashing, The Dry, Here We Go, Just Act Normal, Motherland, The Other One, People Just Do Nothing, Ruby Speaking, Significant Other, Stath Lets Flats, Such Brave Girls, This Country and Waiting for the Out, to name a few.

In terms of writing I am into experimental, Scots, social realism and stream-of-consciousness stories, and sometimes ones set against a political backdrop. Also, it has to be British or Irish. Sometimes crime. Though I can't think of any examples of crime fiction I love beyond Dean Cavanagh's The Painter. 

My other favourite books are everything by James Kelman (my top three are Disaffection, How Late it Was, How Late, and Not Not While the Giro); The Acid House by Irvine Welsh; Morvern Callar, The Sopranos, and The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner; Sugar Rush by Julie Burchill (and its adaptation into a TV series); Limmy's autobiography; Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart; and The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway.

Here are the best British and Irish feature films of the nineties and noughties reccommended by me and which, if I do say so myself, you will not find on Google. My top three post-2010 films are NEDs (2011), Tyrannosaur (2011), Catch Me Daddy (2014) and Bird (2024).

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made