Thursday 31 July 2008

Forest Fringe

Well, we're not going to Edinburgh this year, either as performers or audience.  I'm glad we're not going with a show, because fitting all of the pre-Edinburgh planning in to the last 6 hectic months might just have broken us...  And we don't have a few grand to lose.  But now the warm up has started, part of me, of course, is feeling the pull of Edinburgh in Festival time and wishing we were going.  Catching up with it via the internet and newspapers will just not be the same.  Next year, maybe.  

And why aren't we going just as audience members?  Well, we've got a lot of work to do - a busy autumn ahead of us with 4 different shows out on the road, and some R&D to do on a new piece, and a couple of conference papers to prepare/write... of all of which more later.  And, it's pretty expensive to spend a few days at the Fringe seeing work.

All of which means that if we were going to Edinburgh, we would be checking out Forest Fringe, who are hosting a variety of experimental work, works in progress and rehearsed readings as Pay What You Can or free events.  To be honest, if we were in Edinburgh, I'd try to see as much as I could there, but I'd be making a particular effort to see our Presumption collaborators Lucy Ellinson (lying In State), and Chris Thorpe (reading a new piece along with Jon Spooner).  Chris and Jon are part of Unlimited Theatre who are also presenting a reading of The Moon The Moon;  Action Hero are kicking off the season showing an early version of their new piece Watch Me Fall and I'd be checking out Proto Type Theater's About Silence and Andy Field's piece, This is the Sea, partly because it sounds interesting and partly because I do like a nice picture of an empty bench.  Really I do

I'd also be heading over to see Sharmaka Kinetic Theatre at Theatre Workshop (which has a maximum ticket price of £5).

But we're not going to Edinburgh this year, so I'll just be catching up with it through newspapers and the internet.