British Council Edinburgh Showcase – Summerhall August Festival 2015

Every Brilliant Thing

richardx — Fri, 29 May 2015 02:05:32 +0000

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.

Tomorrow’s Parties

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:06 +0000

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.

The Furies

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:00 +0000

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 Assembly of Animals

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:52 +0000

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.

Islands

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:32 +0000

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

Idiot-Syncrasy

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:28 +0000

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

Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:07 +0000

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

Edmund the Learned Pig

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:00 +0000

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

Confirmation

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:49 +0000

‘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 String Section

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 03:05:53 +0000

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