Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

BRONKS: Us/Them

We live in a lovely town with parks and shops and very good schools. We have fathers who work hard as doctors and farmers and butchers, and we have pretty smiling mothers. Our school is School Number One – the biggest and best school in the town. We have a lovely big gymnasium – see here, I’m drawing it for you, in chalk on the ground. Here are the doors, and there are the emergency exits. Only two exits, so it is easy to barricade. And over here is the playground. And beyond, the forest. On the other side of the forest, across the border, is where ‘They’ live. ‘They’ don’t have fathers that work. There are lots of bad men there, paedophiles. Their mothers are not pretty and kind. Their mothers have dark moustaches. In our school, we have assembly, and we sing songs. The song we sing most is about a Wonderful New Future.’Wonderful new future, we run into your arms.’

But for these two children, our storytellers, there is no wonderful new future. There is instead a siege. 1,148 people, the majority children, are being held hostage in the gymnasium. No, wait – 1,146. No, now it is 1,139. Numbers. Statistics.

If it was a normal day, and not a siege day, first lesson would be mathematics. The boy starts in on complicated sums. The girl has five roubles in her piggy bank. Five roubles divided up amongst 35 terrorists is – well, not a lot. But maybe they don’t all want money, the children muse. Maybe some of them want ‘peace’. More sums. Oh and remember, the two women terrorists blew themselves up, so there are only 33 terrorists. More sums. Problem solving. Maybe the female terrorists would like my Barbie dolls, says the girl. No, says the boy, they are dead, remember? And the men terrorists won’t want Barbies.

Meanwhile, it is getting hotter and hotter. The children stand enmeshed in a carefully constructed web of string and balloons. They try hard to stand still with their hands in the air, as they’ve been told to do. They are not allowed to drink. Or to talk, Or to drink. Or to wriggle too much. Or to drink. Or to pick their noses. Or to drink. They are so so so hot and so so so thirsty. The are not allowed to wee. Or to poo. Yes we are, says the girl, correcting the boy. We are just not allowed to go to the toilet. Do you need to go yet, she asks him. He shakes his head vehemently, and bites his lip.

The beauty of this extraordinary piece of theatre is the way it captures the voice of the child, the thoughts and feelings and concerns of the child, so tenderly, so beautifully. The story is a desperately harrowing one – the story of the Beslan school siege, by a group of Chechen terrorists/freedom fighters (choose your epithet) – but amidst the horror is a gorgeous and heartbreaking portrait of what it is to be a child. The Us and Them of the title is of course the Us and Them of the Russians and the Chechens; but it is also the Us and Them of the classroom. The two young adult actors – Gytha Parmentier as the girl and Roman Van Houtven as the boy – really get under the skin of the pre-pubescent children that they play. The embarrassment. The teasing. The talking-over and interruptions of each other. The vying for space. The reluctance to strip down to your underwear in front of the opposite sex, even though you are at breaking point, all crammed together in this hot, airless gymnasium, guarded over by terrorists who have strung explosives all around you.

The story of the siege is told in words – mostly in storytelling mode, directly out to the audience, each ‘child’ modifying and correcting the other’s version of events. It is told through physical action and movement movements – some big and grandiose (a repeated fainting incident), and some tiny and beautifully exact (a tug on a skirt or shirt, a small wriggle to hold in the pee) And it is told through the creation of a stunning and ever-morphing stage picture created with chalked images, string lines, colourful anoraks pegged to a wall, and a great bunch of black balloons (which are, inevitably, exploded).

But who is telling the tale? Are they survivors? Are they ghosts in the space? I won’t reveal the ending – just say that like every other aspect of the dramaturgy and delivery of the piece, this is handled beautifully by writer/director Carly Wijs and by the two talented performers.

To deliver a story like this in a way that isn’t an assault on its audience; to find the subtleties in a tale full of the most vile and horrifying facts that a news story could contain; to take such material and make it into something heartbreaking yet soulful and full of human spirit – this is a real achievement.

Work of this quality and intelligence and tenderness reminds us that this is why we make theatre; this is why we watch theatre. And breathe…

BRONKS: Us/Them is presented as part of the Big in Belgium season at Summerhall, 5-29 August 10.00

For information or bookings for all shows at Edinburgh Fringe 2016, see www.edfringe.com

Take a Chance on Me: Ed Fringe 2016, Part the Second

So here we are again – almost August, and time to think about what we’re going to see in Edinburgh. I’ve previously posted a guide to the shows in the Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus / Cabaret sections of the Edinburgh Fringe programme – which you can see here.

Meanwhile back in the jungle – aka the yearly growing and ever daunting Theatre section of the brochure – there are some familiar faces back again, and some intriguing-looking new kids on the block. I’ll also give you the pick of the Comedy section, from a Total Theatre perspective (and you damn well better be grateful that it was me not you trawling through pages of stand-up to seek out the TT comedy contenders); the low-down on the Totally Total Children’s Shows; and a flag-up of the fabulous Forest Fringe, now in its tenth edition at Edinburgh.

Also to mention, in case you’d missed the good news, that the Total Theatre Awards are happening, and if you are taking a show to the Ed Fringe that you think might be our cup of tea (physical, visual and/or novel, experimental, playing with form – you know the sort of thing, what Awards producer Jo Crowley calls ‘wonky theatre’) and are reading this before the Fringe opens, there is still time to register your show for consideration.

If, on the other hand, you just want to know what to go and see, read on…

Inspector Sands: The Lounge

As always, lots to like at Summerhall:

Twice-winner of a Total Theatre Award, Tim Crouch, is back on the Fringe with Adler & Gibb (featured image, top). This innovative play (reviewed here) veers from the from real to unreal, from theatre to film… Inspector Sands, who won a Total Theatre Award with Hysteria, bring The Lounge to Summerhall – a ‘dangerously unstable farce’ about ageing, set in an Axminster carpeted care home lounge. A few more Summerhall plugs (although fair to say you could just go down there and see anything, it would probably not be a wasted hour): Sh!t Theatre, previous winners of the Total Theatre Award for Emerging Artists, return to Summerhall with Letters to Windsor House, which will no doubt be as entertaining and stimulating as their previous shows; Francesca Millican-Slater, whose previous work I’ve enjoyed, presents Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night, billed as ‘a late-night radio show… spinning stories about lost people’; and acclaimed Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour (White Rabbit Red Rabbit) is back with Blank, in which ‘each night a new performer creates a new story with a new audience’.

Third Angel, a company who never disappoint, bring 600 People to the Northern Stage at Summerhall, promising ’enhanced humans and murderous dolphins’ as stand-up meets astrophysics (opens 18 August). Also under the Northern Stage banner is Sacre Bleu by Zoe Murtagh and Tonry Copeland, which offers us poetry, punk music and popcorn. Another Northern Stage at Summerhall show I’ll be looking forward to seeing is Two Man Show by RashDash, who say: ‘We want to talk about masculinity and patriarchy but the words that exist aren’t good enough, so there’s music and dance too.’ Go girls – dance your politics!

Big in Belgium: MacBain. Photo by Sanne Peper

Also a multiple TT Award winner, also at Summerhall: the always interesting and challenging Ontroerend Goed are back with World Without Us, which is about the end of humanity and what comes after. Intriguing! The OGs are presented by Big in Belgium, a small curated season of Belgian theatre artists and companies, showing throughout August at Summerhall. The consortium’s press release points out that for this year’s festival offerings, a theme has emerged: ‘In one way or another, most shows are talking about a sense of homely safety… it feels like Belgian artists feel the need to think about the disappearance of the places where we are most comfortable.’ One Hundred Homes by Yinken Kuitenbrouwer is an intimate show about ‘home’ played in a small wooden cabin. Bildraum is a collaboration between an architect and a photographer, ‘reconstructing spaces in which memories once took place.’ This one opens 16 August. Us/Them’s BRONKS, which looks to be a highly physical piece, takes as its starting point the Beslan school siege and ‘shows with humour the unique way children cope with extreme situations’. Good – I like to see people tackling serious and dangerous subjects with a bold mix of bravado and sensitivity. And then there’s MacBain, a pitch-black comedy about ‘unbridled ambition, hunger for power and an addiction to intoxication and ecstasy – a freaky fast-forward puppet version of Macbeth which results in a merciless symbiosis of the grunge couple Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love and the Thanes of Cawdor’. Yep, I’m there. Note that the Big in Belgium programme has short runs – the shows are not on for the whole month, so do check the dates at www.summerhall.co.uk

So, something at Summerhall I haven’t seen and know nothing about, but like the look of, is Ubu on the Table by Theatre de la Pire Espece – tabletop puppetry with kitchen utensils; a ‘small scale fresco of grandiose buffoonery’. Who could resist? And Flanagan Collective, whose previous music-theatre crossover Beaulah was nominated for a TT Award, bring us Snakes and Giants, made in collaboration with Joanne Hartstone – a mulch of spoken word, dance and soulful music. Another theatre/music crossover: The Paines Plough’s Roundabout at Summerhall will be presenting Ghost Quartet, the hit Off-Broadway song cycle about love, death and whisky (this one is listed in the Musicals and Opera section of the Fringe brochure – one of a few gems in there nestling amongst the Bugsy Malones and high school takes on Godspell).

Mamoru Iriguchi: 4D cinema

At the live art end of the Summerhall spectrum: Mamoru Iriguchi turns himself into a mobile cinema in 4D Cinema; Cuncrete by Rachael Clerke and the Great White Males is a ‘drag king satire about concrete architecture and the Man’ that looks to be an interesting and entertaining live music and performance hybrid; and in The Dwelling Place installation, Jamie and Lewis Wardrop recreate an abandoned cottage on a remote Scottish island in the basement of Summerhall (ends 19th). Counting Sheep by Lemon Bucket Orkestra (presented by Aurora Nova), ‘a rousing call-to-arms from 15 guerilla-folk party-punks’ is presented by Summerhall off-site atThe King’s Hall.

One more thing to flag up at Summerhall. Well, actually – numerous things, all by the legendary Workcenter Jerzy Grotowski, who present a programme of film and performance from 18 to 27 August, in collaboration with Rose Bruford College. This includes L’Heure Fugitive (in French, for one day only on 25 August); The Living Room, which runs 18th to 21st. The Underground: a Response to Dostoevsky is on the 25th and 26th; and Thirty Years of the Workcenter: a Retrospective on 27 August.

For more information on this and on all shows at this enterprising venue, see www.summerhall.co.uk

Theatre Ad Infinitum: Bucket List. Photo by Alex Brenner

So, dragging myself away from Summerhall, and over to the Pleasance:

Bucket List by Theatre Ad Infinitum, is the powerful story of one Mexican woman’s fight for justice. Here’s a company that is always inventive, entertaining and thought-provoking. They’ve previously brought many radically different shows to the Fringe, including the heart-wrenching and beautiful word-free Translunar Paradise; the politically hard-hitting (and immensely funny) Ballad of the Burning Star; and the extraordinary theatre-in-the-(almost)-dark piece Light. What all these shows have in common is a true understanding of what makes a good physical & visual theatre show – regardless of how many words there are or aren’t in the piece. Bucket List is on my bucket list for shows to catch in the opening days of the Fringe – and, as with all previous work, it will be presented at Pleasance (Dome).

Also at the Pleasance Dome, the fabulous Figs in Wigs are Often Onstage in a show made entirely of entrances and exits, no doubt deconstructing dance and performance mores along the way. Another Dome one to consider: Breach’s follow-up to the Total Theatre Emerging Artists Award winning The Beanfield is Tank, which will tell us what happens when dolphins take LSD (Pleasance Dome, ends 20th). So that’s the second show in this round-up to reference dolphins. Nel, by Scratchworks Theatre Company, looks interesting – a show about a Foley artist that is ‘bursting with live sound effects, theatrical trickery, and physical comedy’. And Theatre Temoin (creators of The Fantasist) are back with The Marked, exploring homelessness with mask, puppetry and physical theatre

There’s always plenty of interesting Total-ish theatre at Pleasance Courtyard. Trick of the Light Theatre’s puppetry show The Bookbinder comes highly recommended, much loved when seen by TT at Ed Fringe 2015 and at Brighton Fringe 2016. Familia de la Noche, who can be relied on for some good solid festival fun, return with a puppetry/clown take on Gulliver’s Travels. The Human Zoo’s Giant promises ‘an explosive, absurd coming-of-age adventure’ using live music, puppetry and music as its tools. Worklight’s Labels, a ‘true story of migration, family and prejudice’ leads us to expect paper planes, racist romances, and lots of sticky labels.

Frozen Light: The Forest

The Forest by Frozen Light is ‘the first ever Fringe show for created specifically for audiences with profound and multiple learning disabilities. Part love story, part mythical quest, The Forest ‘places audiences at the heart of the action in a mysterious wooded glade, allowing them to experience the smell of the forest before a storm, the feel of raindrops on their palms and the sounds of birds singing overhead and twigs cracking underfoot’. The show is performed for to up to 12 people – six people with disabilities, each supported by a companion – and there is also space for up to 12 ‘observers’. It runs for four days only, 22 – 25 August.

Also at the Courtyard, TT Award winning company, Hoipolloi, present The Duke, which is written and performed by the company’s co-founder and artistic director Shon Dale-Jones, who I believe has dropped the Hugh Hughes persona, for now. It will gently ‘challenge us to consider our priorities in a world full of crisis.’

For details of all the above, and for the full Pleasance programme, see www.pleasance.co.uk

Christeene

If you fancy something equally challenging, but rather less gentle, then try CHRISTEENE: CUM CHIRUWI aka Trigger (Underbelly Cowgate opens 17th), which, if it’s anything like their previous work, will sit somewhere between punk rock, queer cabaret, and performance art action, offering ’ferocious visions and mind-altering jams’. Also bending gender in Cowgate is Joan, by Milk Presents, which gives us Joan of Arc as ‘the world’s first drag king’. There you are, another theme emerges – drag kings.

A few shows to look out for at Underbelly that all explore the myriad possibilities offered by contemporary puppetry: In Our Hands by Smoking Apples brings us the story of Alf, a trawler fisherman faced with the challenges of a changing world to Cowgate; Bunk Puppets (creators of the wonderful, award-winning Swamp Juice) bring two shoes, Tink Tank and the returning Sticks Stones Broken Bones to Underbelly Potterow; and also at Potterow, Ada/Ava by Manuel Cinema promises shadow puppets, OHP, and live music exploring ‘mourning and melancholy’.

For more on the Underbelly programme across all their venues see www.underbelly.co.uk

Kriya Arts: Hip

Showing us that Zoo Venues are not just about dance and physical theatre: Kriya Arts bring us Hip, which will recreate an empty flat above a shop in Brighton, in which a woman’s long-forgotten possessions are the key to her life story. This one was seen and loved by TT at the Brighton Fringe, reviewed here. (23–27 August only). Also at Zoo: Machina by Italian company Malcostume Compagnia Teatrale will combine video projection with Commedia dell’Arte. Can’t vouch for it, but it looks interesting, don’t you think? Lecoq trained ensemble Bric a Brac can also be found at Zoo with Ash which ‘uses live music to underscore a lifelong love affair with smoking’. Zoo have also programmed a ‘site-specific, immersive and utterly devilish’ version of The Master and Margarita, by Sleepless Theatre Company, at St Cuthbert’s church graveyard.

For the full Zoo programme, see www.zoofestival.co.uk

Vamos Theatre: Finding Joy

What else? Where else? A few Assembly Venues shows to flag up from what appears to be a good strong programme this year: Vamos Theatre are a UK mask theatre who have found success at the London International Mime Festival and beyond. Their show Finding Joy is at Assembly Hall, but only until 14 August. The inimitable Penny Arcade returns to Edinburgh with her hit show Longing Lasts Longer at Assembly Checkpoint (also only until the 14th). Blending music and theatre, Les Enfants Terrible continue their pursuit of vaudevillian Victoriana and murder most foul in The Vaudevillains. Veteran London International Mime Festival performer Gavin Robertson has moved on from ‘pure’ mime to embrace a plurality of forms. His perennial favourite The Six-Sided Man, inspired by Luke Rheinhart’s cult novel The Dice Man, is at Assembly Roxy, as is a second (seemingly more clownish) show by his company, Escape from the Planet of the Day That Time Forgot. Flabberghast Theatre’s Tatterdermalion at Assembly George Square is apparently a ‘poetic and surreal journey’ featuring puppetry, clown and Victorian aesthetics. I’ve been reprimanded for missing out Assembly’s flagship circus show from my recently published Physical Fringe round-up (well, at least that’s proof that someone reads these posts): so I’ll mention here that Attrape Moi by Flip Fabrique is ‘the new face of Quebec circus’ and features performers from the unavoidable (if you come from Momtreal) Cirque du Soleil, and the renowned (and far more interesting) Cirque Eloize.

Details of all Assembly shows at www.assemblyvenues.com

Aurora Nova’s AniMOtion Show, a live art (literally) and music hybrid, presented outdoors in 2015, comes indoors in 2016, programmed by the Gilded Balloon at the Museum; and I may well take a chance on Plague of Idiots’ Waltzing Matilda, a clown show at Just the Tonic at The Caves. Twisted Tales’ The Company of Wolves offers an imaginative retelling of the Angela Carter classic, using puppetry and physical theatre (at theSpace on the Mile, but just for four days, 8–12 August). Bedlam Theatre have Le Bossu by withWings, a devised physical theatre show based on a Victor Hugo classic.

Previous TT Award winners Res a Res are back this year with a collaboration with Christina Gavel and En Blanc, Foehn Effect, which promises ‘hard hitting social commentary from Spain, and can be found a C Venues’ C Nova. It is hard to determine the form of this piece from the brochure entry, but their last work was highly physical and a very intense immersive experience…

A one-man show by George Orange that I saw and enjoyed as a work-in-progress at Brighton Fringe (reviewed here) is now launched under the name First Lady (opens 15 August, Serenity Cafe). Running with the tag line ‘This is a true story. In the early 90s in Chicago, I fell in love with a man who was running for president – in a dress’, the show circles around George’s affair with Joan Jett Blakk – the man who who was the candidate for the Queer Nation Party against George Bush in the 1992 presidential contest, fighting on the ‘Lick Bush in 92’ ticket.

Not previously seen, but looking interesting is In Fidelity (High Tide in association with Traverse Theatre), described as ‘part TED talk and part theatrical experiment’. Also at the Traverse, the ‘Queen of Ireland’, PANTI, invites you into a ‘gender discombobulating, stiletto-shaped world, exposing the stories behind the make-up – from performance giant to accidental activist…’ This one is listed in the Comedy section of the brochure, the pages of which are oft likened to a deep dark forest from which timid travellers sometimes never return, losing the will to live after ploughing through the Aaaaargh! and Aaaaaah! and AAA listings (what, I’m still on the letter A?) and realising that it is going to be a long haul.

The Establishment

Aaaaaaaanyway, never fear – help is at hand. This is what I’ve unearthed:

Gaullier graduates Piff Paff present All of the Things at Laughing Horse (free, unticketed, 7 – 11 August only). ‘Superstar clown’ Angela Wand’s Wounded Animals at Gilded Balloon Teviot features comedy (well I should think so – it’s in the Comedy section), roller skating, rap, and jazz hands. Andrew Carlberg, under the auspices of Aurora Nova, presents The Blind Date Project at Zoo Southside – in which a guest performer is invited in nightly to be the blind date. Bourgeois and Maurice are back at Underbelly Cowgate with How to Save the World Without Really Trying. Dan Lees and Neil Frost, instigators of the recently launched London Clown Festival, bring The Establishment, a tale of two English gents desperately trying to hang on in there, to Heroes @ Dragonfly. I missed it at the Brighton Fringe but I hear great things and am determined to make it to one of their shows in Edinburgh!

Character comedy doyenne Joanna Neary Does Animals and Men at The Stand comedy club (but only from 16 August), and another feisty female performer, Nina Conti will be In Your Face at Pleasance Courtyard – no doubt with Monkey and a handful of masks in tow. And the much-admired Sleeping Trees are back: first came Mafia? then Western? Now, the final chapter in the trilogy, Sci-Fi? Also at the Courtyard (11–21 August) is Paul Merton’s Impro Chums, which isn’t, I suppose, usual TT territory – but I just want to flag up that Lee Simpson from Improbable was been one of the Chums for so long that it is practically his day job…

I have no idea who or what Puppet Fiction is, but it is described as ‘Pulp Fiction with strings attached’ so might be worth a look (Laughing Horse @ The Newsroom). If stupid puppetry is your thing, there’s also the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppets Do Shakespeare at Gilded Balloon Teviot,

Puddles Pity Party was well received by TT at Ed Fringe 2015 – the ‘golden-voiced clown’ is back with Let’s Go! at Assembly George Square

Colourful-Games_photo-Veronika-Morkv_nait__21

Colourful Games. Photo by Veronika Morkv

And so, from clowns to kids. Disclaimer: I raised three children, ergo I don’t like children’s theatre. There are theatrical experiences aplenty that traumatised me and the kids alike, and at least one of my sons has never forgiven me. But of course there are exceptions – people like Shona Reppe and Puppet State Theatre have won Total Theatre Awards in the past with thoughtful, elegant and entertaining shows aimed at young uns.

Puzzle by Dance Theatre Dansema is described thus: ‘Pure colourful joy from Lithuania for babies (0-3 years). Three dancers emerge from brightly coloured shapes to create the perfect playful mood for the youngest audiences.’ Puzzle is one of a group of four Lithuanian dance shows at Zoo this August. Also dancey, also at Zoo, is Colourful Games by Dansema Dance Theatre, which invites young audiences to ‘explore the world around them with the help of a dancer’. Yep, I need that in my life. Another dance-theatre show for young audiences is Chiffonade by Carre Blanc Company, presented at Institut Francais d’Ecosse, which looks like it is going to help us all progress from childhood to adulthood.

I mentioned Upswing’s gentle circus show Bedtime Stories in my first round-up –but as it is listed in the Children’s Show section, I’ll mention it here again. Other, more boisterous, circus for kids is Trash Test Dummies, a ‘dump truck of hilarity’, also at Circus Hub.

The brilliant Bootworks (winners of a Total Theatre Award for The Spaceman at Forest Fringe a few years ago) this year bring their second children’s theatre show The Many Doors of Frank Feelbad to Pleasance Kids at ECC (which I think is a new outpost for Pleasance). You may recall Bootworks’ previous hit, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, which was a delight.

A couple more to flag up:

The Bremen Town Musicians by Cizqi Puppet Theatre of Turkey, using black-light puppetry, looks lovely – it’s at C Scala (St Stephen’s Church). Anatomy of the Piano for Beginners, byWill Pickvance, was a success at this year’s Brighton Festival, and can be seen in Edinburgh at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

Action Hero: Watch We Fall at Forest Fringe

Back to the grown up stuff. No Edinburgh Fringe round-up would be complete without the Forest Fringe – even if it is not an official part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, set up to provide an alternative model to the usual bank-breaking ‘rent a venue for a month’ scenario. Not that they were the first. Let’s hear it for Aurora Nova, who for years brought artists from all over the world to their dedicated festival-within-a-festival at St Stephen’s Church, allowing them the opportunity to play for a short run rather than a full month.

Anyway, it’s Forest Fringe we’re talking about here, and it is ten years old – yep, really it is! Having started life in the year-round much-loved and now-lamented Forest Cafe in central Brighton (hence the name) they are now to be found at Out of the Blue Drill Hall just off Leith Walk. For 10 days, 11-20 August, the Drill Hall will hum and buzz with the sound of live art and experimental theatre exploding out of the doors day and night.

Central to this year’s programme will be revivals of ten pieces from Forest Fringe’s first decade by a range of artists who have played a crucial part in making it what it is. Those ten artists have also helped curate an accompanying programme of new work that reflects on ‘questions of memory, history and re-enactment’. The artists involved will include Action Hero, Active Inquiry, Jo Bannon, Ira Brand, Season Butler, Rosana Cade, Dan Canham, Abigail Conway, Richard DeDomenici, Nic Green, Brian Lobel, Daniel Oliver, Paper Cinema, Deborah Pearson, Search Party, Ryan Van Winkle and Greg Wohead.

At the time of writing, there isn’t a full timetable available, but it will be up on the Forest Fringe website soon. Or you could just go there and see whatever is on on any given day – you are unlikely to be disappointed.

Some things are firmly in the diary: I’ve booked myself into Walking Women on 11 August, a day exploring the female perspective on radical walking as artform.

I’m also booked to see Deborah Pearson’s History History History which is off-site at one of my favourite Edinburgh locations, the Cameo cinema at Tollcross, 17 August. It is is a show about ‘the complicated and knotty narratives of history, told through a loose ‘translation’ of a 1956 Hungarian Football Comedy’. No, I’ve no idea what that means, but it is by Deborah Pearson, with dramaturgy be Daniel Kitson, and it is at the Cameo. That is more than enough to get me there.

OK, so that’s me done with the Ed Fringe previewing. Look out for my Blog posts throughout the month of August, Reviews from our team of writers, and news of the Awards assessment process and – of course – the announcement of the nominated shows.

Good luck, comrades. See you on the frontline. If you see me nodding off, give me a nudge. Unless I’m in Bedtime Stories…

Upswing: Bedtime Stories

All Edinburgh Fringe shows (i.e. anything listed in the brochure) can be booked at www.edfringe.com or in person at the venue or at various other outlets in Edinburgh.

Unless otherwise specified, shows run 5–29 August 2016, although some will preview earlier and some have days off, so check dates/times on the website, in the print brochure, or using the Ed Fringe app.

For Forest Fringe artists/shows, see http://forestfringe.co.uk/edinburgh2016/artists/

You’re So Physical! Ed Fringe 2016 Round-up – Physical Theatre, Circus & Cabaret Highlights

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2016 is fast approaching, and the very first thing to say is that the Total Theatre Awards are happening once again, hurrah!

Established in 1997, the Awards have blazed a trail of recognition for independent artists and companies creating innovative, artist-led theatre and performance. If you have a show in the Fringe you’d like the TT team to consider, please fill in an application form (downloadable from the Awards section of this website). To note here also that as the Awards process progresses, there will be a list of nominees announced in all categories, which will be posted here – a handy quick guide to what’s been seen and liked the most in the first 10 days of the Fringe by our fabulous team of assessors. And of course there will be reviews, and more reviews, posted daily, so keep an eye on the Reviews section of this website, and use the search option if you can’t immediately find a review of the show you’re interested in to see if we have seen it.

Many people – online, on social media, in person, wherever – ask for my advice on what to see. An almost impossible question to answer as tastes vary and one woman’s fabulous show is another’s ’Well, I’ll never get that hour of my life back’. But there is hope! We can at least identify the shows that are by companies and artists that Total Theatre knows and loves; shows that we’ve seen elsewhere round the country pre-Edinburgh; and shows that tick the boxes for the sort of work Total Theatre (Magazine and Awards) tries to seek out and support. This includes our traditional territories of physical and visual theatre, mime and clown, dance-theatre, circus-theatre, puppetry and object theatre; and the sort of new territory we’ve embraced in recent years – artist-led work that is innovative in its content and/or experimental in form, or is an interesting new hybrid blend of genres.

So for anyone working their way through the great big telephone directory that is the Ed Fringe ‘brochure’, and losing the will to live, here’s the Total Theatre editor’s round-up of what’s on offer this year. Get yourself a cuppa (or a G&T) and settle down, there’s a lot of goodies to flag up.

Let’s start with my first port of call – Total Theatre’s ‘home’ if you like, the Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus section of the brochure. This section (and the Cabaret listings) is the subject of this article – there will be another one on the shows in the Theatre section coming soon.

There are some big names and heavy hitters in there this year. Thrice winners of a Total Theatre Award, Derevo, return with one of their most applauded shows, Once, at the Assembly George Square Theatre. Many years have gone by since I first saw this show, but I was delighted to learn that this version of the show will feature the company’s three founder members, Anton Adasinsky, Tanya Khabarova, and Elena Yarovaya reunited on stage after many years. It is a wonderful piece of physical theatre work so do give it a go – this show is a beauty. Company Baccala’s Pss Pss (Assembly Roxy) is also not a new show – it has played both the Edinburgh Fringe and the London International Mime Festival in previous years – but if you haven’t yet seen it, go – a beautiful circus and clown two-hander.

Emma Serjeant: Grace

Circa, perhaps the world’s best contemporary circus company, are back again with a re-worked version of Closer, which premiered last year. It has since toured extensively (including a London run) and is now back at the Underbelly George Square. I hope Casus won’t be offended by me calling them a Circa off-shoot – but let’s face it, almost everyone in Australia who makes circus is! Following success in Edinburgh (and elsewhere) with Awards-nominated show Knee Deep, they have separated from their co-founder/performer Emma Sarjeant, and bring new show Driftwood to the Assembly George Square Gardens. Emma, meanwhile, can be found at Assembly Checkpoint with her solo show, Grace. I saw this in an earlier version, whilst she was still a part of Casus (it was originally called Jerk) and was blown away. I’m told, by director John Britton, that the show has been substantially developed, and is even stronger now. For more on all these Assembly shows see www.assemblyfestival.com

Also related to Circa and Casus: Company Here and Now present Perhaps Hope, a two-person piece at Circus Hub, inviting us into ‘a brave new world of hope beyond devastation’. Anything by anyone with any connections to either Circa or Casus can be relied upon to be making something using top-notch contemporary circus skills…

More circus, this time UK based: The wonderful Ockham’s Razor bring their London International Mime Festival hit Tipping Point to C Venues Scala (Edinburgh veterans will know this venue better as St Stephen’s Church), which yours truly feels is their best show yet; Joli Vyann (another LIMF fave) will be at Circus Hub on the Meadows with Imbalance; and the fabulous Gandini Juggling – the jugglers that even people who don’t like juggling like – are back in Edinburgh, although only until the 14th, with Water on Mars, a new three—hander which will be showing at Assembly Roxy.

Kallo Collective: Only Bones

Another sure-fire circus winner is Thomas Monkton’s The Pianist (Assembly Roxy) presented by Aurora Nova and Circo Aereo. Its appeal is that it is a clever contemporary circus piece – using aerial, object manipulation, and clowning – that has the look and feel of an age-old vaudeville act.

Also presented under the Aurora Nova umbrella is Kallo Collective’s Only Bones at Summerhall, which (I have been told, although the programme doesn’t say this) is also by Thomas Monkton, working in collaboration with Gemma Tweddie, and features ‘head juggling and jellyfish’, so I’m in. Aurora Nova’s Wolfgang Hoffman, a man of impeccable taste, is also bringing back the ever-popular A Simple Space by Australian circus company Gravity & Other Myths – this one is more circus than theatre, a really good and exhilarating acrobatics show by a charming troupe of performers.

Another circus show to look out for is Throwback, presented by Jackson Lane’s resident company Silver Lining, who’ll be at Circus Hub with ‘a love letter to nostalgia’. I haven’t seen this company yet, but if Ade Berry of JL thinks they’re good, I’m there, Also at Circus Hub is the returning Lost in Translation hit The Hogwallops, featuring a fabulously faux-chaotic (circus) family of misfits. At the gentler end of the circus spectrum, the Spiegeltent on the Meadows that is one of the Circus Hub venues this year will be transformed each day into a bedroom to invite audiences to snuggle up and relax in Upswing’s Bedtime Stories. That sounds like a welcome oasis in the August mayhem. It might be mostly aimed at young audiences, but I reckon we could all do with a bit of that at the Fringe…

Paraladosanjos: Molhados&Secos

Not a circus show – although created by circus-trained physical theatre performers – is Molhados&Secos by renowned Brazilian company ParaldosanjoS. Vested interest declaration: I am co-producing this one. But I’m doing that because, having spent a great deal of time with the company in Brazil, I witnessed them making magnificent performance work that uses a variety of forms – from aerial circus to site-responsive and community-engaged work in remote communities in Sao Paulo state – and I really wanted to see their work in the UK! Everything they make and do is utterly delicious. Bold, vibrant physical theatre from Brazil – a poignant and poetic reflection on human fragility in the face of the forces of nature, that is at times dramatic, at times comic, and always visually enchanting. They’ll be at Zoo, 14–29 August.

Zoo is always a great port of call for anyone interested in physical and visual theatre work. I’m going to take my chances with Fabbrico del Vento’s dark clown show Petrol – because who wouldn’t want to see a show by a company whose name means ‘made from the wind’.

Also at Zoo: Contemporary? by Arts Printing House, which I’m told is an award-winning smash hit in its native Lithuania, around Europe and beyond. ‘This ironic parody of contemporary dance isn’t afraid to expose the clichés of the genre, whilst at the same time displaying thrilling skills.’ Sounds good to me! I’m always up for anything that challenges the cliches of contemporary dance. Contemporary? is one of a group of four Lithuanian dance shows at Zoo this year. The Moscow Boys also look interesting: a bunch of musical clowns playing all sorts from Tchaikovsky to Justin Timberlake.

Elsewhere, there are a number of interesting looking shows at Dance Base, a venue I always enjoy going to. I have my eye on The Rooster and Partial Memory, a dance-theatre double bill from Palestine ‘conveying the sociopolitical realities of the region’. Offering a haven of calm at the Fringe is gentle mime and storyteller David WW Johnstone, who brings Green Tea and Zen Baka, ‘a quietly understated, gently humorous daydream of a zen fool’. Haven of calm is becoming a bit of a theme in this round-up… But seriously, these slower, gentler shows are so much appreciated in the midst of all the loud and zany noise of the Fringe.

Dudendance: The Lady Vanishes

Off-site and away from the Edinburgh Fringe mayhem (there I go again), perennial Total Theatre favourites Dudendance are back this year with The Lady Vanishes, a slow sculptural performance inspired by Victorian spirit photography and set in the grounds of Haring House. It is presented by Summerhall and on for just two dates, 14 & 15 August. Get in!

The brilliant mask-theatre company Familie Floez are bringing Teatro Delusio (a show I love dearly, set backstage at a theatre), to Pleasance Courtyard. Also at Pleasance Courtyard: Scary Shit by Fringe first timer Rhiannon Faith is (apparently) ‘quite reminiscent of early Bryony Kimmings’ outings in feel… Funny, kooky, quirky and outrageous, this really is the shit!’ OK, sold… I’m there.

I also like the look of Yokai by The Krumple, which is offering ‘dance, magic, poetry and utter stupidity’ in a tale of ‘our attempts to find hope in moments of despair’ (Underbelly Cowgate).

My Bad Sister at The Raunch

Over in the Cabaret section of the brochure, there’s plenty of returning favourites with a clown or circus bent, including the fabulous all-male Briefs company with Briefs Factory (Assembly Hall) and Briefs Factory Presents Sweatshop (Circus Hub on the Meadows); and both Club Spiegel and La Clique Encore at The Famous Spiegeltent, Andrew Square.

Fresh from a successful season at London’s Wonderground, The Raunch which brings together legendary UK cabaret performer Empress Stah and a motley crew of international cabaret and circus artistes in ‘a whip-cracking, rodeo-rocking night for the fun-hearted, not the faint-hearted’.

If you’re after something new (well, it’s new to me anyway) perhaps take a chance on grotesque and gorgeously surreal showgirl Grumble in Sex Clowns Save the World at Underbelly; or New York cult horror sensation Dandy Darkly’s Myth Mouth at CC Blooms. Snap at Assembly George Square, presented as part of the Korean season, promises a multi-faceted performance merging magic, mime and illusion.

In other cabaret highlights, look out for the ubermeister of lounge comedy-cabaret Frank Sanazi at Voodoo Rooms; New York’s Lady Rizo with Multiplied, digging her sparkling heels into new motherhood at Assembly Checkpoint; and the irrepressible octogenarian Lynn Ruth Miller examining the men she has loved at C Nova.

On the other hand, there’s always Come Look at the Baby, which is exactly what it says on the can. An actual baby, on display, doing what a baby does – no tricks, no illusion, just taking the contemporary cult of the non-actor to its obvious conclusion.

Come Look at the Baby

All the above mentioned shows can be booked at www.edfringe.com

Featured image (top) Derevo: Once

Circa: Depart

It’s a rainy evening, a funereal grey sky broodily tipping it down – as befits an outing to a cemetery. We could be extras in a film about the undead. As night falls, we are led off into the woods in a silent procession. As we go deeper, feet tramping through mud, twigs crackling beneath our tread, it does feel genuinely spooky. What a beautiful site this is! Ancient tombstones leaning into each other, desolation angels gazing to the sky with their blank stone eyes, gnarled trees and tangled ivy dripping with rain. We are under a direct flight path from London City Airport, and the planes fly low above us – but I like this, and I like the distant roar of the cars on Mile End Road, and the lights on in the tower blocks nearby, which we can see through the trees on some paths. I enjoy the out-of-time lurch of the quiet of the dead and the bustle of the living; the odd feeling of being out of time, of being in another dark, mysterious world so close to the everyday reality of East End life.

And what do we encounter, here in this woody graveyard? There is some beautiful work from the Circa team of seven acrobats – Nathan Boyle, Marty Evans, Nicole Faubert, Bridie Hooper,Todd Kilby, Brittanny Portelli and Lewis West – who are accompanied and supported by a baker’s dozen of students from the National Centre for Circus Arts (which I’m afraid some of us will call Circus Space for evermore). We get a number of skilful circus set-pieces in the woods, and a great large-scale ensemble piece as a finale.

The set-pieces include a Chinese pole act and a hand-balancing act, both of which feel a little restrained by the rain, and a cyr wheel act that is so completely stymied by the wet floor surface that it really should have been cut, or there perhaps there could have been some sort of plan B for that space, as the puzzled audience is left watching someone just bouncing his hoop on the ground for 10 minutes, which is rather odd. The aerial work fares better in the bad weather. There’s a fabulous rope act: two cordes lisses hanging down ominously from an enormous tree; a pair of performers, one male, one female, a rope apiece. He draws our attention, but she holds her own. The final image of their scene is stunning – she is in hanged man pendu pose, the rope tightly wound around her ankles; he is upright, with the rope wound around his eyes and face. There’s also a lovely aerial piece using straps – this time a trio, a lead performer in a silky blue dress and a chorus of two follows or echoes who are dressed in colourless outfits that give them an almost-naked look – their contortions suggesting souls in purgatory twisting and turning. I enjoy this pattern of having a more experienced Circa performer upfront, taking the larger share of the audience’s attention but leaving room for the students to show their strengths. Trudging the dark pathways en route between the main performance pieces, we see figures gently swinging on trapezes, hanging from ropes, or dancing on graves. The dancing is courtesy of students from the Central School of Ballet, who are given their own set-piece in a very lovely scene that sees six or seven of them in a line, a grave each, dancing an elegantly angsty choreography to a soundtrack (composed/designed by Lapalux); the row of (female) figures twisting and turning, raising their arms to the heavens, and tossing their hair to a disjointed, rewound, overlapped mash up of musics and ethereal sounds, like a symphony of transistor radios broadcasting from other worlds. Movement and costume-wise, it’s the only section of Depart that has something of the Victorian Romantic aesthetic that might have been the obvious design choice for the piece. Costume design, overall, is a little bit erratic – but maybe that is inevitable with such a large cast of mixed professional, student and community performers.

There is another element I haven’t yet mentioned: a live choir who start the show, end the show, and accompany us along the way – scores of shrouded faceless black figures standing awaiting us as we turn a corner, or walking amongst us singing. The effect is spoilt a little by the rather mundane LED lanterns in their hands – a minor point, as generally I like the choir and the way it is used.

But this leads to a reflection on the use of lighting in the piece, which seems to miss a trick. Lighting designer Lee Curran is a highly experienced artist, but I wonder if his experience extends to outdoor arts? Compared to other large-scale processional outdoor works in dark and evocative places – WildWorks’ Wolf’s Child, seen at Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2016, springs to mind – the lighting is uninspiring. So many points along the way that could have been lit beautifully, and weren’t lit at all… Perhaps the desire was to keep the darkness intact on the walk between the set pieces; to keep us feeling disoriented in this space that wasn’t, actually, that enormous a site for three interweaving audience groups – but I felt the stone angels and plinths were begging for some illumination. The tombstones got more attention – some of them, anyway – used as a site for video work by Ben Foot and Valentina Floris: projections of little white figures fluttering on the graves, or of flowers having their petals slowly unpicked.

I also feel – and this may well have been the rain dictating, perhaps it was different on other nights – that we are hurried along throughout the journey, with some rather too enthusiastic stewarding from some people. Although not all – a big thumbs-up to the auburn haired young woman leading our ‘yellow’ group – she doesn’t wear a raincoat, standing tall and proud in the rain in her smart suit, always gently friendly, waving us on calmly with a feint smile on her face – I believed in her as a character, be it funeral usher, or guardian of the underworld.

A gold star also to Circa for setting down the ground rules for this journey: walk in silence; do not take photos; follow the path and keep walking. Such a relief to have silence observed, and no-one viewing the work through a lens. We are also advised to ‘look up, don’t look back’. This last directive is a nod in the direction of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, whose story seems to lurk under the surface of Depart – although the piece is thematic and poetic rather than a linear narrative.

Circa’s Depart is, if we are being anorak-y about definition, a site-generic work. By which I mean, it is not specific to this one site, it has been created in response to a genre of sites – graveyards – and will tour to other graveyards, where it will be reworked for each new site. It has been co-commissioned by LIFT, Brighton Festival, and Hull Freedom Festival, and will be presented in Brighton and Hull in those respective festivals in 2017.

In conclusion: Depart is a rich experience, full of inspiring performance work – the student and community performers integrated into the piece with care and respect. Hats off to an amazing team of artists and technicians for pulling off such a complex work. Not all the elements cohere all the time, yet as the first version of a very ambitious outdoor work, this is inevitable. I’m looking forward to seeing it again next year…

Nutkhut: Dr Blighty

Home, hope, fear, sacrifice… These are the themes at the heart of Dr Blighty, Nutkhut’s site-specific commission which, for the final week of the Brighton Festival, masterfully commandeered both the exterior of the gloriously oriental folly that is the Brighton Pavilion and its surrounding gardens.

The show is inspired by the extraordinary First World War story that, from 1914 to 1916, saw the Pavilion turned into a 722-bed hospital for soldiers of the Empire as ‘the fashionable promenades of Brighton became the footpaths to recovery for thousands of soldiers from the Indian sub-continent’. Letters home written by the soldiers stationed here are the starting point for the piece.

By day, we can freely wander through Pavilion Gardens, encountering a number of smaller pavilions hosting installation works. The Bedhead Pavilion looks like a bandstand, or a large birdcage, its open sides made from the sort of metal bedsteads that we presume were used in the Pavilion when it was home to thousands of men far from home. Here, we see postcards on strings fluttering in the wind. On the front of the cards, blurry black and white photographs; on the back, messages from present-day visitors sent back into the past. ‘We are so grateful for what you have done for us’ says one, in a delicate script. ‘I am so sorry you were hurt’ says another in a more childish hand.

Over in the Red and Gold Pavilion, a single bed, empty but made up and ready for its occupant. On the bed, a clipboard. Name: Rav Sim. Injury: a bullet to the hip. He’s one of the lucky ones – operated on, recuperating. He might have a bit of a limp, but he has got off lightly compared to some. Coming from the walls are a constant murmuring – the ‘surreal morphine-fuelled dreams of the wounded soldier’.

The White Pavilion is far more disturbing. Buckets of sand. (For what? To mop up the blood and the gore?) Rough hessian sacks dangling from butcher’s hooks. There are speakers inside the sacks, and you have to stay still and close to hear the war-torn sounds and snippets of stories that come through. ‘Tell my brother, for God’s sake don’t enlist’ says one voice, almost drowned out by the sounds of shells exploding.

Outside in the gardens, fragmented stories are conveyed through the medium of vintage brass gramophone horn speakers and gourds. Standing next to one, I hear of the smell of iodine and the burn of sulphur on the skin. In another, stories of arduous journeys from India to Brighton.

At twilight, a team of people of Asian heritage, dressed in period clothing, move across the large lawn to the front of the Pavilion, placing an armada of little diyas – tiny clay bowls, each containing a jewel-coloured nightlight – on the grass. These beautiful diyas have been made at a number of community and schools workshops led by Nutkhut. The quiet action is a lovely moment, and people watch quietly and respectfully (for the most part). The show has also embraced a number of other events including community choirs performing at the ‘bandstand’; two special concerts at the Brighton Dome; and a special commemoration service that included a wreath-laying and dedication of a blue plaque.

As night falls, the culmination of the event – and the part of the Dr Blighty that has got the whole of Brighton talking (and far further afield, courtesy of social media) – a 15-minute video mapping onto the back of the Brighton Pavilion, with accompanying sound composition. This can be seen and heard properly from inside the gardens, and seen (more-or-less) from outside the gardens in the street – or even, as I discovered on the opening night (Tuesday 24th), from across the road and down a side street, outside the Marlborough Theatre. This first casual viewing is enough to show me that what we have here is not the usual sort of video mapping, which is often little more than projection onto a building as if it were a screen. What I can see – even from afar, without my full attention – is that every little architectural detail of the Pavilion, its columns and domes and archways and minarets, is being thought about and truly mapped, a great merging of 2D and 3D.

On the return trip the next night, I watch the video installation properly from within the gardens. It starts with a melodic and melancholic Indian song sung by a male vocalist. The Pavilion is a moody construct of black shadows and old gold lights. Rich jewel colours erupt – emerald green, turquoise, ruby red – and the sound morphs to the babble of children’s voices and the clopping of horses’ hooves. As flutes sound, a magnificent row of shadow-elephants appear, moving from right to left across the whole width of the building. Rainbow-coloured butterflies flutter by, and the Pavilion is now a riot of candy colours – shocking pinks, brilliant blues, sherbet yellows, luscious lilacs. The mapping at this point is at its superb best – curves and lines and edges picked out with delicate precision. In the medley of sounds, a female voice pushes through into our consciousness: ‘Let this be my parting word…’ Rich lotus blooms erupt all over the building; the soundtrack becomes more mulched, more ominous, and we see images of Indian soldiers marching with flags, moving across the building. We hear the sounds of artillery, the boom of bombs, and the Pavilion is lit up in electric flashes. Then it is red, all red…

The music, composed by Shri Shrivam, holds the balance nicely between traditional Indian song and contemporary composition. Sound designer Ed Carter has worked it all together nicely. Video and animation work by Novak, lighting design by Phil Supple, and projection by QED, prove to be formidable team.

Apart from the beautiful spectacle that is this finale, it is also a very lovely pulling together of ideas and images that are explored collectively throughout the work, in all of the installations.

Soundscape artist Thor McIntyre has done a sterling job with an engaging sound installation delivered through speakers concealed in all sorts of clever ways around the gardens. And the whole thing was envisioned and put into practice by Nutkhut’s artistic director Ajay Chabra and his partner in Nutkhut, Simmy Gupta, working throughout the whole process with designer Tom Piper.

Although the term ’site specific’ is thrown around with gay abandon these days, it is unusual to see a piece of work that is genuinely specific to just one site. This is an example – Dr Blighty is about, and of, Brighton Pavilion, using a full tool-box of physical, visual and verbal storytelling to bring the site alive. It has proved to be an enormous success, news spreading throughout the city and beyond as the week progressed, with this part of Brighton brought to a standstill at the weekend as crowds poured in to see the projections – and when the site was declared full, people were standing in roads, on top of bus shelters, and up trees in an attempt to see the work. Beyond the live event, postings on social media have reached thousands more people.

This is a populist performance work in the best sense of the word. It has been warmly embraced by the people of Brighton who have taken Dr Blighty into their hearts. A fantastic example of the success of outdoor arts that is free to audience, and an amazing end to the Brighton Festival 2016.