Ed Bartlam: my memories of Joan Rivers

I met Joan Rivers at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008, where she was doing her show in one of our venues. The fact she chose to fly over specially in 2009 to open the debut season of Udderbelly Festival at the Southbank Centre, performing in a 400 capacity cow- shaped tent with a Portakabin containing a solitary Ikea mirror for backstage facilities, says an awful lot about her.

We all know what a powerful, brilliant and game-changing comic she was. Few people know what a warm, kind and generous person she was off stage. She was a true supporter of emerging artists and venues, which is surely what drew her to the Fringe. A lot of people owe Joan Rivers an awful lot. I am most certainly one of them.

Ed Bartlam is the co-founder and director of Underbelly