5 years of The Fence: ​“the UK’s only magazine”

We like The Fence here at THE FACE. Partly because the London-based quarterly launched around the same time we did in 2019. Partly because our names sound a bit similar. But mostly because it’s a proper hoot: wry and irreverent, a little bit snide, but usually towards the right people.

It publishes features with weight and substance, like ​“Inside the scandal that shook the Church of England”, then follows them up by asking one of Rizzle Kicks why headbutting isn’t more popular. It’s tight and well put together; a little bit insider‑y but in a way that makes the person reading it feel in on the joke, too, which is nice.

Look, we like it, OK, get off our case. And we like Charlie Baker, the editor, who often looks like he’s in a rush but really does quite enjoy a natter. A natter like this one below.

Hi Charlie. Your 20^th, and most recent issue, recently sold out online, making it your best-selling issue ever. But is it your best issue?

Issue 20 was definitely the best. I’ve had a number of people write to me saying so. Annoyingly, I wish more of them had just done tweets about it but nevertheless, I was gratified. Lots of people say to me, ​“Oh, I’ve got something only The Fence would publish.” And I understand why they say that, but what we really want to do is publish stuff that would make other editors go, ​“Oh, God, I wish I did that”. There are quite a few of those in this issue. So I’m going to go ​“yes”, that was the best issue so far.

You’ve described The Fence as ​“the UK’s only magazine”. Haven’t you ever heard of THE FACE?

Yes, yes. [Features editor] Séamas O’Reilly came up with that. It’s riffing on Army Man which was a satirical magazine from America in the 1980s, that billed itself as “‘America’s only magazine”. Then there’s this new newspaper that started called County Highway in America, which is about rural life and it’s really well done, and they say they’re ​“America’s only newspaper.”

When I came up with the name The Fence, it’s principally punning on – and it’s quite pretentious – this essay by Zadie Smith, about how people before the Brexit vote were living in fenced off environments and we kind of wanted a magazine to bring people together. So it’s not about being ​“on the fence” or ​“off the fence”. But it’s also a very nice play on THE FACE – you started [the relaunch] I think and two months after we agreed on the name The Fence. We thought it was an augury that it was a good name and that we were doing the right thing.

Marina Hyde and Richard Osman recently toasted The Fence on their Rest is Entertainment podcast. Would you like to take this opportunity to praise The Thursday Murder Club?

I think Richard Osman is the Leonardo DaVinci of entertainment in the UK: novels, game shows, podcasts, you know, he’s great. I was very happy to get that. And then Marina Hyde is somebody I read a lot as a teenager and I’ve always thought she is extremely funny. And I think she’s the journalist in the UK whose opinion matters the most to me, so obviously that was very gratifying.

When we first met The Fence was staffed by yourself, an Irishman and a vicar. In what ways has the magazine grown since then?

We’ve now added an Irish woman. We’ve hired a Scouser. So I’d say that is great. We’ve got Róisín Lanigan, Séamas O’Reilly, Fergus Butler-Gallie and Kieran Morris, and I’m very lucky to have them as my team. We’re celebrating five years of The Fence by redoing a number of classic articles, like ​“Monkey Tennis”, and there are a few more to come soon.

You’ve done a great job of scooping up a lot of very good ex-Vice staffers to write for you, too. What do you look for in a pitch to The Fence?

I thought it was fascinating how Vice was a terribly run company and a lot of bad things happened in the UK offices, obviously, but there were some fantastic pieces published there. And really memorable pieces that people still talk about today. And in terms of what I look for in a Fence pitch, it’s similar to yourself in that we’re looking for a big story. Because we’re a quarterly magazine, as you are, it’s kind of mandatory to be all killer no filler.

What makes a good issue of The Fence, and is there one article that you think sums it up?

What makes a good issue is having no bad articles. Issue 8 was a huge step up. Issue 12 was a real step up. Issue 16 and then Issue 19 kind of felt like it was elevated. There’s something extremely gratifying about working on something that you know is getting better. And then having lots of feedback, that sometimes sounds a bit patronising, [telling us] we’re going from strength to strength. But we are and it’s great.

The best articles we’ve done? ​“A Series of Unfortunate Names” by John Phipps” in Issue 4 –that’s kind of a pure Fence article, where he interviewed people who’ve got names like Hitler and Harvey Weinstein, and asked them what it’s like to share a name with a monster. That and ​“All Possible Plots”, which was a funny literary article and the most popular article we’ve ever published. And then Clive Martin’s article where he went and did a dispatch from Jim Davidson’s ​“proper comedy night”. That’s the sort of thing we love publishing and we love reading.

Which magazine do you remember first reading yourself?

Somewhat depressingly, I read quite a lot from a young age. I remember reading my father’s copies of GQ. There were a lot of magazines in the house, always Private Eye, always Harpers and Queen, GQ, and then all the newspapers on the weekends and also The News of the World which I was obsessed with as a child.

Then the magazines I read when I was like eight or nine: PlayStation Official Magazine, Total Film… I was a sporadic reader of lads magazines, I was never particularly enthralled by them. And then The Week was a magazine I read a lot. I lived in America for a year and got into New York Magazine. I just really loved the way it was so glamorous and cool, and well put together and stylish in a way that no magazine in the UK – this was 2008 – was. That was a real game changer for me.

And then another magazine with ​“New York” in its title, the New York Review of Books, which I started subscribing to in 2012. I found the quality of editing there, where you would see a writer like Zoë Heller, who had written a couple of decent novels, suddenly produce pieces of the highest quality, and that’s what turned me on to thinking about editing in a very serious way.

Can you describe The Fence in one word?

Magazine.

And finally, can you offer one piece of advice for any other middle-class journalists hoping to break into the industry?

There’s a fine line between being eager and annoying, and it’s very good to learn where that line is.

Is that to me about my questions?

No!

You can read more about The Fence here, would you believe.