The average person will speak 123,205,750 words in a lifetime. But what if there were a limit? Oliver and Bernadette are about to find out. This two-person show imagines a world where we’re forced to say less. It’s about what we say and how we say it; about the things we can only hear in the silence; about dead cats, activism, eye contact and lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons, lemons.
Following a sell-out run at Zoo Southside, Walrus’ debut show returns for a one-off performance in the Roundabout.
In the wake of venue closures and ever decreasing funding, artists and stakeholders are invited to discuss where next for artistic development in Scotland.
Two separate (but linked) forums will allow open and honest discussion about the needs of artists, what is lacking from Scotland’s performing arts ecology and what other producing and development models might have a place in Scotland. Each event will feature a variety of invited guests from across the industry, but discussion is open to all who attend and contributions are welcome.
Curated by Callum Smith with support from Xavier de Sousa, Verity Leigh and Miriam Attwood.
24th August, Old Lab, 5.00pm (1hr)
In Scotland’s current climate, what support do artists need?
What support do artists currently have, and what is missing?
26th August, Old Lab, 5.00pm (1hr)
How do different producing models support artists, and how might they work in Scotland?
How can the current theatre ecology better serve artists, and how might artists work outside of traditional venue relationships?
What better way to underscore Conservative economic policy than with the sound of PURE EVIL?
Part metal-recital, part exorcism, #TORYCORE combines sludge and doom metal with the Budget speech 2015; a pounding subverbal deathgrowl with text from the blue suits at Tory HQ.
Chris Thorpe and Steve Lawson on guitar
Lucy on vocals
Lyrics by George Osborne and the architects of austerity
#TORYCORE is twisted avant-garde metal and a guttural vocal that plays like a verbatim record of a government ripping society’s guts out.
Created in association with Forest Fringe Winner of The Arches Brick Award 2012 Performed in solidarity with Black Triangle campaign – in defence of Disability Rights.
FREE/PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Unemployed/disabled: £0
Employed (suggested donation): £5
North Star presents Love Letters to the Home Office.
Written by Katharine Rose Williams Radojičić and the Love Letters to the Home Office authors.
“There’s a wee boy in Chandler, Arizona, USA. He’s 15 months old and his name is Robert. He has some baby toys but his favourite thing in the entire world isn’t a toy. Robert loves his mum’s Samsung tablet. He calls it ‘Da da’ and carries it around the house all the time. Robert hasn’t seen his father since he was 6 months old.” – Gillian
Love Letters to the Home Office brings to life the true stories of people separated today by the UK’s 2012 Family Immigration Rules. The Rules means that our human rights – specifically, our rights to live in the UK and with our family – are dependent on how much we earn.
“I am a British citizen and I have been married for one and half years. My wife is Syrian, living in what is now a war zone. I can’t bring my wife to the UK. I live with constant worry. I wake, each night, with nightmares.” – Sam
Love Letters to the Home Office is about extraordinary moments in extraordinary relationships that cross borders, oceans and seas. It is about love in the face of separation, and the extreme lengths people are forced to go to in order to be together.
Wyckham Porteous – A Night in the Rain takes the audience inside and around the somewhat unique view of the world that Wyckham inhabits. No rehearsals, no prep, just a step on the stage.
Paines Plough and special guests invite you to a series of early morning and late night one-off shows: theatre, poetry, comedy, music, rumbles, shenanigans and much more throughout the festival. Get your fix of fresh new work, exhilarating debates and rip-roaring performances.
Kick start your morning and round-up your evening in Roundabout – “the loveliest venue at the fringe” The List, 2014.
Follow @painesplough to stay in the loop or check out daily listings outside Roundabout at Summerhall.
#PPEARLIER / #PPLATER
The War We Are Living travels to Cauca, a mountainous region in Colombia’s Pacific southwest where two extraordinary Afro-Colombian women are braving a violent struggle over their gold-rich lands. They are standing up for a generation of Colombians who have been terrorized and forcibly displaced as a deliberate strategy of war. Narrated by Alfre Woodard.
The documentary series Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, reframing our understanding of modern warfare.
The screenings at Summerhall are in partnership with Beyond Borders Scotland as part of the Women in Conflict Initiative. Women, War & Peace isdistributed internationally by the Fremantle Corporation.
War Redefined, the capstone of Women, War & Peace, challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace is a man’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace making. Interviewees include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; and globalization expert Moisés Naím. Narrated by Geena Davis.
The documentary series Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, reframing our understanding of modern warfare.
The screenings at Summerhall are in partnership with Beyond Borders Scotland
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the astonishing story of the Liberian women who took on the warlords and regime of dictator Charles Taylor in the midst of a brutal civil war, and won a once unimaginable peace for their shattered country in 2003. Their demonstrations culminated in Taylor’s exile and the rise of Africa’s first female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Inspiring and uplifting, Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a compelling example of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.
The documentary series Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, reframing our understanding of modern warfare.
The screenings at Summerhall are in partnership with Beyond Borders Scotland as part of the Women in Conflict Initiative. Women, War & Peace is distributed internationally by the Fremantle Corporation.
I Came to Testify is the moving story of how a group of 16 women who had been imprisoned and raped by Serb-led forces in the Bosnian town of Foca broke history’s great silence – and stepped forward to take the witness stand in an international court of law. Their remarkable courage resulted in a triumphant verdict that led to new international laws about sexual violence in war. Narrated by Matt Damon.
The documentary series Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, reframing our understanding of modern warfare.
The screenings at Summerhall are in partnership with Beyond Borders Scotland as part of the Women in Conflict Initiative. Women, War & Peace is distributed internationally by the Fremantle Corporation.
When the US troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. Peace Unveiled follows three women in Afghanistan who are risking their lives to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal. Narrated by Tilda Swinton.
The documentary series Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, reframing our understanding of modern warfare. The screenings at Summerhall are in partnership with Beyond Borders Scotland as part of the Women in Conflict Initiative. Women, War & Peace is distributed internationally by the Fremantle Corporation.
SXWKS present, Still Dreaming, a submersion into the intangible substance of dreams through words and music. An amalgamation of the various artistic disciplines within SXWKS creating one unique experience that will stay with you long after the show.
See features from Roundhouse Poetry Slam Winner 2015, Caleb Femi and Shortlisted Young Poet Laureate Jolade. A show not to be missed.
Written by an anonymous woman
Performed by an unprepared man
So I think it’s fair to say that most women almost definitely do masturbate. We just wait to discuss it until we’re in an oddly anonymous but public situation like this one.”
A funny, frank, and occasionally explicit insight into heterosexual female desire, read out loud by a man.
Each show begins with a male comedian being given a script they have never seen before. They will read the script for the first time, out-loud live in front of an audience; all about what one woman thinks about when she thinks about sex and men.
This piece is a work-in-progress being piloted at the Edinburgh Festival. It is being developed in collaboration with the Royal Court Theatre.
With direction and dramaturgy by Lucy Morrison, and dramaturgical input from Ryan Nobel, Lisa Heledd Jones, and Christopher Brett Bailey.
Special thanks to previous performers Tim Key, Mike Wozniak and Nathaniel Martello-White.
Five performances as part of EARLIER/LATER, a series of early morning and late night one-off shows programmed by Paines Plough.
10 August, 22.30 Nish Kumar
14 August, 10.00 Marcus Brigstocke
15 August, 22.30 James Acaster
19 August, 22.30 Joe Lycett
21 August, 10.00 Nick Helm
A spoken word quick-fire starring Elvis McGonagall, Rob Auton, Jemima Foxtrot, John Osborne, Luke Wright and more. Each poet has to respond to the piece performed by the previous performer. Expect linguistic gymnastics, breath-taking salvos and a fair bit of crow-barring. Laughs and tears and all the rest, in a never-to-be-repeated show.
Come To Where I’m From is a theatrical tapestry of the UK, woven by writers asking if home is really where the heart is.
Since 2010, more than 100 playwrights from across the UK have written plays about the places that shaped them. Now we’ve invited Edinburgh’s finest to pen plays about Auld Reekie. At this very special one-off show they will perform those plays themselves.
For the line-up of writers, keep an eye on @painesplough and #PPEarlier.
Poleroid Theatre are back in Edinburgh this Summer with WRITE IT : MIC IT, their legendary Open ‘Write’ Platform.
After two years of sold out nights in Hackney and Manchester, Poleroid head to Roundabout for one night only with an eclectic mix of new material from some of the UK’s most exciting emerging playwrights, comedians & performance poets.
Fresh from debuting their new play Plastic by Kenneth Emson at Latitude Festival 2015 and nominated for three Off-West End Theatre Awards in 2014, Poleroid Theatre is working to discover and develop the contemporary image of emerging artists in the UK and give this talent a platform through eclectic, fast-paced and immediate theatre.
www.poleroidtheatre.co.uk
@poleroidtheatre
Where is the fucking joy? It’s summer. It’s supposed to be like in films. It’s supposed to be magical. Beautiful sunsets and whirlwind romances; the promise of friendship, adventure, discovery, love and fun. The days last forever because school’s out forever.
So why isn’t it here? What do we get instead? Every day we are reminded that this country is miserable, skint and exhausted. That this is just the way it is and that we deserve it. That there’s no other way and we can’t change it. We’re all in it together. It’s the plan. We are tired, we are angry and we are bored.
We are all better than this.
We are coming to your town in August. We are going to bring something strange, fun and unexpected. Led by the multi award-winning comedian Josie Long, we are a group of performers, musicians and people who make things happen and we want to make something unforgettable.
We want another type of life. We want it to be better. We want a summer that doesn’t end.
The summer 2015 Alternative Reality Tour finishes up in Edinburgh on August 22nd.
www.alternativerealitytour.com
Save The Male is a comedy, poetry and music showcase raising awareness of male suicide prevention charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), who exist to tackle the statistic of suicide being the single biggest killer of young men in the UK & Scotland.
Curated by comedian Jack Rooke and poet Cecilia Knapp, Save The Male’s aim is to encourage more of us to engage in creative expression as an outlet when times get tough. Whether it’s writing lyrics, performing poems or even doodling (Jack likes to draw moustaches on the attractive cast of Hollyoaks in the TV Guide.) This Roundabout performance features Brigitte Aphrodite, Jack Rooke and some very special guests.
For info on Save The Male visit www.thegoodgriefproject.com and for info on CALM visit www.thecalmzone.net
A show about blue plastic bags and wearing shoes that don’t fit. Squeezed between tight jeans, jenga block flats and clip-on earrings, a young woman is making bad decisions and an old man is eating too much cheese. They’re sharing biscuits on an inflatable sofa; something has to pop. Fast, physical and full of anarchic poetry, shards of life collide in this powerful story of punishment and rescue. Free hobnobs. An exciting new voice in spoken word theatre, co-produced by Roundhouse.
‘Bold, brave and very special’ Polarbear, spoken word artist
‘Evocative, unflinching and very funny’ James Grieve, Paines Plough
“On The Edge of Me” Is a relatable dark comedy, exploring themes of graduate blues, love, anxiety, JSA and mental health. Follow Remi (a recent university graduate), as she confronts life as she knows it, through the medium of Live literature, theatre and storytelling with YOU the audience as the centre piece!
Written and Performed by Yolanda Mercy (Resident Artist at The Roundhouse)
Directed by Jade Lewis (Winner of the Boris Karloff Award for Young Vic’s Blackta)
Jack Rooke is a 21-year-old comedian who writes about grief. Lynn Ruth Miller is an acclaimed 81-year-old comedian who talks about death. Together the two of them are gonna sit down, laugh and have an open chat about all the things we’re too scared to talk about, whilst performing extracts from Jack’s debut comedy-theatre show ‘Good Grief’ and Lynn’s new comedy hour ‘Get A Grip’.
For more information visit www.thegoodgriefproject.com
“I Heart Catherine Pistachio isoutrageous and it is deplorable but it is also a fucking sickening tragedy performed as if a sinkhole is about to bury us all…fucking great.” Megan Vaughan
Following sold-out runs at Soho Theatre, London and the Sophiensaele, Berlin, Dance and Theatre combine in the latest show from Encounter. Directed by Jen Malarkey, with writer Lee Mattinson and movement director Simone Coxall, I Heart Catherine Pistachio is a dangerously dark physical comedy about a square-eyed young girl stuck in a suburban swamp of abuse.
Along the cycle paths, alleyways and canals of London comes a spoken word theatre coming-of-age story that maps the journey of a young girl from Brighton to the tenements of East London as a 20 something.
Writer and performer Cecilia Knapp’s debut piece is a journey through flashbacks to her father singing, her mum’s cassette tapes in the car and the sound of the sea. Cecilia explores loss and circumstance in an attempt to reconcile her past, telling stories and reflecting on the characters she meets along the way who help her make sense of the world, and realise that things can be ok in the wake of it all.
Supported by Arts Council England and Roundhouse, London, with an original soundtrack from world champion beatboxer and double bass musician Bellatrix and sound design by Chris Redmond (Tongue Fu) and direction by Stef O’Driscoll (Kate Tempest’s Hopelessly Devoted)
Developed with support from Rich Mix
The work and life of Martha Gellhorn, the great war correspondent who covered practically every trouble-spot on earth for six decades, including the Spanish Civil War, D-Day, Dachau, Viet Nam, Greenham, El Salvador and Mandela’s inauguration. Gellhorn’s main message was, ‘War happens to PEOPLE.’
She married Hemingway, learned from him and then, journalistically, outstripped him. Presidents, geniuses and generals sought her friendship, but she never lost the common touch. Scores of today’s foremost journalists were cheered on, championed and inspired by her. Jack Klaff recalls his own encounters with Gellhorn in a piece interweaving her wildest and wittiest stories with her unmatchable war reports.
Nothing Ever Happens Here and Summerhall are pleased to announce The Vaselines will be performing in The Dissection Room.
There’s that sound again, that Vaselines sound: a winsome sweetness, a touch of melancholy and a lithe, libidinous drive that recalls all the best, coolest rock & roll. Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee’s voices intertwine in that ineffable way they have, a sort of highland Nancy ‘n’ Lee. And those songs: joyous slices of classic pop songwriting brimming with heart and wit. But on their new album V for Vaselines, the guitars are bigger and fuzzier, the beats hit harder and tighter, and the whole affair bursts with punky energy.
Support TBC.
Mementronome is a participatory one-to-one performance by Aletia Upstairs, inspired by the Richard Demarco
archive and supported by Leeds Beckett University’s research programme.
Entering the archive, audience members explore a space filled with unmarked boxes. They find various mementos,
each one triggering a response from the performer.
Reacting to Joseph Beuys’ statement ‘everyone is an artist’, Mementronome takes inspiration from Paul Neagu’s Fish Net’s performance and was created using the methods of Tadeusz Kantor.
Directed by Anna Brownsted
A film based on a theatre event inspired by the rituals of the 19th century salon.
Stewart Laing, Scotland’s celebrated theatre director and designer, created a fully immersive experience for audience members, dressed in opulent Victorian costumes, in a mirrored 19th century reception room at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.
The Salon Project offers audiences the opportunity to explore the past while imagining the future, to mirror the contrasts and paradoxes between the golden age of salon society and our own era of economic excess.
A multi camera film capturing the award winning Protein Dance’s production staged at The Place in London.
Artistic Director Luca Silvestrini takes everyday issues and subjects, with deep, witty analysis, choreographing his own very idiosyncratic and distinctive dance theatre. Driving the approach is a desire to connect theatrical experience with the life stories of participants – amateur or professional – and audiences. The result is work of humour, pathos and invention that reflects the integrity and absurdity of its ingredients.
“Human connection on virtual speed, exhilarating and funny ….his best creation to date.” Judith Mackrell. The Guardian ★★★★
A full, multi-camera live capture of groundbreaking theatre company Palimpsest’s critically applauded, site-specific adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, uniquely staged in the opulent rooms of Leighton House in London – formerly the home of the great Pre Raphaelite artist Lord Leighton.
Hibrow’s production team is the only film crew ever to have been given permission to film inside the house. Shot in different rooms with no live audience the film takes on the point of view of a witness to the drama, without the strictures of a staging platform.
An essay film directed by Don Boyd and Amit Chaudhuri.
Celebrated Indian author and musician Amit Chadhuri looks back on his past: as a child in India learning to sing traditional classical ragas and as a young man studying in London, enjoying a love affair with Western pop harmonies.
The film explores his awakening to the similarities that can be found amidst the clash of these two vibrantly contrasting cultures. With footage captured in India and London, the film features exclusive live performances from Amit and his band, recorded at King’s Place, London.
Awkward Happiness is a reflection on the futility of happiness. We have an uncanny ability to find lovers with demons complementary to our own. Is happiness something that we seek in another person?
This moving and thought-provoking physical performance is inspired by themes from Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Bruckner’s Perpetual Euphoria. Relationships are built upon layers of beauty, secrets, surprises and misunderstandings.
The story follows two couples in their journey to understanding and discovering happiness. The result is a breathtaking, striking performance; one that doesn’t answer questions, but makes observations that can double as solutions.
Sold out in NYC, Melbourne, California and Brighton, EarFilms award-winning production “To Sleep To Dream” comes to The Tom Fleming Centre as part of Summerhall’s programme. A unique cinematic storytelling experience.
Blindfolded and seated in a 3D array of 23 speakers, lose yourself in a vivid soundscape storyworld with locations, characters and live narration that unfold around your ears and imagination. To Sleep To Dream tells the story of the last dreamers in a society where dreaming is illegal.
“Stunning, Surreal & Magical. A sensory experience like no other” Argus
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
Please note:
EarFilms is a short distance from the city centre in a magical location – see image.
Stewart’s Melville College, Queensferry Rd, Edinburgh EH4 3EZ
Allow plenty time to get to the venue and arrive at least 15 minutes before performance time.
Walking: allow 20 minutes from the West End/Princes St.
Buses:
– From Summerhall (opp Buccleuch Terrace): Bus 41 towards Cramond – allow 30 minutes
– From Princes St (Stop PU): Buses 40, 40A, 41, 55 – allow 15 minutes
Venue Bus Stop: Stewart’s Melville College
Walk through the gates to the main college building. Doors to Tom Fleming Centre are on the left side of the building.
Driving: Drive around the back of the venue, use Ravelston Terrace entrance. Turn into the drive at the back of the school, sign posted Stewart’s Melville College and Tom Fleming Centre.
“A mesmerising visual and aural feast” Scotsman. The live chemistry between renowned virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and acclaimed Russian visual artist Maria Rud, delivers a sound and image fusion that is truly unforgettable.
Maria’s evolving paintings are beamed live, by projection artist Ross Ashton, onto the walls of the quadrangle of George Heriot’s School – a 17th-century architectural gem revealed for the first time to Festival audiences.
Joining Evelyn and Maria for selected shows are: Rebecca Tavener, David Heath and DJ Dolphin Boy on 28 & 29 August.
See www.auroranova.org
Last year’s sell-out Total Theatre Award winner returns for just five performances.
Near Gone brings two performers, hundreds of fresh flowers and a gripping story to the stage. Playing with translation, the unknowable and the gulfs between us, the show boasts Bulgarian, English, gypsy-inspired music and terrific dance to create a storm of emotion. This is a performance piece that packs a punch – transforming your very sense of what it is to be a mother, a father, a child. And you’ll leave more fully alive than ever.
“near perfect” Total Theatre Magazine
“truly affecting, memorable and life-affirming” ★★★★★ BroadwayBaby
A duet about the lies we tell each other, and ourselves. Who looks back when we look in the mirror? Which version is really us? It is easy to lose our way and find ourselves somewhere shocking, doing things we would have never imagined. With humour and darkness, sorrow and light, Company of Wolves investigate what happens when we listen to the voices inside us, or not.
“A stunning mixture of the elemental and the human.” The Scotsman on Seven Hungers
“A cry from the dark that lingers.” The Herald on Invisible Empire
Commissioned by the Wellcome Trust and conceived by Brian Lobel, The Sick of the Fringe is a month-long programme of events aiming to inspire collaboration between science and the arts.
For the full The Sick of the Fringe programme, including Wellcome Trust funding surgeries and details of their call out for Opening Acts, visit www.thesickofthefringe.com
Summerhall is hosting two Open Meetings as part of the programme – join Bryony Kimmings and Tim Grayburn (10th) and Complicite’s Simon McBurney (17th) to discuss how health, medicine and science are explored in their work.
See www.thesickofthefringe.com for how to book.
The Metaphysical Caravan is an extraordinary mobile stage presenting the work of Pinocchio Theatre from Poland.
Parked up at Summerhall this festival, it will host three different solo performances (The Sunset, A Table for Two People, Re-Animation) with no spoken dialogue and very creative workshops.
A special, imaginative experience for the whole family, running for one week only!
The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and Lodz City Council.
– The Sunset: 11.00
– A Table for Two People: 13.00
– Re-Animation: 15.00
The Mechanical Animal Corporation’s production of The Temptation of St. Anthony is a Wellcome-Trust supported project exploring ‘spirit possession’ – an area where mental health and religious experience overlap.
This panel discussion (featuring insight from Psychiatry, the Medical Humanities, and members of the creative team) explores themes raised by the show, and wider issues around the role of spiritual-based healing in modern medicine.
Come and see where our handcrafted, small batch gin is made. We’ll take you through the history behind Summerhall itself and Summerhall Distillery, a potted history of gin and introduce you to Gert, our custombuilt copper still.
You’ll learn about how we make our gin from start to finish, sample the finished product and end the tour with a perfectly poured Pickering’s & Tonic at our beautifully restored 1950’s Airstream cocktail bar.
Commenting on aspects of society and culture ranging from Scottish Independence to quality of life to the inexplicable rise of Robin Thicke, alternative Scottish hip-hop band Stanley Odd like to keep an eye on things.
Releasing their third album ‘A Thing Brand New’ at the end of 2014, the band have continued to gain widespread support from national papers, magazines and radio outlets including the Sunday Herald, The List, The Skinny, BBC Radio 1, RTE 2FM and BBC Radio Scot. ”
Support TBC
The literary music ensemble Sigma weaves tapestries of words and music from Europe’s exotic corners, sure to enchant and delight. Sigma has performed widely in Europe, South America and India.
Sumptuous Occitan poet Aurélia Lassaque from Southwestern France joins forces with Saami poet Niillas Holmberg from northern Finland, who has also performed arctic, folk and world music widely.
They’re joined on stage with musical accompaniment that brings another dimension to their inspired poetic dreamscapes.
Come celebrate Trafika Europe’s first anniversary with this magical experience – two nights only!
Nothing Ever Happens Here and Summerhall are pleased to announce We Were Promised Jetpacks are playing a very special hometown Fringe show in our Dissection Room.
Releasing their first of three records in 2009, through the venerable FatCat imprint, The Jetpacks have steadily built up a reputation for explosive live shows built around the distinctive brogue of singer Adam Thomson and one of the most dynamic rhythm sections in British music.
Supermoon is the new project rising from the ashes of Meursault. The music has morphed from expansive indie into something more elusive, and rather darker. The magnetic delivery is still there, although the characteristically evocative lyrics have become a little more morally ambiguous these days.
Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me? Why are you lying to me?
Actress is a new show about language, voice and slips of the tongue – a reckless and noisy plunge into the messy art of how we speak and why. Sleepwalk Collective is an award-winning live-art and experimental theatre group creating fragile, nocturnal performances between the UK and Spain.
“There’s an intensity and shapeliness to Sleepwalk Collective’s work that commands attention” – The Scotsman
Developed at and supported by The Yard Theatre (London), The HUB (Leeds), Summerhall (Edinburgh), and Sala Baratza Aretoa (Vitoria-Gasteiz).
Have you ever fallen in love with a film star? Have they loved you back? The benshi were live narrators of silent films in Japan until the ‘talkies’ wiped them out. Now, thanks to playful theatre mavericks Stan’s Cafe shooting their own silent film in Tokyo, the benshi is back!
Witty, poetic and subversive, join the benshi for his commentary on Shadows and the lives of its fictional cast. Inevitably he’s in love with the film’s star. As the narrator, the mighty benshi has a chance to change the story and ensure she loves him back… or does he?
a Warwick Arts Centre Commission
Multi award-winning Theatre Uncut are at the forefront of political new writing. Their plays have been read and performed by over 6,000 people in 26 countries over the past 5 years. Now Theatre Uncut present six of their most globally successful political short plays, by leading writers Clara Brennan, Vivienne Franzmann, Kieran Hurley, Dennis Kelly, Neil LaBute and Stef Smith. You can add your voice to the current debates around austerity, democracy, authoritarianism and protest in their signature discussions held after each performance. Herald Angel, Fringe First and Spirit of the Fringe winners.
Post-show discussion – guest panelists now confirmed as follows:
Mon 24th – Stephanie Knight from North Edinburgh Theatre Project
Tues 25th – Comedian and activist Mark Thomas
Willie Sullivan from Electoral Reform Society Scotland
Weds 26th – Scotsman critic Joyce McMillan
Thurs 27th – Playwright Stef Smith
Fri 28th – Actor and Theatre-Maker Lucy Ellinson (currently in The Christians at the Traverse)
Sat 29th – Writer, Actor and Theatre-Maker Daniel Bye (whose show Going Viral is also at Summerhall)
Sun 30th – Ruby Glaskin, Producer of the Walking The Tightrope plays about freedom of expression in the arts
Paines Plough return to Edinburgh with the World Premiere of a gripping thriller from last year’s Fringe First Award winner Alexandra Wood.
A man turns up at Lucy’s door claiming to be the brother she hasn’t seen in 10 years. But why has he come? Is it really him? And what happens when there’s another knock at the door? Forced to confront the messy inner workings of sibling love with its petty resentments, casual cruelty, profound betrayals and implicit understanding, can the bond between brother and sister be rebuilt? An intriguing tale of loss, renewal and knowing who to trust.
“An intense, original and memorable play for today.” ★★★★ The Scotsman on Alexandra Wood’s The Initiate, 2014
#TheHumanEar
I have written a play – a real humdinger. It has a pretty epic scope, a relatively staggering vision and somewhere in the region of 20 characters. Each of which has been performed and recorded in isolation, producing a litany of individual voices – each of them perfect, captured as a single track that will, when played back in precise unison, form a glorious theatrical polyphony.
The play is perfect. The recordings are perfect. I just need enough people to hit play. That’s all.
Two terrible twins with a talent for turmoil rule their school with terror and tyranny, until the arrival of a new head teacher with green scaly skin, sharp fangs and a long spiky tail. Can the twins save the school from the child-eating troll? Can they get Brussels sprouts in peanut butter taken off the menu? And most importantly, can naughtiness prevail?
Be outrageously entertained in this colourfully comic show from the writer of West End hit, Matilda the Musical. For ages 7+ and their accompanying trolls (or parents).
“Comic perfection.” ★★★★ The Times
#OurTeacher’sATroll
Duncan Macmillan’s award-winning smash hit play returns to Edinburgh in Paines Plough’s pop-up theatre Roundabout.
‘I could fly to New York and back every day for seven years and still not leave a carbon footprint as big as if I have a child. Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.’
In a time of global anxiety, erratic weather and political unrest, a couple want a child but are running out of time. Which will be the first to destruct – the planet or their relationship?
“The most beautiful, shattering play of the year.” ★★★★★ Sunday Express
#LungsPlay
Last year, Jonny accidentally told his four-year-old niece that climate change would end the world. To stop her crying, he and Paddy promised to fix it. They really tried very hard… A new show about family, friendship and environmental disaster – from the multi-award-nominated musical comedy stars of Radio 4’s The Now Show.
★★★★★ “Lyrically brilliant fun of the highest order.” Exeunt Magazine
★★★★ “Superbly crafted… as witty as they are clever.” Metro
★★★★★”Lyrically brilliant fun of the highest order.” Exeunt Magazine
“The political edge of 80s alternative comedy… a pop-soul voice to win X Factor” Stewart Lee, Observer
A stunning new drama about a scientist with an unbelievable story to tell, a woman who doesn’t know what to believe. On top of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, you see a figure: eight foot tall, with white matted hair covering his body. He stands upright on two legs. You see him. He sees you. But who will believe you and how far can you trust what you see? A vibrant collaboration between Dancing Brick and Soho Theatre, Steve Marmion directs Thomas Eccleshare’s spellbinding play starring Valentina Ceschi.
A hilarious, award-winning one-woman comedy with lipstick, slapstick, and a whole lot of Shirley Bassey. Violet Fox is a live and visual spoken word vegan solo artist and occasional collaborator. Today is a celebration of every birthday and you’re invited.
In Happy Birthday Without You, Violet tells the story of her complicated relationship with her mega diva mother. Bring beer and bunting and come on a journey through her childhood of pop tarts, Patti Smith and second hand smoke.
*Warning: people usually cry.
Following a sell-out 16 week run Off-Broadway and an acclaimed National Tour, Every Brilliant Thing returns to Edinburgh
You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy.
So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for.
1. Ice Cream
2. Kung Fu Movies
3. Burning Things
4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose
5. Construction cranes
6. Me
A new play about depression and the lengths we go to for those we love.
#EveryBrilliantThing
“Heart-wrenching, hilarious … possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see.” ★★★★ The Guardian
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015.
Eastern Angles and Unity Theatre present Chicken by Molly Davies. It’s the night of the big ‘Separation’, rural communities are cutting the ties, breaking away from metropolitan control. Set in a dystopian future, Davies has created a wonderfully twisted world full of witchcraft and superstition, fractured families and agricultural angst. At the centre of this ‘Norfolk Noir’ tale is an exploration of human fear and difference, and the journey a chicken takes from processing factory to kitchen table. Molly’s previous credits include A Miracle and God Bless the Child (Royal Court), Shooting Truth (National Theatre Connections) and Orpheus and Eurydice (NYT/OLD Vic Tunnels).
An exclusive vinyl club night for the more fully-fledged music fan, DJs Kinghorror and The Spotlight Kid create an amazing mash up of grooves from the last six decades, perfectly crafted for dancing. Expect sweets, treats and tip-top tunes aplenty…
Come experience the sights and sounds of the Balkans at this riotous night of live Balkan, klezmer and gypsy music, exquisite gypsy belly dancing, fabulous Balkan Beats DJs, live visuals, Balkan brandy tasting and so much more!
This workshop introduces the voice work of Nadine George, used in productions such as Black Watch and Alan Cumming’s Macbeth, to creative practitioners wishing to explore their embodied voice linked to text.
The workshop will be led by Professor Ros Steen, former Head of the Centre for Voice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and one of the first accredited teachers of the Nadine George Voice Work. This innovative approach reveals the truth of the voice and the self. Workshop maximum 10 people. Loose clothing to be worn.
The workshop will involve physical contact.
Imagine a place better than where you are. Every day they come in and try again. They try to figure out how to live together. They start to build something that will never be completed, at least not within their own life times. And everyday it works. Or it doesn’t. Well, it depends how you measure it.
So today, today they will try something different. The Paradise Project is full of wit, intelligence and humanity.
Join Third Angel (Sheffield) and mala voadora (Lisbon) for a show about following instructions, inventing your own rules, and keeping trying.
A co-production with Warwick Arts Centre, Maria Matos Teatro Municipal and House on Fire, with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union. The Paradise Project is a Triggered@Warwick project and is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Discover the story behind the story that hit headlines in 2006.
When Gaby disappeared from her Scottish home, it was assumed that her Pakistani father had kidnapped her and the spiralling headlines were only momentarily silenced when it emerged that Gaby may have fled of her own accord. To her mother Suzy’s distress, Gaby declared: ‘My name is Ghazala’, and turned her back on Gaby and seemingly, the West.
“Humorous and entertaining.” ★★★★ Time Out
“Absolutely gripping … a drama of terrific integrity.’ ★★★★ The Scotsman
Written by Sudha Bhuchar. Directed by Philip Osment. www.tamasha.org.uk
The prison van, fences high, a magpie. ‘One for sorrow. Snatched the babies. The mother fought, but it was too big and flew too high.’
Devised by women from HMPYOI Low Newton and originally toured to male prisons, Key Change is a raw and illuminating portrayal of women in prison, using only a few chairs, a ghetto blaster and four rolls of masking tape.
Directed by Laura Lindow, written by Catrina McHugh and developed through a Dilly Arts commission, Key Change was named the North East’s Best Devised Piece by BritishTheatreGuide.info in 2014.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team behind Human Resources have made the unfortunate decision to halt work on the production and cancel the planned Edinburgh and touring performances.
Every day we see the news and images bombard us. What we miss are people’s stories, the poetry of the ordinary. News From Over There… brings together writers and performers from all over the Middle East and UK to fashion a new story woven from a tapestry of tweets, music, and storytelling.
Join us as we create an epic new ballad – live over 22 frantic Fringe nights.
From The Bloody Great Border Ballad team.
A new virus has broken out. Everyone in the world starts weeping. What now? Going Viral is a show about how things spread.
Drawing on the science of epidemics, it explores the spread of disease, of panic, of ideas. It shows how our society reacts, and how our connected world makes us all more vulnerable, and more human. How do you behave when it’s impossible to tell symptoms from distress? Is panic airborne too? What’s spreading through this theatre, here, today?
Going Viral is a new development in Daniel’s trademark blend of comedy, storytelling and performance lecture.
A clock, a town, a sunrise on an empty open coffin and the wind. The wind, who’s dead set on sticking someone in it by sunset. Down in the dust bowl the air’s so thick folk just can’t see what’s coming their way anymore, all ‘cept Johnnie, little Johnnie Wylo.
Struggle, survival, sex and live music brewed up into a foot stomping, bath blasting, bone shaking hoedown. A wild and darkly funny tale about hope and daring to have it in the land of the downtrodden.
August 1978. Cinema Rex fire, Abadan, Iran. Four-hundred and twenty-two dead. The year of Superman, Saturday Night Fever, and an act of terror that sparked a revolution. Who will remember the dead?
Shahrzad – feral cat, teller of tales – pleads with Death for one more life. To have another saucer of milk. To tell the stories of the dead. Paris, Baga, Peshawar, Aleppo, New York, London, Utoya, Abadan… What matters now is that the names are not forgotten.
ZENDEH creates award-winning, unforgettable theatre that connects the personal with the political.
Post-rock performance troupe Needless Alley present where.to, an ongoing performance piece sitting somewhere between theatrical performance and live gig. Beginning with a conversation between friends, addressing our shifting perspectives on the state of the world, our right to privacy and social preconceptions of gender and class, it evolves into an exploration of hypothetical realisations of our collective ideals.
Mixing spoken word, improvised sound design and dance, where.to develops from a moment of intimate conversation into a multi-platform, collective exploration of all-too-familiar dogmas, political rhetoric and social injustices.
Supported by Arts Council England, Live at LICA and Camden People’s Theatre.
First on Women’s Hour: I’M FINE! Women’s Hour. Ankle Socks? Women’s Hour. Sh!t Theatre’s Women’s Hour uses satire, song, movement and interrogates how media portray women, the obsessive and often funny gender binaries in modern life and the effect that has on the treatment of women in society.
Women’s Hour is a cabaret piece about what happens when women are given just one hour a day to think about what it is to be a woman. Total Theatre and Arches Brick Award winners (2013) Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award nominees (2014)
“Swaggering, smart and side-achingly funny.” ★★★★ What’s On Stage
“Part-comedy, part-theatre, part-performance art.” ★★★★ Exeunt
Women’s Hour was originally commissioned by Camden People’s Theatre for their Calm Down Dear! Festival of Feminism 2015
Nick has fallen out of love with London and his life as a journalist. Forced to review the launch of Urbania, a new inner-city festival, he starts to remember his shattered friendship with Johnny Bevan, the whip-smart mercurial kid from an Essex council estate.
At University, Johnny had been the inspiration Nick needed to save him from living his father’s life and guide his political awakening. Twenty years later as their youthful dreams disintegrate with the politics they’d hoped for, can Nick find Johnny in time to save him from himself?
Luke Wright’s What I Learned From Johnn Bevan is a funny and poignant poetic monologue about the British reationship between class and politics told through one extraordinary friendship.
Directed and produced by Joe Murphy (Soho Theatre/nabokov) and Paul Jellis (nabokov/Bad Physics).
“The most relevant poet of his generation”
Exeunt
Choose your own path through an imagined world… or perhaps your neighbour will choose it for you. Without leaving your seat, you – or most of you, anyway – will be able to go wherever you want. If not, don’t worry, life is full of second chances. Explore a new interactive performance from the creator of The Unbuilt Room.
“Kriebel’s words are powerful, conjuring rooms without you even leaving your seat… This game is absorbing, enlightening and often funny.” Londonist, on The Unbuilt Room
Commissioned by and developed at Battersea Arts Centre.
No two people – or monsters – are exactly the same. Come meet some scratchy, shimmering creatures and shiny mini-monsters, playing and interacting with one another, their arms and legs moving in strange and impossible ways. We are the Monsters is a humorous dance performance and workshop for children, aimed at portraying and discovering the monster hiding in all of us!
Performances from August 18th – 21st followed by a 45 minute workshop for children aged 4-9, using movement, music, images and props to explore the idea of what makes bodies different.
Tickets for the workshop are available through Eventbrite here
Part of Made in Scotland Showcase.
Ventoux is the most fearsome mountain encountered on the Tour de France.
It is also the story of Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani, whose drug-fuelled race back in 2000 was the greatest the world of cycling had ever seen. Ventoux charts the parallel lives of these champions who overcame great adversity in tandem, and the mountain that cast them in opposing directions.
Join 2Magpies as they restage the race using breathtaking video accompaniment and a pair of road bikes, asking the question – how far will we go to succeed?
Fringe University believes that the Edinburgh Fringe makes an excellent classroom.
Come meet and network with other university professors from around the world planning to, or already using, the Fringe for educational purposes.
Trespass carries on from where Mark’s previous show 100 Acts of Minor Dissent left off. Mark asks the question: If the ramblers of the 1930s were here now what would they do to open up the cities? How do we turn the skyscrapers and corporate squares into our playgrounds?
Mark sets out to try and carve a small space in the urban world where mischief and random chance can lurk. No one knows where this show is going to end up so join Mark at the start of the project.
“Clever, funny and angry.” ★★★★ The Guardian on Cuckooed
International innovators Forced Entertainment present a compelling performance that imagines a multitude of hypothetical futures. Tomorrow’s Parties is a playful, poignant and at times delirious look forwards to futures both possible and impossible.
On a stage framed by coloured fairground lights, this seemingly minimal performance soon reveals itself as a low-fi theatrical explosion. Two performers enjoy the pleasure of invention as their suppositions take them in different directions. From utopian and dystopian visions, science fiction scenarios, political nightmares and absurd fantasies, Forced Entertainment deliver a thought-provoking survey of hopes and fears as they speculate about what the future might bring.
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015.
Tomorrow’s Parties is a Forced Entertainment and Belluard Bollwerk International (Fribourg) production. Co-produced by BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Internationale Sommerfestival (Hamburg), Kaaitheater (Brussels), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Theaterhaus Gessnerallee (Zurich) and Sheffield City Council. With the support of Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation.
To Space is your telescope into a future and capsule that will preserve the past. Scientist and performer Dr Niamh Shaw has dreamed of space travel from the age of eight. After a year of interviewing astronauts, astrophysicists, space industries and potential future colonists of Mars, she’s discovered that what was once her childhood dream may soon become a reality.
In a multimedia immersive performance that buzzes with new technologies, she explores the beauty, darkness and humanity of Space. What is our attraction to Space? What are we chasing, or escaping from?
An innovative re-imagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed and created by renowned international theatre practitioner Anna-Helena McLean (formerly a principal performer with Poland’s legendary Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices).
This intoxicating performance promises an engaging, funny, sensual and participatory experience in which our much-loved queen of the night plays out events from her past, hosting nightly revels in an attempt to woo audiences off the path and back into the woods.
A heady fusion of original music and vocal acrobatics, Titania is the Queen of the Faeries’ tale with an amplified twist.
Thread is a multimedia dance drama that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, arousal and disgust, fun and violence, spectacle and authenticity. New York based BODYART’s accomplished dancers juxtapose high energy contemporary dance with interactive video.
Fascinating and seductive, Ariadne is a modern woman infused with the myths of the past. In Thread, the performers reflect the twists and turns through Ariadne’s complex path while each interweaving his or her own labyrinth of life.
Welcome to The MacKenzie Institute for the Encouragement of Vocal Harmony, a darkly mysterious place where hundreds of girls’ voices have been held captive for years. This is the first time that the public have been allowed into The Institute and it may also be the last one. The Voice Thief is for everybody aged nine and over.
“A fabulous fantasy you want to shout about.”★★★★★ Herald
“Everything a piece of theatre should be.” ★★★★★ The Guardian
“A wickedly enchanting promenade performance.” ★★★★ TV Bomb
Inspired by the ancient legend of a man who spent 35 years in solitude in the Egyptian desert, this ensemble performance explores, through song and body, landscapes where mental health and religious experience collide. How to treat a religiously-orientated mental illness?
This is a problem faced today by NHS psychiatrists in treating patients who believe they are possessed by spirits. Is there a limit to what Western medicine can heal, when faced with a dark night of the soul? With insight from psychiatry and anthropology, this show plunges soul-first into the human experience of demon possession.
The Mechanical Animal Corporation’s production of The Temptation of St. Anthony is a Wellcome-Trust supported project exploring ‘spirit possession’ – an area where mental health and religious experience overlap.
There will be a one off talk on the topic the show touches upon on 17th August.
Gather round, gather round for the moon’s magical, mystical story about a tippetty-top tap dancer called Marina Skippett, whom he has been watching at night. With stunning puppetry, original live music to sing along to and tap-dancing that will make you want to stick 50p pieces to your shoes and join in, this is ‘just everything a theatre experience for children should be’ (Childplays.wordpress.com).
Brought to you by the ‘truly amazing one-woman power house’ Tessa Bide, who ‘understands children in a way that can’t be taught’ (ChildrensTheatreReviews.com). Perfect for all members of the family.
Summerhall is proud to present the Sun Ra Arkestra, live in the Dissection Room. Led by legendary alto saxophonist and original member, Marshall Allan, the band move forward not as a repertory or ghost band, but as a spirit band, maintaining the discipline centred on the study, research and further development of Sun Ra precepts.
Supporting is one of the most enigmatic and prolific songwriters working in the UK underground, Richard Youngs adds a touch of humanity to any project he’s involved with.
The spirit of Sun Ra is alive and well!
Award-winning Clod Ensemble returns to Edinburgh with the fabulous tale of a man who eats himself into the chair he is sitting upon, a woman doomed to cook his meals and their one ‘inveesible child’. Sarah Cameron’s virtuosic solo performance is a delicious feast for language lovers, narrated in luscious Scottish dialect, served with tasty nibbles and a dram of whisky to oil the way.
“Never before have I seen a performer embodying words like Sarah Cameron does… this rich story of indulgence, neglect and recompense is seasoned to perfection.” Exeunt
Jenny is a mischievous little girl who loves playing with her Dad. But he has to put on his business suit, pick up his briefcase and go to work. When Jenny grabs hold of his overcoat to stop him leaving, a thread unravels and becomes the start of a magical world of adventure and discovery.
Join Jenny on her ingenious journey to find out what’s waiting for her at the end of the thread…
Suitable for the whole family.
“A clever, accomplished tale.” ★★★★ The List (on Brush, 2014)
“An insight into Korean culture becomes a magical adventure” The Scotsman (on Brush, 2014)
Eight years after Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko fatally drank poisoned tea in London, the public inquiry into his death has thrust him back into the spotlight in 2015. 2Magpies do not know who killed him, but they do know what he liked to eat, what he liked to drink, and how he liked to dance; so this is precisely what they are going to do.
Join 2Magpies in the Summerhall café as they piece together the day Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in an aromatic blend of possibility, actuality, fact, and fiction. They will even provide the tea.
A youngster decides to look after his mother in the last months of her life. Starting from run-of-the-mill situations and objects, he embarks on a quirky voyage through her past. Performed by Titus Voogdt (The Missing), Belgium’s most exciting young people’s theatre company returns to the Fringe following their 2009 multi award-winning hit “Once and For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen.”
“A fast-paced gem of a play about saying goodbye to your nearest and dearest… full of quick-witted comedy that yields dazzling theatre.” – Knack Magazine
‘I looked for it on Blackpool beach with my Mum. I looked for it in a raspberry ripple cheesecake. I looked for it in detention. I looked for it online. I looked for it but it got complicated.’ Are we looking for happiness in all the wrong places?
A brand new show devised by a company of young artists, scientists and academics in response to reports that raised concerns over young people’s well-being in the UK. The Happiness Project journeys through autobiographical stories set to a musical landscape, to discover what happiness means to us in 2015.
Tommy leaves his safe town up on the hill to see the sea. On his way he meets everyone who for some reason isn’t allowed or doesn’t belong in the city. A journey through music history that gives the floor to the outsiders of society.
Recipient of the Theater aan Zee 2015 Award, The Great Downhill Journey of Little Tommy is a coming of age performance told in songs and live drawings. See it. Hear it.
Written and performed by legendary trans playwright, performer and poet Jo Clifford, this unique and extraordinary show combines theatre with storytelling, spoken word and ritual in a way that, according to one audience member, “leaves everyone feeling blessed”.
Join Queen Jesus for a revolutionary queer ritual in which bread is shared, wine is drunk and familiar stories are reimagined by a transgender Jesus.
“Reaffirms everyone’s right to live free of discrimination & prejudice.”
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“A show that demands to be seen.” ★★★★★ (BroadwayBaby)
Guardian’s “Shows not to miss”.
Featured on BBC4’s Edinburgh Extra
Part of Made in Scotland Showcase.
A gig inspired by Clytemnestra’s Greek revenge myth, casting her ‘furies’ of vengeance as front women of a rock band. Operatic laments of a woman wronged are spliced together with heavy metal rages from her aggressor and the haunting lullabies of his mistress. With screaming guitars and heavy bass, pounding drums and heartbreaking saxophone, this “wildly unreserved” hour of visceral music-theatre “sends you reeling into the night more than a little dazed.”
“They use their voices and bodies as weapons.” Lyn Gardner, Guardian
“Musically, it’s an unmitigated triumph.” Metro
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015.
The adventurous and inspiring Dutch punk/noise/jazz quartet have defied categorisation for over 33 years. Operating completely independent of record companies, managers or roadies – using guitars, bass, drums and voice as their starting point, The Ex have continued to musically explore undiscovered areas.
With support from My Two Dads
My Two Dads are Drew Wright (Wounded Knee) and Dylan Mitchell (PET). With two guitars, a kick drum and a love of drone, minimalism, riff and groove they cook up a richt stocky brose of Canedolian Psychedelia that thankfully sounds nothing like Martyn Bennett.
Thursday festival evenings with special guests The Bad Boys from the legendary Loveboat Big Band. Nobody knows Edinburgh Fringe better than The Bevvy Sisters and The Bad Boys, and no one is so renowned for creating a feel-good atmosphere and an uplifting time.
A fabulous festival evening of classy songs, witty sass, and Bevvytastic boogie tunes.
“Imagine the Andrew Sisters with switchblades.” Fatea-Records.co.uk
“It’s my calling to be an understudy Bevvy Sister.” Eddi Reader
★★★★★ BroadwayBaby.com
★★★★ Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday.
BBC’s Best of Fest 2014.
Combining puppetry, magic and scientific-demonstration, The Assembly of Animals gives a glimpse into the inner workings of a laboratory looking for life in everyday objects. As a performed sculpture, a series of delicately composed experiments reveal a proliferating system of surprises and animals within animals.
Tim is an artistic inventor, and uses basic physics and a surrealist imagination to create this carefully constructed and delicate world, leaving children entertained throughout.
Produced by Artsadmin for Bamboo supported by the EU Culture Programme. Co-production TJP-CDN d’Alsace-Strasbourg. Funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Part of British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015.
A remarkable true story of four young Hungarian artists and their life-changing conversations they had with what they came to call angels. Gitta Mallasz, who transcribed and later published their dialogues, was the sole survivor of the group. In 2012 Yad Vashem Museum in Israel recognized Gitta as Righteous Among Nations for saving over 100 Jewish women and children from deportation.
“A portrayal [of Mallasz] with such leisurely, lifelike timing… Mitchell transforms into something between a dancer and a shaman. Its excruciating beauty derives from its simplicity, its purity…”
★★★★★ Los Angeles Weekly.
Come and experience a tour de force performance where audience and actor share a journey into spirituality and humanity.
A double bill for younger audiences and their families, exploring the incredible storytelling power of ordinary paper. The Park and The Paper Play take audiences on an adventure filled with wonder and laughter, with magic moments of playfulness and discovery. The change happens before your very eyes, don’t blink or you will miss it! Do try this at home!
Puppet Beings Theatre are internationally acclaimed for their inventive and charming object theatre.
“A perfect, heartfelt performance with the Midas touch of imagination.” Performing Arts Review, Taipei
London’s boldest dance theatre brings hit shows to the Fringe.
Four dancers explore the fragility and humour of touch. How are we connected even when separated by distance, time or context? How do we touch without touching? We question the limits of the body, and the mind’s connections.
Without ever leaving your seat, you are called to inhabit the same imaginative space as us in an invitation to participate in an empathetic, exhilarating, imagined touch.
“A fascinating journey to the way tactility moves our bodies.” Field Works WTP # 5, Workspace Brussels
Over the last 20 years Mark Kozelek has been ploughing his own unique furrow, through his work in the band Red House Painters and the moniker Sun Kil Moon, leading him to one of his most critically acclaimed albums to date, Benji.
In the top ten lists from most major music publications and newspapers in 2014, this is a chance to see a world class artist at the very top of his game.
“There is no use in rage. There is no use in screaming. There is no use in crying out and screaming ‘this is unfair’, just wait, cause no one cares.” In a world of globalization and greed, of zero-hour contracts and The Big Bang Theory, violence worms its way into every aspect of our lives.
Following their debut show Nothing, multi award-winning young company Barrel Organ present Some People Talk About Violence. Expect people, or just ideas, in mindless frustration, on the edge of some kind of revolt.
Developed at and supported by Camden People’s Theatre and Warwick Arts Centre
Originally inspired by the demolition of The Chartists Mural in Newport, South Wales, Smash It Up explores the destruction of art, culture and public space. Beginning as a performance lecture, and using performance art and physical theatre, it explores the historical acts of cultural destruction by fanatics, institutions and by artists themselves.
Smash it Up is an engaging and poignant theatre show that has been developed on the streets and around the building sites of a city in transition, a city like any other in the UK. Smash It Up asks what else is being destroyed and what will you do about it?
The premiere of Simon Thacker’s latest pioneering intercultural explorations with a special trio line-up of his award-winning Indo-Western ensemble.
It features Scotland’s visionary guitar virtuoso/composer with the soulful voice khamak playing of Raju das Baul, spectacular exponent of one of Bengal’s spiritually richest folk forms, and tabla master Sarvar Sabri. Simon brings his acclaimed compositional voice to the mystical, universally affecting Baul tradition, and showcases his stunning instrumental music.
“Oh lucky, lucky Edinburgh. Simon Thacker is, in my opinion, one of the most important musicians of his generation.” ★★★★★ Three Weeks 2014
Part of Made in Scotland Showcase
Seven of Scotland’s most dynamic, provocative and lyrical spoken word artists: Rachel Amey, Bram E Gieben, Harry Giles, Jenny Lindsay, Ali Maloney, Rachel McCrum and Sam Small, present original solo shows, blending poetry, music and theatre in a different performance every night of the week.
From drone warfare to Mare Nostrum, revolutionary nihilism to messing about in boats, language games, to lovecraftian bouffon rap apocalypse, this crew of award-winning multiple slam champions will spin your mind and twist your heart in ways you couldn’t event imagine. Get shifted.
See www.shiftword.com for full listings.
Ringside. A girl on a trapeze. The ghost of every glamorous girl you have ever seen on a trapeze high up in the big top, performing to the roar of the crowd. But she’s up-close in this intimate one on one aerial performance made for your eyes only. You can hear her breathing, watch every muscle twitch, see the bruises as her body performs revolt not acceptance. Lots of sweat, no sequins.
“The more you reflect on it, the more it delves deeper into the realms of female empowerment, vulnerability, intimacy and control.” ★★★★ Mary Brennan, The Herald
Winner of 2015 Summerhall Autopsy Award for experimental performance.
Prosumer aka Achim Brandenburg has a fever for Chicago’s Jack flavour with a vision, passion and knowledge which makes Prosumer a guardian of house music history and one of the finest party spinners operating today.
He is supported by Lindsay Todd (aka House of Traps), head honcho of Firecracker Records and proprietor and vinyl pusher in Edinburgh’s The Living Mountain record shop and print studio. His sets effortlessly jilt between blissed out afro futurism, jacking techno to slabs of obtuse music concrete.
Project HaHa welcomes you to an upside-down world. A fertile, green landscape that sews together the silence of possibility and the noise of waiting. Beautiful, placid perhaps, but we will not just sit and study little things, we will look straight into the sun.
Eat your pill, put your flowery dress on, build a house and imagine, for just one instant, that gravity can disappear, while using naïve yet manic physicality and hallucinogenic images, Remote Control is gripped in a “danse-macabre” with joy.
While walking over 3500km through Germany, Gerling took photographs of people he met during his wanderings, creating portraits in the form of photographic flipbooks. On stage, Gerling recounts the stories of those who let themselves be photographed.
Gerling describes great, small, serious and quirky accidental encounters and, for a moment, brings his protagonists to life on the screen. These magical studies inspire gentle, profound reflection upon the transitory nature of the moment and the significance of interpersonal encounters.
“Volker Gerling’s flipbook movies are artistic miniatures full of life and emotion – a poetic sensation.” Augsburger Zeitung
Pope Head returns to the Edinburgh Festival after a critically acclaimed east coast tour of Australia.
“Roost sees his job, apparently as prising the persona from the person; allowing a little light to shine in vulnerable crevices. This he does with great art. And artifice. In fact, he’s been meticulous in inventing a credible version of Bacon: creepy, slathering and salacious, sublime thinker given to profound insights on the nature of the human condition.” – Syke on Stage
In Poker Night Blues, Tennesse Williams’ masterpiece, a Streetcar Named Desire, is undone, dismantled and distilled to its essential elements. Heightened physicality, dance, humour and an original text blend together to create this intense, touching and steamy fusion between East and West.
Poker Night Blues combines the energies and talents of the US-based theatre company, Theatre Movement Bazaar and Chinese-based Beijing TinHouse Productions. This highly stylised production merges two theatrical traditions to create a new form for contemporary audiences.
By Heathcote Williams (Herald – Lifetime’s Achievement Award winner). Poetry f*cks off tyrants. The right words can get under the skin of those in power and spark revolution.
Featuring the lyrics and verses of Jim Morrison, Billie Holiday, Sophie Scholl, Martin Luther King, William Blake, Arundhati Roy, Victor Jara, Gil Scott-Heron, Lupe Fiasco and many others, this is a celebration of those who have spoken out against tyranny while making our hearts pound.
Performed by Roy Hutchins, Sameena Zehra, Selina Nwulu, Jonny Fluffypunk and special guests – with live music from Dr Blue.
‘Mind-swaying’ Michael McClure
London’s boldest dance theatre brings hit shows to the Fringe.
Lost Dog’s restaging of the creation of everything. Inspired by Milton’s epic poem with less words, more dance and never before seen levels of divine incompetence. A show for anyone who has ever created anything (a child, a garden, a paper aeroplane) and then had to watch that wonderful thing spiral out of control. As God himself once said ‘in the beginning it all seemed like such a good idea.’
“A triumphant gallop through the story of creation” ★★★★ The Guardian
“Comic yet touching” ★★★★ The Times
Owen Pallett’s new album In Conflict was released in 2014.
Made in collaboration with Brian Eno, it features Pallett’s trademark looping string and electronic arrangements – ‘beautiful and often strangely euphoric’ (Guardian). Pallett has also released work as Final Fantasy, with his 2006 album He Poos Clouds winning the Polaris Prize in Canada.
He regularly collaborates with Arcade Fire, co-writing the string arrangements for their albums Funeral and Neon Bible, and has also worked with The National, The Last Shadow Puppets and Caribou.
Globally inspired, but distilled in Scotland. Orkestra Del Sol’s explosive reinvention of global brass band music has captured imaginations, set pulses racing and left a trail of pummelled dance floors across continents.
Ska,Columbian porro, Balkan brass, klezmer and funk combine to create a living, breathing, polkaing, pogoing honkstep for the 21st century. Legendary live shows bursting with anarchic humour, wildly skilful musical arrangements and a roguish sense of theatre.
An old-fashioned exhibition room with fitted carpet, various things on panels and in display cases. At the back sits an attendant, whilst in the middle of the room Kristien De Proost attracts all the attention.
She runs and keeps on running, as if her life depended on it. Meanwhile, she describes her inside and outside. From her smallest toe to her biggest fantasies. From freshly-washed armpits to heavy sweat, while trying to summarize her present state.
“On Track is not just some flabby confessional monologue, but a real and unmissable tour de force.” ★★★★ De Standaard (Belgium)
Hilariously heartbreaking, Ndebele Funeral pulls audiences into the music, dirt, and dreams of modern South Africa, by examining the aspirations and losses of three characters whose lives intersect in a Soweto shack.
Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative’s powerfully physical production delves bravely into modern poverty, health care and violence, featuring original music and gumboot dancing from the mines of Jo’burg.
“…A heartbreaking yet beautiful story.” nytheatre.com
“Expertly acted.” The New Yorker
“This funeral comes fully and furiously alive.” –The New York Times
“Ndebele Funeral is a true achievement of richness and humanity.” Theater Pizzazz </blockquote>
Winner of FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award Best Play, Critics’ Pick Time Out NY.
Mitch wants to make movies. Problem is, all of his ideas are too absurd, expensive and downright ridiculous to ever be produced. Homophobic Santa Claus. A family watching a movie whilst their house burns down around them. A Kitchen Sink action movie.
Using a loop-pedal, lyrical speech and dark humour, Eric Sigmundsson shows the breakdown of a creative mind carried away with concepts.
“Darkly humorous with a delightful non-linear and piecemeal structure … poetic and socio-politically engaged. We loved it!” Sh!t Theatre
Are you a university student participating in the Fringe? Network with your technical, acting, management and producing peers – make connections! Come meet other university students at this meet and greet sponsored by Fringe University.
Howl throated ghost poet MacGillivray stamps the stage in folk noir electronica, evocative of post-apocalyptic punk Gaelic, chewed chandelier glass and electric autoharp. For this, her first Fringe outing, expect Damn Rebel Bitch songs, Scots litanies and underground cityscapes.
Having worked with The Fall, Arlo Guthrie, Arthur Brown, Current 93, Shirley Collins, performing on BBC Radio 3, Cafe Oto, Union Chapel, NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall, and the Volksbühne, Berlin, MacGillivray showcases work from her fifth album Once Upon a Dirty Ear, in a première at Summerhall for the Edinburgh Fringe
Lost in Transition looks at Romania’s decretei: children born as a result of Ceausescu’s 770 Decree that forbade contraception and abortions.
These children, Romanian citizens, lived through numerous transitions: from communism to democracy, from trying to make a home in Romania to making a home abroad, from highly-skilled to illegal and un-skilled labour, from speaking Romanian to dreaming in English.
More than one million decretei have emigrated from Romania in search of a better life. This is the story of one in many.
Developed with the support of Arches Live.
Arches and Summerhall Autopsy Award Winner.
It has been February for over a hundred days. Flight has been banned and no one is to speak or think of it ever again. While the townspeople talk of war, Bianca and her parents try to understand the mysterious sadness that has engulfed their community.
Adapted in collaboration with an ensemble of artists from the novel by Shane Jones, and featuring live music, projection and visual-storytelling, Light Boxes’ dreamlike prose is brought to life by multi award-winning Fringe regulars Grid Iron.
“One of the companies that has shaped British theatre over the last 20 years.” The Guardian
Six performances only!
The multi award-winning international hit play returns for its final Edinburgh performances. Winner of six major awards including a Fringe First and The Stage Best Actress.
Having thrilled audiences around the world, Silvia Gallerano reprises her critically acclaimed award-winning performance in Cristian Ceresoli’s sensational play, trailblazing its poetic shocking stream of consciousness on the human condition.
★★★★★ “A piece so literally and metaphorically naked, raw and angry you’ll leave the theatre feeling as if you’ve had all your skin scraped off.” The Guardian
★★★★★ ”One of the most wonderful full-on performances ever seen in Edinburgh.” The Scotsman
An obscene, ink-black comedy about tax havens, greed and the few who have it all. Olivier nominee Caroline Horton (Chrissy, Mess, Penelope Retold) and her foul ensemble plunge us into a monstrous world where no-one has to pay… for anything.
Islands spits in the face of polite, political debate. Incandescent with rage, it hurls out images of the putrid end times of ultimate freedom and the rotten, violent underbelly of offshore finance.
“The year’s most talked about piece of theatre” Andrew Haydon
Created in consultation with Tax Justice Network. Commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre and Harlow Playhouse.
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
Following their critically-acclaimed 2014 Fringe debut, leading new music group Ensemble Thing returns to Summerhall to perform John De Simone’s powerful and moving new work Independence.
Blending Scottish and post-minimalist music with spoken word, Independence is an autobiographical exploration of cultural and personal identity in Scotland, from the perspective of its composer, an English-born Scottish-Italian, whose grandfather, John MacCormick, was instrumental in the founding of the Scottish National Party.
“Wonderfully powerful.” Alan Cooper
“Flawless playing… One of the most memorable events in the festival.” Pete Stollery, Chair of Sound Festival.
Supported by Made In Scotland and Hope Scott Trust.
London’s boldest dance theatre brings hit shows to the Fringe.
We started out wanting to change the world with a performance. We felt like idiots. Then we danced a lot. We jumped. We called on the folk traditions of Sardinia and the Basque Country. We sang. We jumped some more. We committed. Now we promise to stick together. We promise to persevere. We promise to do our best.
“Igor and Moreno sing, dance and jump relentlessly in this bold show featuring spectacular visuals and humour. Unmissable.” ★★★★★ – Everything Theatre
Selected for Aerowaves 2015.
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
This show is performing in performing in the Old Lab from 5th-22th. Buy tickets here.
In 1885 Sarah Henley throws herself off a bridge. She lives. In 2015 Sarah talks about this and other things that push us over the edge. It is not about suicide, well, only a bit, it’s about love and what it makes us do. Inspired by real heart-breaking stories; some given, some found, some stolen.
An act of public self-help, absurd melodrama and poetic meanderings around our perpetual preoccupation with this pumping organ.
Winner of the 100˚ Jury Prize Berlin, making its UK debut.
Grandad and Me is a living storybook about loss, longing and the treasures of memory and imagination.
We meet a young girl who is missing her Grandad – he has gone, even though his favourite job was being her Grandad. Led by found objects and her imagination, she traces his footsteps on a magical adventure through time and space.
“A luscious-looking and tremendously moving show from the new Glasgow-based company The Letter J” ★★★★ Scotsman
“…gorgeously detailed and nostalgic set, wonderful live music and beautifully simple projected animation.” ★★★★ Herald
Gomaar Trilogy: Head over Heels; Look Who’s Here; Always Something Wrong
Three stories, one life. The life of Gomaar. Gomaar the farmer’s son, behind the behind of a horse. Gomaar the college student in the era of Che. Gomaar divorced, but still riding his Norton.
Filled with love and irony, Wim DeWulf’s acclaimed Gomaar Trilogy for award-winning Belgian theatre company Ultima Thule comprises three stories which can stand alone or be enjoyed in any sequence as a trilogy.
Each play combines thrilling storytelling and puppetry to create a funny and deeply human universal folk tale where disillusionment with life is set against the poetic panorama of a village, a city and a family.
Head Over Heels: 7, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22 August
Look Who’s Here: 9, 13, 16, 20, 23 August
Always Something Wrong: 10, 14, 17, 21 August
An investigation into what happens when we discover that our parents are flawed human beings, and that at some point, sooner than we think, they are suddenly going to disappear from our lives. Intimate and funny, this play presents a lifetime of conversations, condensed into one hour. A mother and daughter from the community join the cast each night.
“Delicate verbal and physical dance of love.” ★★★★ The Guardian
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
J runs so fast she bursts in to a million tiny pieces, her atoms unknitting themselves and spreading across the universe. Blair stands on a broken pier with a glass of white wine in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other, looking up at the stars.
Following folk-hit Beulah (★★★★★ The Scotsman) and Babylon (‘Ruddy gorgeous’ The Guardian), The Flanagan Collective return with a tale of freedom, immortality and planting trees for those who come after us.
A show wound from spoken word, storytelling, soaring live music and good, honest heart and soul.
Bonaparte’s travelling circus, show and marvellous menagerie was on its uppers. A zoo with just pigeons, an aerialist who won’t leave the ground, a chipped plate spinning act, and a Mr Memory who can hardly remember his own name. And then into their lives came Edmund the Learned Pig.
Based upon a poem by Edward Gorey this magical entertainment cunningly fuses BSL, puppets, music by Martyn Jacques of the Tiger Lillies and circus to create a darkly pleasant feast of a show that will tickle the palettes of grown-ups and young shavers alike.
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
Growing up in Aberdeen in the 60s, my gay brother Donald often impersonated Dusty Springfield. At the age of 11, I watched and awarded him points for how well he performed Dusty. During the early 70’s, Donald was a singer and dancer in the TV troupe, The Young Generation, and also appeared in West End shows. He later became a millionaire as a savvy antique dealer and owner of real estate. Sadly, Donald died of AIDS-related causes in 1992. Dusty died of breast cancer in 1999. Donald Does Dusty pays homage to them both.
Edinburgh’s finest purveyors of weirdo cabaret and decadent performance parties get a Summerhall Fringe residency. The queerest pick & mix of the Fringe! Live performance PERFORMANCE, MUSIC, SPOKEN WORD, COMEDY, LIVE ART and the occasional VOGUE BALL.
Cabaret every Tuesday PLUS a one-off Friday night party 14th of August. C U Next Tuesday, love Dive.
“Close to that old cabaret scuzz, a seat-of-the-pants venue, an audience ready to shout, sweat and snog in rowdy tension with 20-odd local and visiting acts.” Not Television
“Offbeat and innovative…Dive is in at number 78 in The List TOP 100.” The List
What do those words actually mean, the whole world obliterated? Everything we know and love just totally disappears?”
Adapted from Toshiki Okada’s acclaimed script and developed specifically for Summerhall’s Dissection Room, Fellswoop’s immersive blend of theatre and live music asks how we respond to a changing climate: with fear and denial, or by changing ourselves?
FellSwoop Theatre’s previous productions at the Edinburgh Fringe include Ablutions, which won Ignite Festival’s Critic’s Choice Award, and Belleville Rendez-Vous, which won the NSDF Methuen Drama Award for Emerging Artists. Both were sell-out productions and went on to tour the UK.
“Quietly gripping and thoroughly unsettling, this piece climbs inside you, like the best examples of sci-fi.” Exeunt
“Will haunt you long after you leave the theatre” A Younger Theatre
“That rarest of things: a bold and experimental play that manages to tell a complex and emotional story. It’s a must-see and one of the best plays of the festival.” Fringe Madrid
‘If you pinned me against a wall, I’d probably admit to being a liberal. Of course, pinning me against a wall is exactly what I’d expect from someone like you.’
Confirmation is a show about the gulfs we cannot talk across, and about the way we choose to see only the evidence that proves we are right. Working with research into the phenomenon of confirmation bias, Confirmation attempts to have an honourable dialogue, real and imagined, with political extremism.
From multiple award-winning Chris Thorpe (Unlimited, Royal Exchange, Hannah Jane Walker) and Rachel Chavkin” (The Team)
Presented by Warwick Arts Centre and China Plate.
Commissioned by Northern Stage and Battersea Arts Centre.
Fringe First winner 2014.
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015.
A baby chick is born and thinks the sky is falling down. On the way to tell the King, she meets Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky and Turkey Lurkey, but there’s a shocking surprise! Chicken Licken grows up to be the Little Red Hen and asks her friends to help her make bread, but no one wants to play!
Mixed into this recipe of food, puppets and music is the story of Little Red Hen and the sly Foxy Loxy. Will she outwit him and save her stuffing?
“when it comes to making children’s theatre, it’s clear DNA Puppetry and Visual Theatre are part of the upper crust” Children’s Theatre Reviews
This bold new work written by Sue MacLaine is both duet and duel as two languages, one signed and one spoken, spar across the heard and the unheard to ask; what is being described here.
Performed by Sue MacLaine and Nadia Nadarajah with outside eye by choreographer Jonathan Burrows.
An extraordinarily eloquent piece about silence and childhood sexual abuse…. burning with anger, yet beautifully choreographed and powerfully controlled.’★★★★★ The Stage
Sick! Festival commission
Enjoy a trip to the romantic and beautiful Border Abbey of Dryburgh to see Dudendance’s outdoor performance installation. Borderlands draws on the juxtaposition of spirituality and war in a meditation on conquest and contemplation.
Inspired by paintings of the Renaissance, Heather MacCrimmon’s costumes are designed for shape-shifting and movement flow. The slow pace and sculptural movement unfolds like a dream around the audience who are guided to discover different views into the ruins.
A highly visual landscape theatre accompanied by Andante Chamber Choir singing renaissance polyphony.
Hosted by Historic Scotland and supported by Creative Scotland.
Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat play their only Edinburgh gig in support of their second album together, The Most Important Place in the World. Their first album, Everything’s Getting Older, picked up the Scottish Album of the Year award in 2012.
Expect dark humour ‘decorated with buzzing electro-pop and jazzy bursts of brass’ (The Guardian) in an intimate evening with the enigmatic duo.
Roddy Magnox has big plans for Edinburgh. As the heir to an enormous mining fortune (and a substantial collection of art), he’s had it pretty good. Now he wants to give something back. His proposal is a combined shopping centre, leisure facility and nuclear power plant, right in the centre of town.
Roddy has commissioned an artist, Greg McLaren, to be involved at every stage of the project. They’re kicking off with a public consultation: your chance to find out more about the project, and to meet these two remarkable men. Let’s hope it all goes to plan.
ATOMKRAFT is a satirical interrogation of our relationship with power and the powerful. Imagine the Qatari Royal Family hired Frank Zappa to do their PR. The results are messy, hilarious and more than a little disturbing.
Internationally acclaimed performance from Herald Angel Award winner Spitfire Company influenced by the works of Václav Havel, especially by his play Audience and its legendary film adaptation. What happens when a brewer and a persecuted politician, alter ego of Václav Havel himself, meet on stage? Two actresses, a case of Czech beer, huge original masks and absurd humour.
A hit in Berlin, Prague, Milan, Florence, Washington, New York, London, Peking and Oslo.
“Unique, powerful and highly recommended.” DC Metro
“Artful. Brilliant. Irreverent. Simple, yet genius.” DCTheatreScene.com
Part of the Czech Showcase 2015, organised by the Czech Centre London.
Will asks Father Christmas for a spaceship – he gets a piano! This is a breathtaking adventure into the world of pianos, revealing where they come from, how they evolved and why they make a pretty cool Christmas present. Featuring Bach’s cave piano, Beethoven’s bad moods and a jam with ‘Fats’ Waller.
“Clever, poetic, his piano playing exudes an effortless expertise.” The Herald
“The pace of the show is riveting, adults shaking their shoulders, children banging the floor while their mouths hang open in astonishment.” ArtsHub
Australia Best children’s show runner-up – Fringe World 2015
As part of the Made in Scotland showcase, off-world electronica and stunning live vocals merge with surreal 3D animation to evolve into a multimedia artwork in Alien Lullabies. In an unsettling world between worlds, Alien Lullabies envelop and mesmerise.
A unique cinema/live gig hybrid from Scottish/Burmese producer/vocalist Fiona Soe Paing and New Zealand animation artist Zennor Alexander.
“Wonderful, unsettling and incredibly seductive stuff” (Andrew Dubber, Bandcamp)
“Darker than PJ Harvey, stranger than Kraftwerk, with a touch of Dali-esque visuals.” FestivalsForAll.com
“Extraordinary vocals.”Skinny
Part of Made in Scotland Showcase.
Part recital, part rehabilitation.
Genre-defying piano virtuoso and wit, Will Pickvance (creator of Anatomy of the Piano) has spent years grappling with his addiction to meandering piano solos and capricious musical mutations. Here he celebrates this very struggle, taking inspiration from Haydn’s Creation through to Radiohead, with Fats Waller, Keith Jarrett and many others along the way.
A melting pot of altered rhythms and corrupted melodies cooked up in the charming Anatomy Lecture Theatre, alongside Pickvance’s trademark presentational style of stories and songs.
“Clever, poetic, his piano playing exudes an effortless, almost careless expertise.” The Herald
“An exceptionally talented pianist with a quirky demeanour.” Three Weeks
ABACUS is a baroque presentation delivered by Japanese cult-icon Paul Abacus about the future of national borders, the workings of contemporary persuasion, and our evolving relationship to the screens in our public and private spaces, including our pockets.
Inspired by TED talks and mega-church media design, ABACUS features kaleidoscopic data visualizations, dancing Steadicam operators and the world’s first fully-accredited giant panda.
“Didn’t get to go to Sundance this year? Early Morning Opera’s “Abacus” topped the list for one of the most edgy, thought-provoking spectacles at the festival.”The Huffington Post
Metal claws into wood, with scraping sounds that are surprisingly whispering and soft, and through this slow destruction a startling disquisition emerges about female experience and the impossible balancing acts we are expected to maintain, by society, by other women, and by ourselves.
“Reduced to a single line, it sounds not only slight but preposterous: five women dressed like musicians in a string quartet sit on chairs which they gradually destroy using saws. In that apparently pointless action the performers conjured up the two most tenacious images of womanhood.” Maddy Costa – This is Tomorrow
British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2015
Is this a story of extremes, of bi-cultural upbringing, or is it simply the story of all mothers and daughters? Sachli Gholamalizad, a young Belgian actress of Iranian descent, questions her troubled relationship with her mother.
Through fusing together recordings, diary excerpts, memories, novels and soundscapes from both Belgium and Iran, Sachli dives into her family’s history and the contradictions in the lives of three women, confronting both her mother and grandmother in a thrilling and unruly multimedia performance.
A trip around the world via storytelling at its most effortlessly fluent, 17 Border Crossings starts with a man at a desk on an empty stage and ends up everywhere but. The itinerary: a worse-for-wear Communist-era train traveling from Prague to Belgrade, the wheel well of a transatlantic jet to Heathrow, and 15 other border crossings recreated with magnetic, offhanded charm by award-winning theater director, designer, and raconteur Thaddeus Phillips.
A chair, table, and bar of lights become the imagined settings for invasive body searches at Charles de Gaulle, ayahuasca experiments in the Amazon, KFC-smuggling in Palestine, and run-ins with Ace of Base on Croatian ferries in this engrossing look at the perplexing ins and outs of our fragile right of passage.
“Brilliant and evocative” (Westword.com).
“Brilliantly designed and performed” – The Guardian
“He’s a born raconteur, Phillips, capable, I’d guess, of making almost any material sing. These, however, are exquisite miniatures, full of life and character, and staged with an effortless ‘empty space’ theatricality”. – Matt Trueman (FESTMAG)
This show is performing in performing in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre from 24th-29th. Buy tickets here.
In 1885 Sarah Henley throws herself off a bridge. She lives. In 2015 Sarah talks about this and other things that push us over the edge. It is not about suicide, well, only a bit, it’s about love and what it makes us do. Inspired by real heart-breaking stories; some given, some found, some stolen.
An act of public self-help, absurd melodrama and poetic meanderings around our perpetual preoccupation with this pumping organ.
Winner of the 100˚ Jury Prize Berlin, making its UK debut.
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