Fest Preview 2023

RAGE AGAINST THE RIGHTEOUS

Inside: Levi Roots Kieran Hurley Mog the Forgetful Cat Michelle Brasier

Paul Sinha Obehi Janice Cécile McLorin Salvant The Hairy Godmothers Isobel McArthur

Reuben Kaye drags the haters

Director

George Sully

Editor Arusa Qureshi

Sales Team

Tom McCarthy

David Hammond

Ema Smekalova

Writing Team

Deputy Editor

Ben Venables

Design Team

Phoebe Willison

Dalila D’Amico

Anahit Behrooz, Evan Beswick, Deborah Chu, Rho

Chung, Fringe Dog, Veronica Finlay, Katie Goh, Becca

Inglis, Laura Kressly, Tamara Mathias, Francesca

Peschier, David Pollock, Jay Richardson, Claire Sawers, Kirstyn Smith

Cover Image

Kyahm Ross

Radge

Editor-in-Chief

Rosamund West

Commercial Director

Sandy Park

Deputy Editor

Peter Simpson

Illustrations

Lauren Hunter

Advertising 0131 467 4630

General Manager

Laurie Presswood

Digital Editorial Assistant

Lewis Robertson

8 Show Some Disrespect

Reuben Kaye on global success and scandal

12 Traverse at 60 Kieran Hurley, Isobel McArthur and Nat McCleary bring new work to the legendary theatre

Comedy

45 Live Fast, Die Young, Bad Girls Do It Well Michelle Brasier gives a second chance

Theatre

70 Lady Libertine Obehi Janice redefines Casanova

EIF

96 Jazzing It Up

Cécile McLorin Salvant riffs on radical music

Cabaret and Variety

102 Party Down Under

The Aussie drag stars turning the Fringe upside down

Music

108 Staging a Revolution After the Act and Public : musicals sounding out about gender and identity

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

111 Fear and Loving in the Circus

Two innovative circus companies shaking up the genre

Kids

114 Nurture Nature

Niall Moorjani on the joys of gardening

116 Venue Map & City Guide

Find out where you are and enjoy our performers’ guide to Edinburgh

Tucker

Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Kyahm Ross; Serden Sali; Nick Robertson; Hannah Caprara; courtesy of the artist; Angelo Di Bennedetto; Alex Brenner; Arrom Walker; Alice

Editorial

Arusa Qureshi

It’s first thing on a damp Sunday morning and I’m sat at my desk, staring out the window and generally raging about the state of the world – a pretty routine weekend activity for many of us, I’d say. As I continue to simmer, I notice a commotion outside. Out of nowhere, a giant fleet of cyclists ride by, dinging their bells loudly and proudly. And as if I’ve entered some sort of weird fever dream, they’re all completely naked.

There have been many moments in the run-up to this year’s Edinburgh Festivals where I’ve felt ready to burn everything to the ground. Dramatic? Yes. But accurate? Also yes. Dreams of arson aside, it’s not the Festivals themselves – as someone born and bred in this city, August is absolutely my happy place. It’s hard to feel upbeat and excited though when everything feels so heavy and hard to manage; when you know that everyone around you is struggling to some degree. But that’s exactly what the Festivals are – a troupe of nude cyclists cutting through the wind and rain on a random Sunday morning.

It’s such a cliche to say that art matters, but we know it does. And art that comes from a place of kindness, strength and compassion is incredibly valuable amongst all the noise and

chaos. In this preview issue, you’ll find a host of conversations with the likes of Michelle Brasier, Ben Target, Paul Sinha, Levi Roots and Cécile McLorin Salvant that centre these ideals, as well as themes of friendship, forgiveness and commemoration.

Elsewhere, we celebrate milestones such at the Traverse Theatre’s six decades; big up the Mumbai comedy scene with Sapan Verma and Urooj Ashfaq; give the animals of the Fringe their time to shine; and take a journey to the other side of the globe to spotlight some of Australasia’s finest drag artists.

While putting this issue together with my talented Fest family, I’ve had our cover star Reuben Kaye’s voice permanently ingrained in my head. As he said quite wisely during our conversation, “Less shit gets done, if you’re a cunt about it.” Because this thing we do every August may be stressful but it can also be joyful, unexpected and utterly magic, especially when we’re doing it with empathy and camaraderie in mind. It’s our chance for a bit of levity and reflection; a physical manifestation of my favourite nude cyclists. So in the words of Reuben Kaye, let’s not be cunts about it. Instead, let’s make our mark and just have some fun.

Meet the Team’s Pets

We asked: what show would your pet recommend and why?

George Sully Director

“After the success of last year’s Catts, I’m sure Sasha would want to see Frankie Thompson’s new show (even though it is sadly not called Doggs)”

Phoebe Willison Designer

“We just got two kittens, so they would recommend Monski Mouse’s Baby Cabaret because they're wee babies and, going by their violent attitude towards all hands, would go full tonto on a mouse.”

Arusa Qureshi Editor

“In celebration of the 30th anniversary of his favourite book, Begbie recommends choosing a fucking big television, washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. And heading along to Trainspotting Live.”

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief

“Here’s Holly and Ivy back when they were very small and called Daphne and Celeste. They’re looking forward to seeing Slash at Summerhall – they think it’s a play about clawing up soft furnishings and knifing your sister (it’s not).”

Peter Simpson Digital Editor

“Bert and Ernie were my childhood goldfish, a pair of legends. They have been dead for *at least* 20 years, so they’d probably be excited to see hot young upand-comer Stewart Lee and find out if his act’s changed at all.”

Ben Venables Deputy Editor

“Fuzzypeg’s curiosity has been piqued by the philosophical juggling odyssey

What Does Stuff Do? at Zoo Playground. He’s already submitted the first line of a review: What stuff did.”

Lewis Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant

“Murphy (my parent’s dog) has a bottomless appetite (Yes, even more bottomless than your dog’s), so he’d recommend anything tangentially food related, like Olga Koch’s show Prawn Cocktail or Alison Spittle’s show Soup!”

Sandy Park Commercial Director

“I do not have a pet but this is my mum’s pooch Daisy, who would go and see Absolute Chaos as she’d see the resemblance of herself in the name alone.”

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager

“Bandit has always been a fan of puppetry and physical theatre and that’s why she is recommending Blub Blub at Summerhall, it’s not because it’s about tasty tasty fish. Honest…”

Ema Smekalova Media Sales Executive

“Here’s Jake. I think he’d recommend Bacon at Summerhall because as an old man he wants to explore his masculinity through a younger perspective. Also, they had him at Bacon.”

Laurie Presswood General Manager & Accounts

“This drawing is all that now remains of my tamagotchi

POO. He would have loved Hello Kitty Must Die, partly because of his long-running feud with the cat (he was threatened by her success), and partly because he loved showtunes.”

Show Some Disrespect

Returning to the Fringe with global success and a national media scandal in tow, Reuben Kaye tells Arusa Qureshi why comedy, cabaret and drag can offer a moment of levity

or many of us that look different or go about life as an outlier, the world can feel small and scary. It’s not just the rise of dangerous right-wing rhetoric or the way our systems prop up the wrong voices; it’s an innate feeling that the landscape has shifted for the worse. But there are glimmers of hope. Hope in the form of individuals that understand the power of their voice and the power of their art.

F

“The fact is, less shit gets done if you’re a cunt about it,” Reuben Kaye says, as we chat about dealing with modern day society’s propensity for rage. “I’m of the viewpoint that because of this huge wave of conservatism and the huge wave of financial deregulation that comes with conservatism and capitalism, everyone is under pressure, under the pump, and in survival mode right now. And when people are in survival mode, they have less bandwidth for empathy and compassion, and it brings out the worst in every one of us.”

Kaye understands this better than most. He’s been a glimmer of hope for the wider LGBTQ+ community but also been on the receiving end of vitriol, backlash and even death threats. Earlier this year, Kaye made a joke during an appearance on Australian television. The joke riled up religious groups and resulted in ridiculous levels of outrage, thanks partly to the media’s heightened reaction.

“Oh, my God, it was so intense,” Kaye explains about the immediate aftermath. “It was baby’s first proper scandal in the media. And the Daily Mail conjured up about 15 articles about me. Through all the conservative media, I think something like 47 articles were written about me – even I don’t think I’m that fascinating, and I shout my own name when I cum.”

The joke in question wasn’t even a new one; in fact, as he makes clear, he had been telling it for about seven years. That it remained so impactful was a shock to Kaye, though the reaction itself wasn’t.

Photo: Kyham Ross

“It’s an interesting thing, that the people who came at me for that joke all said the same thing. This is so disrespectful. Why do you beg for tolerance when you can’t even be respectful? And like, let’s talk about the equity of respect here, because your worst idea is that I’ll make a joke about your hagiography. My worst fear is that you’ll drag me out into the street and kill me. There’s no equity in that idea.”

Kaye has always pushed the envelope of comedy, cabaret and drag, using his art to underline the hypocrisy of those that peddle true hatred. What he does and how he uses his voice is more relevant than ever and needed by those that yearn for a safe space.

“We thought after the pandemic, oh, surely the news cycle will slow down. But no, it certainly feels like the roller coaster is moving quicker than ever,” Kaye notes. This is reflected in his shows, two of which see a return to the Edinburgh Fringe: “A lot of rewrites have happened, more material is added, material is taken out that’s not relevant anymore. Luckily, Tories will continue to be cunts so half the time that will never change. The Tories are the little black dress of being an asshole.”

Both The Butch is Back and Kaye’s smash-hit late-night variety show The Kaye Hole are fast, fun and riotous. “The shows are an amazing meeting point between celebration and protest,” Kaye says, “and they’re full of all the best things in the world – filth, transgression, celebration, and a huge middle finger to the establishment.”

They’re also cathartic experiences, both for performers and audience alike, becoming a gathering point of sorts for everyone’s frustrations and feelings. “It’s like a lymphatic drainage of the soul or a Reiki massage,” Kaye adds. “I’m a little more hands on than a Reiki massage though!”

The power of artforms like comedy, cabaret and drag provide space for

Photo: Chris Nims

expression and unity. “And you get to see someone who looks quite alien,” Kaye says. “I mean, look at me – I look like Cruella de Vil if she competed in the men’s shot put. But suddenly, people hear these stories and they relate to it and they see the humanity in something they might have thought was foreign. For me, that has to be a force for good in the world. It’s that thing of you have to go and see art that is made by people who don’t look like you, who don’t think like you, because it’s the only way we’ll change the world.”

Kaye describes cabaret as “the original punk” and drag as something that represents “an erasure of boundaries and borders”. This explains why ordinary people are so enthralled by it but also why it can elicit a negative reaction. “If they’re not ready, freedom looks threatening. Freedom makes them think about themselves, and what they’re dissatisfied with. And that’s where the hate comes in.

“At this moment in the wider LGBTQ+ community, all we can do is look after each other and ourselves and stay safe, and make our voices heard.” As we turn to the question of how to combat this hate, Kaye says: “I have

noticed a marked uprising in the amount of times I’ve been called out, shouted at out on the street, not just in drag, but out of drag. And this is here in Australia, which is supposedly meant to be quite a progressive country. It is more dangerous than ever to make the art that is needed.”

The Butch is Back and The Kaye Hole are both sites of protest and activism but they also offer moments of joyful defiance. “Everyone, including me and the band, should leave the shows thinking what they need is a cuddle and a cigarette. It should be almost post-coital. I’d also love for audiences to be picturing in their own head the image of the world they want to live in and how to make it.”

SHOW Reuben Kaye: The Butch is Back

VENUE: Assembly George Square Gardens

TIME: 7:50pm – 8:50pm, 15–27 Aug, not 21

SHOW The Kaye Hole Hosted by Reuben Kaye

VENUE: Assembly Checkpoint

TIME: 11:50pm – 1:20am, various dates between 4 Aug and 26 Aug

“The shows are an amazing meeting point between celebration and protest”

Photo: Darren Thomas

Traverse at 60

As the Traverse Theatre celebrates six decades, we speak to the playwright behind three shows on this year’s festival programme, all of which exemplify the best of Scotland’s new writing

Words: David Pollock

Sixty years after it opened in old tenement room premises on the Lawnmarket as a club-based means of getting around official censorship of theatrical material, the Traverse Theatre has built a powerful reputation as Scotland and the Edinburgh Festival’s most celebrated new writing venue.

This year’s anniversary programme features a bumper crop of new works, including plays by some of Scotland’s leading playwrights. Here, three of those writers introduce their new work: Isobel McArthur, fresh from Olivier Award-winning success with Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of); Kieran Hurley, whose last Traverse play Mouthpiece tore into classism in the theatre industry and toured internationally; and Nat McCleary, a dancer and choreographer whose new play is a co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland.

Isobel McArthur on The Grand Old Opera House Hotel

“The success of Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of) opened doors I’d been chapping on for years. The Monday after the Sunday when you win an Olivier, you get messages going, ‘oh, I’ve just found all these emails from you and your agent…!’ In real world terms, it simply leads to another gig. We’re all trying to pay our bills, and success means just continuing to work in this industry.

“The Grand Old Opera House Hotel is a magic realist farce with opera music, set in

Isobel McArthur

Kieran Hurley

Nat McCleary

a budget hotel. A European hotel chain has bought a beautiful, crumbling old Victorian building, ripped its guts out and established a branch there. We see the first day of a room attendant called Aaron, who is 35 and doesn’t know his purpose. He’s been sacked from almost every job he’s ever worked, and he needs his first shift to go smoothly. But from the moment he arrives, strange things happen.

“It’s about music and love, and the exploitation of minimum wage workers. It’s also about the eerie loneliness of these buildings, and the life force that works to counteract that, given they’re full of people, but separated from one another. In particular, it’s about the staggering resourcefulness of the human heart and how it finds love, hope, beauty and the things it needs in places and circumstances which seem devoid of those things, these contemporary spaces we seem to be trying to cover up with MDF and concrete, along with the notion any human being has ever been there before.”

Kieran Hurley on Adults

“Mouthpiece opened in this wee Traverse 2 slot in December 2018, then picked up a transfer to Soho Theatre and was touring internationally until COVID. That play was me working through my own class confusion, it made me think more precisely about some of these issues and conclude it’s absolutely necessary for writers to write beyond their own experience. The only issue – and this is what happens in the play – is when that becomes an abuse of power. The most important thing a writer can do when they write beyond their own experience is commit to it with empathy, compassion and dedication in research.

“Adults is set in a flat used as a brothel, two of the characters are sex workers and one is a schoolteacher. He’s always tried to be society’s version of a good guy, being an inspiring teacher and sending the students off to make the world a better place. None of this has rewarded him in the way he believes the

The Grand Old Opera House Hotel Rehearsal

Photo: Lauren Scott

world promised, he’s not happy in his work or his marriage, he’s jaded and disappointed in younger people, and there’s a part of himself he’s never quite explored, so he does something out of character.

“He’s welcomed into this space by a former student. He was her favourite teacher, he inspired her to go to university and she’s got a bone to pick with him. She graduated with a degree in English Literature into a collapsing global economy and realised it’s not worth fuck all, that she has to scrape and hustle just to get by, which has led her into sex work. The play’s a meditation on some of those themes; on antipathy between the generations, on who is to blame for the state the world is in, on work. It’s about alienation, loneliness and –in spite of our desire to antagonise and blame each other – our ultimate need for one another.”

Nat McCleary on Thrown

“I stumbled into the arts. I started out playing football and doing athletics, I loved team sports and competing, but got into dance when I decided to try something new. I did an evening class, and what I lacked in ability I certainly made up for in enthusiasm and commitment, eventually training as a professional. A theatre director offered me a wee acting part in a scratch night and I fell in love with that too, I’m interested in saying yes to anything that’s out of my comfort zone. Then I started writing over lockdown

“An amazing backhold wrestler called Heather Nielson told me about her family’s passion for the sport and how she’s been a competitor since she was four years old. Backhold wrestling is an ancient martial art, its main function was to prepare Scottish soldiers for battle, to get their blood up before running down the hillside. The NTS generously offered me a few days in a room with actors and a director, and we discovered there was something to be explored in the metaphor of backhold wrestling and national and personal identity.

“Thrown involves five women who decide to embark on a journey into backhold wrestling, touring Scottish Highland Games competing as a team. Fundamentally it’s about the question of how we form a team when there’s real diversity, is it possible to be unified when we’re all so different? To me that spoke so clearly to where we are in Scotland at the moment. I feel like Scotland’s identity is in flux and that we have to recognise the way we present Scotland to satiate global appetites for Scottishness, with that very Celtic look, is not representative of our racial landscape.”

SHOW Thrown

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 3–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

SHOW ADULTS

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, various dates between 1 Aug and 27 Aug

SHOW The Grand Old Opera House Hotel

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 4–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

“The most important thing a writer can do when they write beyond their own experience is commit to it with empathy, compassion and dedication in research”

Kieran Hurley

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Thrown

The Menagerie

The animal themed shows – some with live-animals –taking centre stage at the Fringe

Illustrations: Lauren Hunter

Almost Adult

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 2-27 Aug (not 14) , 7pm

Hope is moving from up north and down to London to work in a dinosaur-themed bar! But her manager’s a creep and her housemate doesn’t seem to like her much. A roaring theatrical comedy from Charlotte Anne-Tilley Productions.

Cat Sh!t Crazy theSpaceTriplex, 4-26 Aug (not 13, 20) , times vary

In this solo play, cat-avoidant Cindy – a troubled personal trainer and aspiring actor –faces curveballs and fur balls as she deals with a critical and life-changing decision.

By Cindy D’Andrea.

Chicken Summerhall, 2-27 Aug (not 14, 21) , 8.50pm

What the cluck?! Get ready for some feather-brained theatre and discover a big-hearted chicken who is going to roast everything you thought you knew about white meat.

Do

Rhinos Feel Their Horns or Can They Not See Them Like How We Can’t See

Our Noses

Summerhall, 15-27 Aug (not 21) , 11.45am

Inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s satirical play Rhinoceros about mass conformity, Gangguan! stomp into Summerhall from Singapore with a production about two friends making a radio show on the 1980s ‘rhinoceritis’ epidemic.

Luisa Omielan: Bitter

Monkey Barrel Comedy, 3-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21) , 5.40pm

Eleven years since she conquered the Fringe with What Would Beyoncé Would Do? Luisa Omielan brings two shows: a musical on the free festival and a back-to-basics standup hour where she’ll be joined by her Bernese Mountain dog Bernie on stage. What would Bernie do?

Three Men in a Boat

C ARTS | C venues | C aquila, 5-13 Aug, 5.50pm

Not Cricket Productions bound in with an all female adaptation of Jerome K.

Jerome’s 1889 comedy classic. The original novel was subtitled To Say Nothing of the Dog, but this show is going to star one – Tamora is a sprightly five-and-a-half-yearold retired racing greyhound tipped to have a glittering stage career ahead of her.

Lucky Pigeons

Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, 5-26 Aug (not 14, 21) , 1.05pm

Flock down to an Edinburgh debut for a soaring circus show centred on some highly coo-rious pigeons.

Petting Zoo Comedy

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 2-20 Aug, 10.20pm

Arriving from Brooklyn – via Edinburgh Zoo – Michael Kandel and Charlie Sosnick

are set to make the Fringe go wild by placing a six foot boa constrictor, a six inch Pac-Man frog and a long-feathered Silkie chicken (and more) into the brave hands of the best comedians as they perform their sets! What could possibly go wrong?

Two Cats on a Date

ZOO Playground, 4-27 Aug (not 16) , 8.15pm

One actor, Griffin Kelly, plays both cats as they share a romantic supper, discovering if the feline’s mutual.

Top Picks: Comedy

Amusements by Ikechukwu Ufomadu

Pleasance Courtyard, 2-27 Aug (not 16), 5.40pm

Deadpan US comedian Ikechukwu Ufomadu is set to school us with absurdist lessons, putting fresh life into the most back-to-basic topics – such as ‘The Alphabet’ and ‘Counting’.

Anna Piper Scott: Such an Inspiration

House of Oz, 4-27 Aug (not 9, 14, 21), 8pm

Australian comedian Anna Piper Scott challenges the negative stereotypes and mistreatment of transgender women.

Bridget Christie: Who Am I?

The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 2-9 Aug, 1.50pm

A decade after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award, Bridget Christie wants to motorcycle her way into a mid-life crisis. Her new show mines comedy from osteoarthritis and the lack of middle-aged women in films.

Dan Tiernan: Going Under

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, 31 Jul-27 Aug (not 14), 10pm

It’s been quite a year for Fringe debutant Dan Tiernan – supporting his sister through cancer, leaving his job as a dinner lady and moving out of his parents house to become a full-time comedian.

Eric Rushton: Not That Deep

Laughing Horse @ Cabaret Voltaire, 3-27 Aug (not 14), 3.45pm

For his sophomore show, expect thoughtful stand-up with exquisite one-liners (and, apparently, quite a bit about dolphins).

From heartfelt stories to tech-savvy mayhem, these comedy shows are set to leave a lasting impression

Photo: Zach DeZon

Photo: Natasha Pszenicki

Photo: Drew Forsyth

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Ikechukwu Ufomadu

Anna Piper Scott

Bridget Christie

Dan Tiernan

Eric Rushton

Photo: Cornershop PR

An Evening of Mayhem with Megan Stalter

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 12-27 Aug (not 24), 8.30pm

Megan Stalter, who plays the world’s worst PA in HBO’s Hacks, arrives for her first Edinburgh show and looks set to unleash an hour of unravelling alternative comedy.

Foxdog Studios: Robo Bingo

Underbelly, Cowgate, 3-27 Aug, 8.25pm

The inventive, tech-savvy duo are releasing a bingo bot which can only be stopped by playing along on your phone.

Katy Berry: Diamond Goddess Crystal Pussy

Just the Tonic at The Mash House, 3-27 Aug (not 14, 15, 22), 2.10pm

What do you do when you find out your dad is Poseidon the Sea King? That’s the premise of Katy Berry’s debut hour of heartfelt cabaret and comedic storytelling.

Olga Koch: Prawn Cocktail

Monkey Barrel Comedy, 31 Jul27 Aug, 7.35pm

After turning 30, Olga Koch took an adult gap year to find herself, but instead found salmonella.

Shelf: Teenage Men

PBH’s Free Fringe @ Voodoo Rooms, 5-27 Aug (not 16), 3.25pm

Join the sketch duo for their sophomore hour, a celebration of their lifelong friendship, queerness and what it means to grow into yourself. They also have a kids show at Pleasance Courtyard (2-27 Aug, not 16).

Tadiwa Mahlunge: Inhibition Exhibition

Pleasance Courtyard, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 9.25pm

From being the only Black person in Wales to the ethical dilemmas of holding a corporate job, Tadiwa Mahlunge’s debut promises to be a thought-provoking hour questioning the tireless pursuit of success

Susie McCabe: Femme Fatality

Assembly George Square Studios, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 8.35pm

With her remarkable storytelling and sharp punchlines, Susie McCabe returns with her most personal show yet, chronicling her countless attempts to fit in with the girls.

Photo: Jiksaw

Tadiwa Mahlunge

Photo: Alex Viscius

Photo: Mindy Tucker

Photo: Matt Crockett

Photo: Rachel Sherlock

Photo: Emily Durham

Megan Stalter

Olga Koch

Foxdog Studios

Susie McCabe

Shelf

Katy Berry

Photo: Jiksaw

Top Picks: Theatre

Our pick of the best theatre at the Fringe, from sci-fi adventures in space to powerful stories of healing and redemption

Aionos

ZOO Playground, 4-17 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), 1.05pm

In this hybrid theatrical experience, Toasterlab combine VR, streaming, and in-person performance to take audiences on an African-Futurist journey across time, space, and the metaverse to help an Egyptian queen.

Bowjangles: Dracula in Space

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 2-27 Aug, 4.30pm

The unconventional string quartet present an intergalactic love letter to classic horror films, taking us on a musical adventure into outer space using choreography, comedy and song.

Dark Noon

Pleasance at EICC, 2-27 Aug (not 9, 16, 23), 5pm

Fix&Foxy’s theatrical saga reimagines the history of America, as told by those denied a voice. On an initially bare stage, a familiar Western movie town emerges from the dust, with seven South African actors addressing themes of representation and misrepresentation.

How to Bury a Dead Mule

Pleasance Dome, 2-27 Aug (not 16, 21), 11.50am

The powerful story of Royal Irish Fusilier, Norman Clements, as he wrestles with the psychological and emotional impact of military service. Written and performed by Norman’s grandson, Richard Clements, this is a tale of healing and redemption, set in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Blub Blub

Summerhall, 3-27 Aug (not 14, 21), 2pm

It might be the summer holidays but here’s one school (of fish) you won’t want to miss. Trunk Theatre Project return with a story of two fish falling in love as they attempt to escape an aquarium, featuring puppets, props and live music. Suitable for ages eight and up.

I Hope Your Flowers Bloom

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 2-27 Aug (not 9, 13, 16, 20)

Raymond Wilson’s semi-autobiographical piece blends spoken word, storytelling and comedy to transport him from the monotony of a Glasgow scheme into Scotland’s natural world, providing an unflinching look at nature, masculinity and self-reflection.

Photo: Ian Garrett

Photo: Annika Bloch

Photo: Mobius PR

Photo: Neil Harrison

Photo: Jassy Earl

Photo: Søren Meisner

Aionos

Bowjangles

Blub Blub

How to Bury a Dead Mule

I Hope Your Flowers Bloom

Dark Noon

It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure

Underbelly, Bristo Square, 2-27 Aug (not 14, 21), 2.20pm

A provocative and scathing satire from disability-led theatre company FlawBored, which explores the monetisation of identity politics with dark comedy, wit and plenty of absurdity.

JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K

Assembly Hall, 4-27 Aug (not 14, 21), 12pm

Adapted from JM Coetzee’s 1983 Booker Prize-winning novel, The Baxter collaborate with Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company to bring the resilient Michael K to life with puppetry, film and music.

Let the Bodies Pile by Henry Naylor

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 2-28 Aug, 4pm

Three-time Fringe First winner Henry Naylor’s latest play takes a sinister look at two unrelated killings, 27 years apart, asking: what connects a diagnosis from infamous serial killer Harold Shipman in 1993 and a care home’s mass deaths from Covid in 2020?

Slash

Summerhall, 2-27 (not 3, 14, 21), 10.15pm

The Blond (Emily Allan) and The Dark Haired One (Leah Hennessey) take us on a perverted journey through famous fan-fictional pairings, incorporating critical theory, second wave feminism, cosplay and mashed up 80s punk songs along the way.

Horizon Showcase: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Traverse Theatre, 15-27 Aug (not 21), times vary

Javaad Alipoor’s powerful and political trilogy concludes with a thought-provoking investigation into the unresolved murder of an Iranian pop star.

What If They Ate The Baby?

theSpace @ Niddry Street, 14-19 Aug, 5.50pm; theSpace on the Mile, 21-26 Aug, 9.15pm

Fringe First winners Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland return with a new physical theatre show, revealing the secrets of housewives’ tales, missing children and unpredictable recipes.

Photo: Chris Payne

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

Photo: Guy J Sanders

Photo: Fiona McPherson

Photo: Rosalind Furlong

Photo: Max Lakner

It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure

Slash

What If They Ate The Baby?

Let the Bodies Pile

Life & Times of Michael K

Photo: Morgan McDowell

Top Picks: Music

A Mountain for Elodie

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 4-27 Aug, 8pm

The new 75-minute solo musical from internationally renowned songwriter Benjamin Scheuer centres around the birth of his daughter Elodie and the heartbreaking realisation that he may not have found closure with his own long-dead father.

Nothing Ever Happens Here

Summerhall, 4-27 Aug, times vary

Summerhall’s year-round music programme shines bright during the Fringe, with an almost daily medley of acts of all genres. This year’s line-up includes Kathryn Joseph, Auntie Flo, Thumpasaurus, Deafheaven, Buck Meek, Optimo Espacio and more.

No Love Songs

Traverse Theatre, 3-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), times vary

A new gig-theatre show – inspired by Kyle Falconer of The View and his partner Laura Wilde – tells the brave and deeply personal story of love, new parenthood and post-natal depression. Featuring songs from Falconer’s 2021 solo album, No Love Songs

For Laura

OSCAR at The Crown

Assembly George Square, 2-27 Aug (not 16, 23), 9.40pm

An immersive nightclub musical by Neon Coven detailing the rise and fall of one of history’s most flamboyant characters, featuring sequins, reality TV and a minor character from The O.C

Chrysanths

St Vincent’s, 14 & 15 Aug, times vary

Modern Studies frontwoman Emily Scott performs her stunning new record Leave No Shadow, accompanied by a string orchestra and band. With support from special guests LT Leif (14 Aug, 7.30pm), Faith Elliot (15 Aug, 1pm) and C Duncan (15 Aug, 7.30pm).

Songs from the Last Page

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 14-18 Aug, times vary

Acclaimed composer and songwriter Gareth Williams presents a show in which he lyrically transforms iconic final pages from Scottish fiction into brand-new ‘literary chamber pop’ songs.

Whether you’re after chamber pop or eclectic and euphoric bangers, the Fringe has something for all musical tastes

Photo: Emily Scott-Moncrieff

Photo: Kris Kesiak

Photo: Phil Sharp

Photo: Cory Rives

Photo: Silken Weinberg

Photo: Tommy Ga Ken-Wan

Chrysanths

Songs from the Last Page

No Love Songs

A Mountain for Elodie

OSCAR at The Crown

Thumpasaurus

Top Picks: Cabaret and Variety

Ben Hart: Jadoo

Assembly George Square, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 6pm Magician Ben Hart brings a personal show inspired by his trip to India, where he went to uncover magical secrets and explore his own heritage.

Lady Marmite

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 13 & 14 Aug, 10pm

Liberate your inner diva for this drag and burlesque

homage to Lady Marmalade, featuring cabaret stars A’Whora, Coco Couture, Kiki Snatch and Sminty Drop.

Discover the must-see cabaret shows from late-night live music to a vibrant celebration of South African culture

Danny Beard and Their Band

Underbelly, George Square, 21-25 Aug, 9.40pm

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK series four winner takes to the Fringe stage with their live band as they tour the UK for the first time.

Suhani Shah: Spellbound

Underbelly, Bristo Square, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 5.25pm

India’s renowned mind reader Suhani Shah debuts in Edinburgh for a show of mental mysteries, deceptive word power and comedic charm.

Yes-Ya-Yebo!

Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 3-22 Aug, 11.30am

Meet a troupe who have never been to the Fringe, or on an aeroplane, as they fly in courtesy of the Imibala Trust – a South African non-profit that works with children in impoverished circumstances. The show celebrates the 12 official languages of South Africa with energetic and authentic song and dance.

Photo: Kelvin Gray

Image: courtesy of Moira

Downie

Image: courtesy

of Klub Kids

Image: courtesy

of Soho Theatre

Photo: Matt Crockett

Danny Beard

Yes-Ya-Yebo!

Lady Marmite

Suhani Shah

Ben Hart: Jadoo

Top Picks: Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus

Immerse yourself into worlds of imaginative storytelling, from clowning to the cosmos

Harvest

Zoo Southside, 4-19 Aug (not 9, 16), 6.30pm

Bringing together neo-flamenco and contemporary dance, on a floor adorned with soil and grass, on a stage functioning as a loudspeaker, Harvest explores physical labour and artistic expression.

SKETCHES/GLISK

Assembly @ Dance Base, 15-20 Aug, 5.05pm

In this dance double bill from choreographer Katie Armstrong, SKETCHES is a playful take on Bach’s ‘Violin Concerto in A Minor’; GLISK features innovative art and music in homage to Scottish landscapes.

Släpstick: Schërzo

Pleasance Courtyard, 2-28 Aug (not 8, 22), 3.10pm

Släpstick returns with a combination of clowning and a classical concerto. Expect the spectacle of a sophisticated concert to gradually descend into a riot of comedic blunders. Suitable for all ages.

A Spectacle of Herself

Summerhall, 2-13 Aug (not 7), 12.55pm

Laura Murphy delves into the personal and the political, powering through rage, queerness and space exploration, mixing acrobatics, lip-sync and video. Directed by Ursula Martinez.

IMA

Assembly Murrayfield Ice Rink, 4-27 Aug (not 15, 22), times vary

Taking over a beautiful Art Deco space, IMA is both an installation inspired by the night sky and an immersive circus show that questions our place in the cosmos.

Weathervanes

Summerhall, 3-27 Aug (Thursdays to Sundays), times vary

It’s impossible to pigeonhole Weathervanes into a genre. It’s a multimedia installation and an immersive dance and theatre performance, provoking questions about spirituality and beauty.

Photo: Holly Revell

Photo: Brian Hartley

Photo: Søren Meisner

Photo: Bálint Hirling

Photo: Eoin Carey

Photo: Corn é van der Stelt

Släpstick A Spectacle of Herself

Weathervanes

Harvest

IMA

SKETCHES/GLISK

Top Picks: Kids

From acrobatics to beatboxing there’s something for every young festival lover

Chevalier –Hobbyhorse Circus

Assembly George Square, 3-27 Aug (not 9, 14, 21), 12pm

A loving tribute to traditional horse circuses and silent movies. Expect acrobatics, juggling and balancing – and, of course, an ensemble cast of hobby horses! Suitable for ages four and up.

Olaf Falafel’s Super Stupid Show (20% More Stupider)

Pleasance Courtyard, 2-27 Aug (not 16, 22, 23), 11.40am

Comedian and author Olaf Falafel’s family show may lack brains, but it makes up for it in fun – a show for every daft duck and silly sausage in Edinburgh. Suitable for ages three to 13.

The Mighty Kids Beatbox Comedy Show Strikes Back!

Assembly George Square, 3-27 Aug (not 14), 4.25pm

The dynamic duo of Jarred Christmas and Hobbit, masters of comedy and beatbox, bring their interactive and mischievous show for the whole family to enjoy. Recommended for ages five and beyond.

Taiwan Season: World in a Word

Summerhall, 2-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), 9.45am

What’s in a word? Double Cross Theater Group explores all the shapes and sounds of languages. An interactive and cheerful guide to communication. For ages three and older.

Whipped Up!

Greenside @ Nicholson Square, 4-26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 9.05am

On their first day of a job, an ice cream server faces a meltdown while trying to take orders from the most demanding of customers –babies! Set in a 1950s-style diner, this family show promises enough scoops for the youngest audiences.

Photo: Hannu Huhtamo

Photo: Alan Powdrill

Photo: Rere Chang

Image: courtesy of

Assembly

Image: courtesy of the artist

Olaf Falafel

Chevalier

The Mighty Kids

Whipped Up!

World in a Word

Top Picks: Edinburgh International Festival

best theatre,

opera

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Festival Theatre, 23-25 Aug, 7.30pm (Programme 1); 24-24 Aug, times vary (Programme 2)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater present two programmes of inspiring dance at this year’s International Festival. In Programme 1, they perform Aszure Barton’s BUSK, Kyle Abraham’s Are You In Your Feelings? and Revelations, the most widely viewed modern dance work in the world. Programme 2 combines three beloved works by Alvin Ailey himself, including Revelations, The River and Memoria.

Bluebeard’s Castle

Church Hill Theatre, 23-27 Aug, 8pm

New opera company Theatre of Sound reimagines Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, accompanied by musicians from the Hebrides Ensemble. Judith and Bluebeard’s once happy home is now a place of disappearing memories, as the couple face the challenges of dementia.

Dimanche

Church Hill Theatre, 15-19 Aug, 7pm

A stunning visual performance combining puppetry, video, mime and clowning from two award-winning Belgian companies. As the world ends amidst climate chaos, a family attempts to spend a normal Sunday together, while three travelling wildlife reporters do their best to document the apocalypse.

EIFF @ Edinburgh International Festival

Various venues, 18-23 Aug

As Far As Impossible

The Lyceum, 11-14 Aug, times vary

Director Tiago Rodrigues delves into the minds of humanitarian workers. This multilingual performance explores the effects of leading a double life between conflict zones and peaceful homes. How do such experiences reshape our perceptions of the world and our own existence?

A dynamic film programme featuring the exceptional work of local and global filmmakers. This year’s EIFF opens with the world premiere of Silent Roar, the debut feature from Scottish writer and director Johnny Barrington, and closes with BAFTA-nominated director Babak Jalali’s Fremont

The

dance,

and more that the International Festival programme has to offer

Photo: Tiago Rodriguez

Image: courtesy of the artist

Photo: Dario Calmese

Image: courtesy of the festival

Photo: Virginie Meigne

As Far As Impossible

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Bluebeard’s Castle

Dimanche

EIFF

GRIT in the Gardens

Princes Street Gardens, 6 Aug, 3pm

The GRIT Orchestra kick off the International Festival in style, rounding off a free celebration in the Gardens, featuring a new world premiere accompanied by over 100 young people.

The Rite of Spring / common ground[s]

Edinburgh Playhouse, 17-19 Aug, 7.30pm

The revival of Pina Bausch’s

The Rite of Spring brings together 34 performers from 14 African countries on an earth-covered stage. The evening starts with common ground[s]: a first time collaboration between Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, and a tender exploration of shared history.

Lankum

The Queen’s Hall, 17 Aug, 9pm

The Irish radical folk group bring their recently released and highly praised fourth album, False Lankum, to Edinburgh. The Dublin-based four-piece are known for their atmospheric blend of gothic intensity, immersive soundscapes and spellbinding melodies.

The Threepenny Opera

Festival Theatre, 18-20 Aug, times vary Berliner Ensemble’s UK premiere of Brecht’s masterpiece. The Threepenny Opera satirises capitalism while telling a captivating story of love, betrayal and what’s right and wrong.

Trojan Women

Festival Theatre, 9-11 Aug, 7.30pm

Greek tragedy and traditional Korean storytelling combine in a production by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Ong Keng Sen directs a tale of strength during the aftermath of war in a show featuring original music by K-pop producer (and Parasite composer) Jung Jae-il, and Pansori master Ahn Sook-sun.

Lankum

Trojan Women

The GRIT Orchestra

The Threepenny Opera

The Rite of Spring

Image: courtesy of the artist

Photo: Sorcha Frances Ryder

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Photo: Berliner Ensemble

Photo: Maarten Vanden Abeele

Blueprints

Pleasance Courtyard, 17-28 Aug (not 21), 11:50am

Ashlee Elizabeth-Lolo’s new show questions whether we’re destined to repeat ancestral patterns forever. This Afro-futurist play is a Black love story, where one couple’s relationship sees the personal, political and historical collide in a nottoo-distant UK.

FOOD

The Studio, 3-27 Aug, times vary Geoff Sobelle presents an immersive performance, looking at how and why we eat. The audience is invited to gather around a dining table, where they’re met with varying sounds, scents and textures relating to food production and consumption.

Funeral

ZOO Southside, 4-26 Aug (not Mondays), times vary Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed returns to Edinburgh with a production that doubles as a theatrical ceremony and a ritual, bringing people together to encourage them to confront the finiteness of things.

Ichiko Aoba

The Queen’s Hall, 19 Aug, 8pm

With a focus on her seventh studio album, Windswept Adan, the Japanese singer-songwriter performs an otherworldly soundscape, which takes inspiration from jazz, folk and impressionistic classical music.

The festivals are all about the unexpected, so we’ve teamed up with Glayva to recommend shows that are #NotYourUsual

Photo: Alex Brenner

Photo: Maria Baranova

Photo: Ans Brys

Photo: Kodai Kobayashi

Image: courtesy of artist

Blueprints

FOOD

Funeral

Ichiko Aoba Viggo Venn

Jesse Jones: The Tower

Talbot Rice Gallery, until 30 Sep, 10am-5pm

The second part in Jesse Jones’ trilogy, the first of which was commissioned for the Irish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2017. The Tower is based on the writings of medieval female Christian mystics, exploring the women who were burned as heretics even before the first witch trials in the 17th century.

Potty the Plant

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 2-27 Aug, 6pm

Join Potty, the singing, tap-dancing pot plant, and a wilting team of nurses in a dark-comedy musical set at Little Boo Boo’s General hospital. A mystery unravels involving missing children, love, and a suspicious doctor. Expect catchy songs, heartwarming bonds, and lots of humour.

Scott Murphy: About a Buoy

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 5.40pm

Splash in for an hour of character comedy from Scotland-based clown and rising star Tom Whiston. This show is set to be a bobbling sailboat adventure with Scott, New Zealand’s leading sailing instructor, as he explores his love of buoys.

The Edinburgh ReaderBank: An Experiment in Imagination

Castle View Studio, 13 Aug, 10.15am

The ReaderBank research project is a collaboration between the Edinburgh International Book Festival and Durham University, creating the world’s largest open-source databank on reading experiences and mental health. Readers take part by sharing their imaginative process while reading, contributing to a global research initiative.

Wasteman

Assembly George Square Studios, 4-28 Aug (not 17), 6pm Follow the journey of a bin man as he swaps his steel-capped boots for stilettos, pursuing his dream of becoming a drag queen. Wasteman is a tribute to industrious Northerners and embracing one’s true gender identity, inspired by the writer’s own experiences working as a Refuse Loader during lockdown.

Viggo Venn: British Comedian

Monkey Barrel Comedy, 17-28 Aug, 12:05am

After clowning his way to winning Britain’s Got Talent, Viggo Venn returns with two Fringe shows ahead of his first ever UK tour. Expect a clown car, big shoes, an amazing balancing act, red balloons and of course, plenty of hi-vis.

Image: courtesy of Talbot Rice Gallery

Image: courtesy of artists

Photo: Corinne Cumming

Image: courtesy

of artist

The Tower Scott Murphy

The Edinburgh ReaderBank Wasteman

Potty the Plant

Photo: Robin Mair

Live Fast, Die Young, Bad Girls Do It Well

Words: Arusa Qureshi

In the run up to the Fringe, I’ve found myself uttering the phrase ‘it’s not life or death’. Because it’s true; all the stress that comes with the festivals we all love, and work so hard for, is temporary. And what’s more, it’s cyclical – September comes and all the sins of August are forgotten, before the process begins again. But what if you know you’re not guaranteed that annual cycle?

“I think having a potentially limited lifespan makes me take more chances,” Michelle Brasier tells me from her home in Melbourne. This subject matter is especially poignant for her. We learnt, during last year’s solo show Average Bear, Brasier’s moving story about living in the shadows of a hereditary illness. Following the passing of both her father and brother, she has been told she has a 97% chance of developing cancer herself.

“I’m not afraid of being vulnerable,” she says, “I want to try as many things as I can. I want to get over there and share things with people and just enjoy as much time as I have. It’s a real gift. I mean, obviously, I’d love

When Michelle Brasier encountered a scammer in the wild, she chose to take the unexpected route. She tells us why it’s worth reframing your priorities in life

Michelle Brasier

Photo: Nick Robertson

to live until I’m very old. But the knowledge that I might not is one of the biggest gifts that I could ever have been handed because it means that my priorities are right there in front of me all the time.”

Brasier’s new show Reform is largely about priorities; about choosing to take a different path in a situation and seeing the best in people – even when they don’t necessarily deserve it. “It’s all in how you frame,” she explains. “This story that I’m bringing to Edinburgh this year is about reframing this guy who scammed me.”

Reform is based on a true story. During lockdown, when she attempted to buy a Pilates reformer online, the seller turned out

to be a scammer. But Michelle chose not to call the police. Instead she befriended ‘Jacob’ (not his real name) and gave him the opportunity to open up about his life and his decisions.

“I think that everything that happened to me – that you see in Average Bear – all informs my worldview, and the way I conduct myself. Reform is an example of me living that way that I told you I was going to live. Here’s what can happen when you do that. It’s kind of a cautionary tale and it’s also kind of a fuck it, why not? But it’s still comedy as philosophy and true story as comedy.”

The show is a joyous and uplifting musical experience. Brasier uses her trademark fusion of comedy and musicality to offer some levity around a tough situation and subject matter that many will find some solace in. “It helps you to connect more,” Michelle says when asked why it’s important for her to be able to use her art in this way. “There is a tendency in comedy to not always be vulnerable, because you’re making yourself available to be laughed at. But the most special work is when you can still be funny, even though you’re being vulnerable, even though you’re talking about sad stuff. That’s the pinnacle, for me, of what I love seeing and was unlucky enough to have enough heartbreak in my life to talk about the big issues.”

Returning to Edinburgh, backed by her partner Tim Lancaster (who also plays Jacob), a full band and some catchy songs, Brasier hopes that Reform will encourage people to take an alternative stance, freeing them from the monotony of the tiny, boring things in life.

“I hope that people enjoy it and that they feel like their outlook on people has turned a bit for the better. I try to convince people for an hour that we can’t categorise people as good or bad and that we are all trying our best even if our best is not that good. And that we should remember that; that it does well to assume the best of people.”

VENUE:

TIME: 7:00pm – 8:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 16

SHOW Michelle Brasier: Reform

Gilded Balloon Teviot

“I think having a potentially limited lifespan makes me take more chances”

Michelle Brasier

Photo: Nick Robertson

The Dark Side of Comedy

address mental health, suicidal thoughts and personal trauma

Words: Jay Richardson

Content warning – this feature discusses suicidal feelings

Avital Ash laughs grimly, explaining that writing a show about her past suicidal thoughts prompted her to think about killing herself again.

“Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism, that everything is a joke. But I do think that’s quite funny” she suggests. “Working on this show, I was just a fucking idiot. I was like, ‘this is gonna be hilarious!’

In Avital Ash Workshops Her Suicide Note, the Los Angeles-based stand-up recounts how her biological mother killed herself when she was just a baby.

Some of the biggest, darkest, most discomforting laughs in her Edinburgh Fringe debut,

which also covers sexual assault, religious intolerance and generational Holocaust trauma, come when Ash shares drafts of her potential note with the audience.

“You’re in this place where you’re looking at your trauma and depression” she recalls. “And I was blindsided. It seems so obvious in hindsight that it would bring up so much. I’d been off anti-depressants for four or five years and had to get back on them. A lot of my depression is rooted in this shame of being alive and feeling like I’m always doing something wrong.”

Proud that she “can make all the dark things funny” and that “people laugh throughout”, it was still “a lot to unearth”. And while previewing, she was overwhelmed with a feeling that she’d been insensitive and a “Judas” to the rest of her family.

“What if they disown me?” she wondered. “I don’t reduce anyone to the worst thing they’ve done but there are unflattering things. If I cancelled Edinburgh though, I don’t feel reliable. I’ve spent all this money and ruined my relationship with [her venue] Monkey Barrel. It started feeling like the only solution was to die.”

Resuming medication and talking to her adopted mother helped Ash subdue those thoughts. She now believes making the show is “starting to become therapeutic”. But she won’t call it cathartic, “because that puts an unfair pressure on the art to heal me”. And there are pros and cons to telling a story this way.

Avital Ash, Paul Foot and James Nokise share their experiences using comedy as a platform to

“A lot of my depression is rooted in this shame of being alive and feeling like I’m always doing something wrong”

Avital Ash

“Things are just much easier to swallow with comedy, it can be very hard to digest something dark, painful and dramatic without it” she explains. But “you can hide” in stand-up. Reflecting on an almost causally delivered line she has about rape, Ash points out that the joke makes it “relatable” and helps victims “feel seen”.

But “in another way it’s reductive and lets you sidestep what’s actually going on. And I see that danger. I’m not doing that with this show I believe. There’s so much real pain coming up and people are moved and crying.”

Performing Dissolve, the most candid, personal hour of his more than two decade career, in which he discloses the epiphany that banished his long-term depression, Paul Foot is attracting similar reactions. Audience members are opening up to him afterwards about their own mental health, telling him that they found the show “uplifting” as well as funny. He only “obliquely” references his suicide attempts, withholding details.

The surrealist comic doesn’t feel trauma discussing the “horrible things that happened, which had terrible effects on people that

loved me”. But he won’t share them on stage because he “doesn’t want anyone who is feeling suicidal to get ideas about how they might self-harm or kill themselves.”

Even so, he can look back on previous shows – in which he evoked myriad ways to die by suicide in a circus or a five-year-old mistaking Santa being stuck in the chimney for his grandfather who’d hung himself there on Christmas Day – and appreciate that he was channelling his depression and anger.

His mother believes Foot’s absolute bleakest humour is fading and he agrees. “It was really funny but there was so much darkness in my last show, Swan Power, that it was a bit of a challenge to make sure there wasn’t too much for the audience.”

For James Nokise, it’s important not to “shy away from the facts” of his suicide attempts, to “not underplay what I was going through” in his returning show God Damn Fancy Man Yet the Kiwi stand-up wants to “highlight how ridiculous the situations were, how cartoonish, and bring some irreverence to them. I’m more saying, ‘you shouldn’t let the trauma define you.’”

Paul Foot Avital Ash

Photo: Jonathan Birch

Image: courtesy of Impressive PR

Nokise is reviving Fancy Man for a third time because the show continues to evolve and feels relevant during a cost of living crisis. “It’s a light way to talk about mental health issues” he maintains. Notwithstanding the ongoing work he does on himself with both his depression and alcohol addiction though, he doesn’t portray himself as an expert, “just a person with lived experience.”

His attempts to kill himself took place in London, in 2008 and 2017. Despite the value of him sharing, Nokise is acutely conscious of the potential harm in evoking suicide for entertainment, literally making it routine by revisiting it on successive afternoons.

“I’ll always check in with myself” he reflects. Being a suicide survivor is “part of me and my story, it’s something that happened but it’s not part of my core. If I’m doing the show and it’s not joyful, that’s dangerous to me as a performer for my mental health. And it’s dangerous for the audience, because they might have heard of those aspects in the show and I won’t be able to make them feel safe.”

Playing an intimate room in Edinburgh, he shares the spoiler that it’s OK: “I make it.

I build an environment where no-one feels like they’re going to revisit any trauma. They know they’re in my world. I take their hand, I lead them in but then I lead them out.”

When life is difficult, Samaritans are here – day or night, 365 days a year. You can call them for free on 116 123, email them at jo@samaritans.org, or visit www.samaritans.org.

SHOW Avital Ash Workshops Her Suicide Note

VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Tron)

TIME: 10:05pm – 11:05pm, 1–27 Aug, not 14

SHOW James Nokise: God Damn Fancy Man

VENUE: Laughing Horse @ City Cafe

TIME: 3:00pm – 4:00pm, 3–27 Aug

SHOW James Nokise – Right About Now

VENUE: The Stand Comedy Club 3 & 4

TIME: 6:45pm – 7:45pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14

SHOW Paul Foot: Dissolve

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 7:20pm – 8:20pm, 3–27 Aug, not 15

James Nokise

Photo: Matt Grace

Know Regrets

Comedian Jonny Pelham discusses the delicate balance of addressing sensitive topics in stand-up comedy

Words: Ben Venables

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Jonny Pelham has a gift for putting people at ease. The openness with which he performs stand-up comedy builds trust with an audience, allowing him to delve into the most sensitive of topics.

In his remarkable 2015 newcomer hour, Before and After, Pelham explored growing up with popliteal pterygium syndrome and his dilemma when offered facial surgery by the NHS. In 2019’s Off Limits, Pelham confronted the trauma of child sexual abuse. “It is such a taboo topic,” he tells us over a video call. “It feels like there is a social need to talk about this issue. If it’s treated as a horrible topic that nobody wants to talk about, then it just perpetuates.”

His comedic talents, developed in front of tough crowds at Newcastle comedy clubs while still a student, were evident in his subsequent Live at the Apollo set. Instead of using a more mainstream routine for a wider TV audience, Pelham candidly opened with that ‘horrible topic’. Then, in his 2021 Channel 4 documentary Let’s Talk: Child Sex Abuse, he spoke to other survivors.

Despite the need for these conversations, the aftermath of talking about CSA so publicly has sometimes taken its toll on Pelham. “I’m quite an avoidant human being so I don’t really process my emotions. People kept coming up to me and talking about what happened to them as kids – and that does have an impact.”

Pelham found himself questioning if stand-up allows for a truly honest picture of his experiences. “There was a sense in my last show where I said, ‘This happened to me and I processed it and I’m fine’... I guess I’ve realised that was an over simplification.”

Now bringing his fifth show, Optimism Over Despair, to Edinburgh, Pelham is set to

explore the inherent tension that comes with portraying trauma in comedy. “Part of this show is problematising the idea that I was as OK as I thought I was about it. There’s a need, when you do a comedy show, to tell everyone that you’re OK because the audience need to laugh; and to laugh they need to feel relaxed and safe.

“I have a desire, a deep desire, not to wrap the show up in a bow and say, ‘I’m fine now’; or to make myself out to be a ‘happy victim’ to make it more palatable for audiences. It is a tension that I am trying to figure out. It’s a fascinating tension.”

After a brief period where Pelham considered “knocking stand-up on the head”, he’s lately experienced a shift in his perspective towards the art form. “I’ve always had this idea of transformational change through doing comedy. I’m letting go of that idea of it. What happened to me as a kid has had a profound impact on who I am. It’s not going to be a case of me moving past it and becoming the ‘authentic’ human being I was always meant to be. Life’s messy and fucked up. It won’t be caterpillar-to-butterfly. It’ll always be a fuckedup caterpillar. But that’s fine.”

To his surprise he’s found writing Optimism Over Despair cathartic. “I’ve actually really loved writing this show, especially after I’d got to quite a negative place in comedy. I think I write shows to try and figure out what’s been going on in my life. Writing the show has helped me figure out the last two or three years of my life in a helpful way.”

SHOW Jonny Pelham: Optimism Over Despair

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 6:50pm – 7:50pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

“I’ve always had this idea of transformational change through doing comedy. I’m letting go of that idea of it”

Made in India

They’ve performed for hundreds and have over half a million in combined followers on Instagram, but Sapan Verma’s and Urooj

Ashfaq’s upcoming Fringe debuts are giving the wildly popular Mumbai comics sleepless nights

Words: Tamara Mathias

Urooj Ashfaq

Sapan Verma

Image: courtesy of Soho Theatre

Image: courtesy of Soho Theatre

"Igot the email at 6.30 am," says Sapan Verma. "A month-long solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe. I would’ve been thrilled with one week. This was terrifying. My friends and family actually had to talk me out of saying no!"

I remind the reticent stage performer that he’s opened for Coldplay and Jay-Z to an 80,000-strong crowd, headlined the first-ever Indian comedy showcase at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and hosted two seasons of his own Amazon Prime show, One Mic Stand.

"Yeah, but this is different," he insists. "I’ve toured internationally for a while now, but I know I can count on big NRI (non resident Indian) audiences who follow me on social media and come prepared for Bollywood jokes or the occasional Hindi punchline. They’re as interchangeable as a Mumbai crowd. At the Fringe, I’m going to have to make people who’ve never heard of me laugh. It really feels like starting from scratch."

Urooj Ashfaq, a Mumbai-based comic also scouted by London’s Soho Theatre to perform in Edinburgh this August, agrees vociferously. "I’ve definitely grown comfortable doing stand up on home turf, so I have no idea what to expect from a boutique festival audience. Will they even get me?"

With a degree in psychology and "many, many hours spent in therapy – as the patient, not the psychiatrist," Ashfaq has built a reputation for deeply personal sets where she somehow manages to narrate even painful experiences of bigotry and sexism with a good naturedness that is utterly endearing.

Her plan is to "soft launch a new personality".

"I’m doing my best to write a show that’s honest and understandable. That means drawing on my 'currenthood'. I’m far from done writing, but I console myself that I’m living out the end of my show in therapy right now, so

there’s some good material coming!"

Part of the anxiety stems from the question of what material will sit well with a largely foreign audience. Verma has been particularly thoughtful on this score.

"I’m not trying to be universally relatable," he says. "I know I could talk about stuff everyone gets, like bad Uber drivers or global warming, but I’m not trying to figure out what a festival audience may like and write that. I’m just going to talk about being an Indian comic who lives in India, because that’s who I am and it means I have a perspective they’re unlikely to have heard before. For example, comedians in India now have to add legal disclaimers before every YouTube video we post, so our jokes literally have to be approved by lawyers. That’s a very real thing that happens, and I want to discuss it."

What, if anything, will make this comedic rite of passage easier?

"My therapist," Ashfaq says immediately. "She’s my muse. Ideally, I’d like to take her on tour with me, have her sit in the front row and then come on stage to hug me when I’m done."

Verma, for his part, is relying on a little self-reflection to soothe his nerves. "Preparing for the Fringe has me reminiscing about my early days on the comedy circuit and why I’ve stayed on stage all these years. No matter how nerve-wracking this is, I know when I get up there and people begin to laugh… it’s fucking addictive."

SHOW Urooj Ashfaq: Oh No!

VENUE: Assembly George Square

TIME: 8:50pm – 9:50pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

SHOW Sapan Verma: Shame on Me

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 6:40pm – 7:40pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

“Will they even get me?”

Urooj Ashfaq

Thinking Funny

Jack Skipper, Joshua Bethania and Pravanya Pillay – top finalists from the renowned So You Think You’re Funny? competition – share their comedy journeys

Words: Ben Venables

Jack Skipper, a carpet fitter from south London, was all set for his first comedy booking when he had a wrench thrown into his plans.

Jack: I had my first gig booked and everything. And then the pandemic happened. I turned to online comedy – TikTok and Instagram. I had to wait, obviously with lockdown, to get started.

Pravanya Pillay was a student at Bristol University with an unusual medical dilemma.

Pravanya: I was going be a doctor – but I became obsessed with The Daily Show. I’d watch reruns from about 2001 – I knew so much about Iraq! I realised that I wanted to do comedy about two years into my medical degree. This went down really well with my family. They were like, ‘Wow, that’s great, what a great turn!’… OK, no. They were like: ‘What’s going on?’!

After taking on a new job, Joshua Bethania found he needed comedy to improve his people skills.

Joshua: At the end of lockdown I was so socially deprived of human contact that I signed

up for a comedy course. My intention was to get better at speaking to a group. I had a new role at work which made me one of those people who have to drive meetings.

Jack: I always knew So You Think You’re Funny? was one of the biggest UK competitions. I’d looked at all the previous winners and runners up. It was a no-brainer. I was definitely going to give it a go… But for us the qualifying heats (to get to Edinburgh) were all on Zoom! I was staying round my mate’s house before we went to Ibiza and I’d never done a Zoom gig – the first one I did was for the competition.

Joshua: I had the privacy of my flat, but that was my first ever online gig too.

Pravanya: I had to babysit my boss’s daughter that night – so she was in the room with me!

The trio found the switch from Zoom qualifiers to performing live in the Edinburgh semi-final and grand final gave them each a unique set of challenges.

Jack: It was my first ever time in Edinburgh. I wouldn’t have gone through to the final but the judges chose me as their ‘Wild Card’ choice.

Joshua: It was a stressful time at work for me. I took the train in the morning and came back the next day and then did the same thing again with the final. I had this weird stomach pain – but in a way it worked out because I never thought about the competition, just the pain in my stomach!

Pravanya: I have a bad sense of direction and I got lost. I ran around trying to find the venue and arrived late. Then I was on first!

“I always knew So You Think You’re Funny? was one of the biggest UK competitions”

Jack Skipper

Jack: The final was nice because of the camaraderie backstage. Everyone getting to know each other, it put me at ease. There was no competitiveness or anything like that. And you had Zoe Lyons compèring and Mickey Flanagan judging.

Joshua: I agree, everyone was nice. It was weird shaking hands with Mickey Flanagan. You see the ‘Who’s Who’ of comedy surround you. It was a lot to take in, but at the same time I still had that pain in my stomach!

Pravanya: I agree on the camaraderie. I was on first, so I got it out the way – it felt like a rollercoaster.

As they return for the Best of So You Think You’re Funny showcase, the comedians feel the competition helped them both in practical and personal ways.

Joshua: I didn’t realise how valued SYTYF was in comedy, like when you say you’re part of SYTYF you get a good response. It’s definitely changed the trajectory that I was on.

Pravanya: If you are doubting whether you’re good enough – or if you feel that plastic

tinge of imposter syndrome – doing well in the competition helps you remember: ‘Oh yeah –someone somewhere thinks I’m good!’

Jack: You look at all the other finalists and all the people that have placed over the years. It’s nice to see others doing well from the competition. People refer to Edinburgh as a comedy boot camp. And now we’ll be going through that together, helping each other and supporting each other.

SHOW So You Think You’re Funny – Grand Final

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 7:30pm – 10:00pm, 24 Aug

SHOW So You Think You’re Funny? Competition Heats

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 10:15pm – 11:30pm, 5–15 Aug, not 9, 10, 11, 12

SHOW Best of So You Think You’re Funny?

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 10:15pm – 11:15pm, various dates between 2 Aug and 28 Aug

Jack Skipper

Pravanya Pillay

Joshua Bethania

Photos: Steve Ullathorne

Where I’m Calling From

Working class debutants Lindsey Santoro and Louise Young discuss the influence of their home cities on their comedy

Words: Ben Venables

“I remember thinking that Edinburgh was for ‘poshos’,” says Lindsey Santoro. “Poshos with too much money and too much free time.”

Lindsey Santoro is a working class comedian from south Birmingham, bringing her first hour – Pink Tinge – to the Fringe. She’s definitely not a posho – stand-up competes with her other work and family time. “I’ve still got a day job, because without it I’d die.” She says: “I work for the NHS and they’re just wonderful, wonderful people. I don’t work in urgent care – I’m not accidentally going to kill someone if I don’t send an email on time. I work Monday to Wednesday and then Thursday to Saturday I gig. And then at some point I have to look after my child!”

Edinburgh would’ve remained a castle in the sky for Santoro – “No bloody chance!” – if it hadn’t been for Sian Davies’s Best in Class, which platforms working class comedians at the Fringe, which Santoro expresses gratitude for. “With Best in Class, I saw that it could work in different ways and there’s different ways to access the Fringe. It’s definitely giving me a foot up.”

More than a foot, also a helping hand. After Best in Class won the Comedy Awards’ Panel Prize last year, Davies turned the £10,000 prize into £500 bursaries, which Santoro was successful applying for. “That £500 has gone straight towards my accommodation,” she says. “What I find with people like me and Sian, is that you want to spread money to people

Photo: Jiksaw

Lindsey Santoro

who need it.” She adds, joking: “Which is why I think we’ll always be poor!”

Also bringing her first stand-up hour – Feral – to Edinburgh is Louise Young, a working class Geordie with a pile of washing behind her, rescued from a storm moments before our video call. How is she turning Edinburgh into an affordable reality?

“Well I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” says Young candidly, “I had a panic attack about it last night!”

A lack of funds has been a mixed blessing for Young’s stand-up career. “I initially started in London, but only for about 10 gigs, then I moved back home to Newcastle because I had no money. I remember thinking it’d be rubbish trying to start comedy in Newcastle because there wouldn’t be the number of gigs that there are in London.”

Yet her hometown gave her the foundation she needed. “It was the best thing ever. You see, it’s not saturated. There’s a lot more attention put on you when you’re new. The Stand Comedy Club got behind us. You think you’re going to get seen in London – but if you’re new it’s better to be seen in a smaller city by people who can actually give you paid work.”

It’s not only in practical terms that Young has found her appreciation of Newcastle growing. “I do think Newcastle has a sense of humour that’s kind of like cheek, and it is friendly, but there’s also a gallows humour. My nana brought me up and she was from extreme poverty. That leaves an impression indelible things get passed down culturally and emotionally. It’s a harsh sense of humour I associate with Newcastle – a brutality, and that’s more like how I think about humour.”

It’s a humour that sounds a perfect fit for Young’s show: “It’s about things being a little bit difficult, chaotic and dysfunctional. It’s about class and about me being half-Turkish and things about me being gay. It’s about how things get harder and you can go on a downward spiral. That sounds depressing, it’s not! It’s about life being a bit feral.”

Santoro is similarly proud of how Birmingham has shaped her comedy: “The thing is that Birmingham is that it’s so diverse. I didn’t realise how much it affected me. You can walk down

the street and walk into a completely different culture and nobody who lives in Birmingham bats an eyelid. When I go to gigs in places that are more rural, I think, ‘God, it’s all the same here isn’t it?’ All the different people and experiences have influenced me. It’s a rich tapestry.”

SHOW Lindsey Santoro: Pink Tinge

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 6:00pm – 7:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

SHOW Louise Young: Feral

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 7:25pm – 8:25pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

Photo: Jiksaw

Louise Young

FROM THE TONY AWARD®-WINNING PRODUCER OF SIX

Co-Adaptor/Director: Kurt Johns

Composer: Cecilia Lin

Co-Adaptor: Gail Rastorfer

Lyricist: Jessica Wu

Paul Sinha: In His Own Words

As he brings his twelfth show to The Stand, Paul Sinha talks about being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and taking risks in his comedy career

Two weeks after the 2017 festival finished I woke up with a stiff right shoulder. Everything’s been a rollercoaster since then. In 2018, my show was about my health, but it turned out that the medical issues I was dealing with – diabetes, a frozen shoulder –were nothing compared to what was actually going on. What I remember from 2018 (other than having something of an online fisticuff with Kate Copstick) was that it was the first festival that I didn’t genuinely love every second of.

I was slowing down. I was tired. I hadn’t brought the energy to Edinburgh that I usually bring. I was unaware at the time why that was. There’s a couple of reviews that describe my delivery as listless or expressionless. They would’ve been unaware that what they were watching was the early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

I’ve learned to be pragmatic about it; very grateful for the way my life has panned out. I have a career that I absolutely love, which is not necessarily the case for all people diagnosed with Parkinson’s. I love being a standup comedian.

2019 was a blockbuster year: I won an award for Best Overseas Show in New Zealand;

I won the British Quiz Championship; I got married. But it was also a bittersweet year with the reveal of Parkinson’s. Then the pandemic hit.

In the early, brutal stage of the pandemic, I was laid out in bed for two-and-a-half weeks with Covid, barely able to get to the bathroom. That was a very interesting first year of marriage.

I have no problem being called a comedian with Parkinson’s disease. Anything that helps sells tickets is fine. But, I’m not just the comedian with Parkinson’s, anymore than I’m the Asian comedian or the gay comedian. I feel almost tame in comparison to the new generation of LGBTQIA+ comedians coming through who have a multitude of talents and a real confidence to take on the world. I remember, when I started, having none of these things. I sometimes feel like a bit of a tame grandad – although, there’s very much an unfiltered nature to a lot of what I do on stage now. I think: ‘I don’t know how many years I’ve got doing this, let’s enjoy it.’

In Pauly Bengali there will be a lot of jokes and music. The music is, for me, the really exciting part because I can’t really sing or play the keyboard as I could before Parkinson’s kicked in. I didn’t know, last year, if the gamble was going to work. But it did. Also, the not knowing whether it’s going to be everyone’s

cup of tea is – creatively – really, really exciting. I’m well aware how it carries the risk of failing. But I feel I’m at a stage in my career where I’d like to take a few more gambles.

You can’t spend your whole life waving an impotent fist at imaginary woes. It is a tough month. But I enjoy it more than most. The fact that I’m coming for the third year in a row – having come for the pandemic year of 2021 as well – is testament to how much I love the festival.

I love it for what it is. I will never do a short run. I’ll only do a masochistic three-and-a-half week run. The idea of leaving before everyone else – urgh – it doesn’t feel right.

VENUE: The Stand’s New Town Theatre

TIME: 5:40pm – 6:40pm, 2–27 Aug, not 3, 15

SHOW Paul Sinha: Pauly Bengali

Photo: Andy Hollingworth

Paul Sinha

Faith Off

Danielle Deluty and Salma Hindy grew up in strict Muslim and Jewish households respectively, and were both indoctrinated to fear the other – now the firm friends and comedians are together on stage telling their parallel stories

Words: Ben Venables

Salma: The first time we performed together was a couple of months ago. But our chemistry’s great and we’re pretty much aligned on everything. Stand-up comedians are all narcissistic control freaks, because ‘it’s all about me’ and we’re the only ones on stage. This is new territory to trust another person to help tell the story.

Danielle: It feels like the most natural way to perform. We are aligned in our values, in the nature of the performance we’re giving and the story we’re telling. The parallels are uncanny. I grew up in what’s known as a Modern Orthodox Jewish community. Only kosher food and dishes in the home; Sabbath observant; no travelling, no electricity, no exchanging money, no working on the Sabbath. Strict observance of Jewish holidays; Jewish schooling until I was 19 years old – half the day in Hebrew, half in English. A very rigid political Zionist ideology with no room for interpretation. No socialising with people who are not in the community. Certainly no dating. My entire life from waking up in the morning to going to sleep was all within a religious framework – prayers, what I

could eat, who I could talk to, what I’m learning in school.

Salma: It’s all-consuming. My family are what you think of when you think of a stereotype of an extremist Muslim family. We were the most extreme in the whole community, like it was known among my friends. My dad is controlling and called all the shots in the family. In addition to the extreme religious rules – very similar to what Danielle was describing – my parents own an Islamic school and a Mosque. My dad is an Imam, which is a religious leader. Even when I was at university I only ever socialised with the Muslim Students Association. And on top of that my dad has his own rules. It was very much us versus them. 9/11 didn’t help with that. It really caused our community to go into a bubble. And Danielle is like a mirror to me.

Danielle: How did we wind up with the same values when it’s the ‘wrong’ religion?

Salma: We’re still very spiritual. You can’t deny magic, or divinity. At least we can’t. We’d describe ourselves as liberated sluts.

Danielle: I don’t think either of us believe we know the truth or that there is one truth. We’re certainly no longer invested in upholding the institututional faith we were raised in.

Salma: And you know, self-righteousness is such a disease. I was super self-righteous growing up. ‘How can you have relationships? Allah is not going to love you and you’re never going to heaven.’

Danielle: The whole faith tradition is predicated on, well: you’re spitting on your ancestors' grave if you don’t continue to uphold the tradition they were murdered for. Can

we honour that tragedy while having a value system that isn’t stuck in that trauma?

Salma: When my mum found out I’d started stand-up comedy, she started crying. She was like: what did we do wrong?

Danielle: My mum asked if I was trying to exact revenge on her and her family.

Salma: Humour was very crucial to me growing up. It was how I made friends. I would self-deprecate a lot to get people to lower their guards. And when my dad would bring me suitors, and I would want to literally kill myself, comedy was the only way I could gain control over my life.

Danielle: I grew up in a serious culture and I was always very silly and I wanted to laugh. But in my family humour was not a way that we communicated together. My brother and I would try to tease each other and my dad would think we were bullying each other. Even if we told him we’re joking around – we’re just trying to cope with how intense it is in your house – he couldn’t wrap his head around it. So I always felt a bit alienated or isolated because I connect so much with humour.

Salma: It’s not by accident that we’re picking this up. This is not a clickbait opinion. This is our lives. This is our show about no longer bring controlled by religion.

Danielle: We want people to know that we are rigorously educated in the foundational texts of our religions. This isn’t going to be like: God is stupid! We’ve wrestled with the material and it’s an intensely personal show. We’re so confident in each other and what’s next for us.

Salma: We’re ready to start living.

VENUE:

TIME: 3:20pm – 4:20pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14, 21

SHOW Salma Hindy and Danielle Deluty: Parallel

Just the Tonic at The Caves

Photo: John Cafaro

Lady Libertine

Obehi Janice discusses going toe-to-toe with Casanova, love languages and redefining history

Words: Deborah Chu

In 2018, writer, actor and comedian Obehi Janice was invited to respond to an exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The subject? Infamous 18th century libertine, Giacomo Casanova.

Prior to this, Janice hadn’t known much about Casanova. “I just thought, ‘that’s how you describe skeezy guys,’” she says. The exhibition took Casanova and his autobiography, Story of My Life, as the starting point for a wider consideration on the Rococo period. But all the same, it hit Janice hard. “I was like, ‘wait, so you’re telling me this dude was fucking everybody, but not in a sexually free way?’ Like, he was using sex for manipulation.”

Five years on, Janice will be bringing the world premiere of her one-woman show, Nova, to the Lyceum. The work centres around charismatic Nova, who walks the audience through an ‘archive’ of her former lovers. Sound familiar? Crucially, Nova is no Casanova copy: “Nova’s very flirty but she’s not manipulative – she’s very saucy, but not scammy,” insists Janice.

For Janice, Nova’s power lies in her unabashed self-belief; reclaiming the comedic-storytelling space that has been dominated too long by white men: “Yes, she’s taking [Casanova’s] name, but she’s playing with ideas around legacy and what we mean when we say someone’s important.” To this day, Casanova’s name remains a byword for romantic prowess; a ‘lovable rogue’, if you will. The truth of him was, of course, darker and more complicated. “Sex is power, and Casanova knew that,” she says. “He also knew that writing everything

down was going to make him famous.”

Writing and exploitation remains a twisted rope in the 21st century. Janice – who joins the call fresh off a Writers’ Guide of America picket line –knows this well, but has nonetheless forged a path through undeniable talent and ‘sheer force’. While studying politics at Georgetown, Janice took theatre classes on the side, and led the university’s Black theatre ensemble. Upon realising that a career on the Hill was not for her, she went home to Boston and acted in anything she could get her hands on, from Shakespeare to improv. But her ambition was to start writing her own plays, with its core in comedy.

Eventually she received a fellowship at New York’s Public Theatre, which resulted in Ole White Sugah Daddy. The play, which follows a Black coder navigating Boston’s start-up culture, has been picked up by Lena Waithe and Amazon to be developed into a series. It also landed Janice an agent and transplanted her to Los Angeles, where she hit the ground running with writing gigs on Castle Rock, Blindspotting and The Madness

But the Casanova exhibit never left her. Janice produced two performances as a response to the exhibition, “and I’ll be honest, it was such a heavy experience for me that I threw

it away,” she says. Luckily, a friend convinced her to continue developing the show with director Caitlin Sullivan. At first, they thought the material was ripe for stand-up. “I brought in all this source material about break-ups, feeling betrayed by men. All of these things that were very prickly in the moment,” says Janice. But elements began to emerge that were not part of Janice’s experience, like the act of archiving, as well as differences in personality. “My love language is, ‘I’m going to send you an article from The Atlantic’,” jokes Janice. “I don’t always pick up on romantic cues. Nova does.”

Now Nova the character is very distinct from Janice the writer-performer, which she’s grateful for. “There’s self-protection in wanting to finish a show, go home and know that I still have my life, separate from Nova. She allows me a mask that I’ve been craving.”

So does she still consider Nova to be a heavy show? Lately, her team have been asking themselves this question. “I don’t think it is,” Janice says. “The work to redefine history, legacy and cultural importance can be heavy emotional work. [But] to me, talking about sex, pleasure and desire – it’s like, finally I get to use a tool that has been used in storytelling and comedy for years. I get to have my turn to play with it.”

SHOW Nova

VENUE: Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh

TIME:

“She allows me a mask that I’ve been craving”

Photo: Hannah Caprara

Lean On Me

The creatives behind Dugsi Dayz, One Way Out and Santi & Naz talk about friendship in different contexts

Words: Anahit Behrooz

Almost every tale of love has its generic counterpart in the stories we tell each other. Falling in love finds expression in the rom-com and romance canon; the prickly, rich complexities of family in the history of family sagas and intergenerational tales. No less complex, or romantic, are the stories of friendship that we return to again and again; carving out a genre that stretches back centuries, from the bodily camaraderie of ancient epics to the sweet, devoted ditziness of the sitcom era. There is something about friendship – its elective tenderness, its wide-eyed vulnerability – that keeps drawing us back in, offering an new imaginations of how we might care for and love each other.

Such friendships lie at the heart of three shows at the Fringe this year – Dugsi Dayz, Santi & Naz, and One Way Out – all of which explore the potential of these relationships to carve out radical spaces of community-building and interdependence. In Dugsi Dayz, four young So-

mali students find themselves stuck in detention together in a weird and wonderful riff on John Hughes’ classic The Breakfast Club, and its exploration of how friendship can bridge even the most entrenched of social gaps.

“I really liked John Hughes’ showcase of friendship,” explains the play’s writer Sabrina Ali, “[and] how friendship can form among teenagers who have little in common. In Dugsi Dayz, I wanted to explore how girls from different social cliques can come together and share their experiences.”

Friendship, Ali understands, has the ability to expand out our worlds; here, old Somali folktales are subverted in order to challenge the social expectations placed on Somali girls, and to discover a kind of liberation in their bonds with each other. “It’s the age where we are navigating the complexities of adolescence and our identities,” Ali explains. “We hold such nostalgic and sentimental attachments to these friendships, because they shape our

Dugsi Dayz

Photo: Guy Sanders

Features

emotional wellbeing and place in the world.”

Friendship as a means of giving voice to female experience is also explored in Santi & Naz, a heart-rending exploration of the events of Partition told through the queered friendship between two young women. “We rarely see stories of great historical events from the perspective of the people who lived through them,” says playwright Guleraana Mir, “and it is the personal stories of women that most often go untold.”

Through the two women’s coming-of-age, Santi & Naz examines the enmeshment of the personal and the political, and the ways in which seismic social events can impact our softest intimacies. Amidst the backdrop of violence that Santi and Naz live against, their relationship – at times romantic, at times platonic – demonstrates the ways in which certain intimacies live beyond what we have language for. “It’s less of a ‘will they, won’t they’,” Mir says, “and more a ‘we don’t care what you are to each other, as long as you’re able to stay together’.”

Stories of female friendships are rife in our cultural narratives (just think of Booksmart, Insecure, or Frances Ha), but friendships between men can be just as vulnerable, and just as formative. In One Way Out, four friends stand on the cusp of adulthood in their home of South London against the backdrop of the Windrush crisis.

“Male friendships, particularly Black male friendships, are so rarely presented as thoughtful, open and supportive,” explains writer-director Montel Douglas about what drew him to centring these kinds of relationships, “despite that being mine and so many others’ real-life experiences.” Friendship in One Way Out, much like in Dugsi Dayz and Santi & Naz, becomes a way of bridging across divides, of creating community in the face of hostility. “I think it is so easy to view issues [as] directly affecting one specific community,” says Douglas of the show’s exploration of Windrush. “The magic of South London is that it is so entrenched in immigrant communities – it is almost impossible not to be touched by things that technically exist outside your identity.” It strikes to the core of the beauty of friendships – we all of us exist, wherever we are and whoever we are, at stake to one another.

SHOW One Way Out

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 2:15pm – 3:15pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14, 21

SHOW Dugsi Dayz

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 2:40pm – 1:40pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14, 21

SHOW Santi and Naz

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 1:30pm – 2:40pm, 2–28 Aug, not 9, 23

“We hold such nostalgic and sentimental attachments to these friendships, because they shape our emotional wellbeing and place in the world”

Sabrina Ali

One Way Out Santi & Naz

Photo: Rebecca White

Photo: Nora Lempriere

MRS. PRESIDENT

Broad Horizons

The return of the Horizon showcase in 2023 promises another round of boundary-pushing and thoughtprovoking work from England. Some of the creatives involved in the programme tell us why it challenges the traditional Fringe model

Words: Deborah Chu

After a successful in-person debut at the Fringe last year, the Horizon showcase is coming back for seconds. With the aim of supporting English artists in forging international connections, Horizon brought to the festival some of 2022’s most compelling, challenging works – and this year promises to be no different.

There’s always much talk of what the Fringe can do for an artist’s career. There’s been decidedly less on how the festival we love is increasingly under (rightful) scrutiny as to how it perpetuates inequalities within the arts. Horizon was part of a sea-change last year when its Project Director, Verity Leigh, published a letter titled ‘Working for Change,’ setting out their ambition to ‘positively influence the Fringe ecology’:

“Even when [artists] are paid to participate, as they are with Horizon, for many artists the quick turnarounds between shows, performing in a non-purpose-built venue with limited tech, or sharing a space with seven other shows can present barriers to participating,” wrote Leigh. “They (and we) worry about venue staff and other artists being exploited, the space for audience care, and how accessible something of this scale can really be.”

But Horizon did not merely pay lip service to the idea of a more supportive, accessible Fringe. Their programme this year bears evidence of their mission to promote brilliant, thought-provoking works that do not conform to festival conventions.

“Horizon is a fantastic opportunity to bring a work to the Fringe that makes absolutely

A Crash Course in Cloudspotting

Photo: Paul Samuel White

zero sense in a traditional Edinburgh festival financial model,” says Rachel Mars, the artist behind FORGE, one of the works in the showcase. Over three days at the Lyceum’s workshop on Roseburn Street, Mars will be welding a copy of the infamous ‘welcome’ gate at Dachau, which was stolen and then replicated in 2014. Though audiences must book a time slot, they can stay and watch Mars work for as long as they like. Similarly, Karen Christopher and Tara Fatehi’s eight-hour durational performance, Always Already, allows their audiences to come and go throughout the day as they weave together song, dance, and textile practices.

These longer, more flexible runtimes create space for visitors to absorb work in their own time. They also open up new possibilities

around relaxed viewings and accessibility – a critical challenge given the festival’s famously gruelling pace.

This aspect is particularly resonant in Raquel Maseguer Zafe’s audio performance, A Crash Course in Cloudspotting, wherein participants are invited to lay down and rest while listening to personal accounts of those living with invisible disabilities. “It’s very difficult to bring site-specific work to the Fringe because of the model of many companies sharing spaces with short changeover times,” says Zafe. “So site-specific work isn’t well represented at the Fringe, when it’s such an alive art form in contemporary theatre, dance and live art. Horizon makes it possible for us to bring this work that also challenges and resists the fast-paced rhythm of the Fringe.”

Given that these works don’t fit the typical festival mould, finding the right venue is “always a challenge,” admits Zafe, but “[also] an adventure!” The power of site-specific work so often lies in the unique, mutually enhancing relationship between performance and space, wherein the performance might reshape audience understanding of familiar sites. For example, another showcase highlight, Ray Young’s BODIES, explores ideas around climate justice in a swimming pool.

Such works, which are designed to be experienced outside traditional performance spaces, must take extra pains, with more to risk – but

“Horizon makes it possible for us to bring this work that also challenges and resists the fast-paced rhythm of the Fringe ”

Raquel Meseguer Zafe

BODIES

Photo: William Townsend

all to gain. “FORGE has certain requirements of space size, natural light, airflow, safety for metal work, appropriateness of site in terms of its history and feeling, etcetera,” says Mars. “We’ve learnt over previous iterations that natural light and access to the world outside is glorious and necessary. This work needs to happen in the world, where you’re watching the metalwork and you can also hear birds, the weather –where you step back into the day having had whatever experience you’ve had. The world doesn’t stop when you are with the work.”

Taking performances outside the black box also allows for the work to be brought into its wider community in new, meaningful ways. As Zafe explains, Cloudspotting has thus far been performed in a library, a gallery, and a studio theatre. “Every space we place the work in affects the audience journey in and out of the piece,” she says. This shifting context is particularly vital in a work that’s re-framing how we conceive of rest – as something that’s worthy of our respect, even a creative force; but also essential to our everyday lives. “So it’s a piece that plays with scale, with place and connection. To elevate rest, we want to place the piece in ‘high art’ contexts, and we want to place it where our community will encounter the work.”

Outreach is a similarly important component of Mars’ work in FORGE. “We always host public conversations alongside the work that are about the ‘'what’s up’ and ‘what next’ for

memorials in that place.” Mars is currently working with the Edinburgh Art Festival to tap into current debates happening in the city, particularly around the capital’s links to the slave trade. “In terms of the Fringe, I think FORGE asks some questions about work and labour – what it is, what compulsion there is to repeat it, who controls it, and who benefits from it. For a festival that has historically exploited the labour of artists for the financial gain of not-the-artists, I think it’s an interesting context.”

SHOW Horizon Showcase: Bodies

VENUE: Summerhall @ Deans Community High School

TIME: times vary, 20 Aug, 26 Aug

SHOW Horizon Showcase: A Crash Course in Cloudspotting

VENUE: Summerhall (Offsite) @ Institut Français d’Ecosse

TIME: times vary, 22–24 Aug

SHOW Horizon Showcase: FORGE

VENUE: Lyceum Roseburn

TIME: times vary, 23–25 Aug

SHOW Horizon Showcase: Always Already

VENUE: Summerhall (Offsite) @ The LifeCare Centre, Stockbridge

TIME: 11:30am – 7:30pm, 23 Aug, 25 Aug

Photo: JMA Photography

Photo: Jemima Yong

Take Care

Ahead of his theatre show, Ben Target talks about grief, loss and comedy – and pays tribute to two men who have shaped his art and life

Words: Jay Richardson

Ben Target has always made comedy that marries beauty and poignancy with silliness, “performance art with punchlines”. Or “Artfool” as he’s dubbed it.

Yet despite receiving an Edinburgh Comedy Award newcomer nomination in 2012, the thoughtful comic has always stood slightly apart from the comedy industry, delivering singular, eccentric, often room-splitting shows, driven by creative curiosity rather than professional ambition.

Post-debut, he had a breakdown and attempted suicide. The support of fellow comics and a decade of “really hard work on myself” helped the 38-year-old recover. But his last

proper show was in 2018 and his motivation to perform waned further during the pandemic as he lost contact with audiences. However, he did reconnect with the man that raised him. Lorenzo Wong lived in London for more than forty years as an extended part of Target’s multi-generational family. But in September 2020, he was dying.

An assistant to their architect grandparents, Wong had nurtured Target and his brother. From military and draughtsman backgrounds, their parents had been “phenomenal providers”. But emotionally, “they came from a school of hard knocks” and wanted him to get a “sedate, conservative job”. When Target discovered performing, “it became very apparent I was a great disappointment”. He’s since “essentially turned my back” on them.

“Lorenzo was my favourite uncle, my caregiver as a child” he reflects. “He taught me many of the things that I value today. Irreverence. Mischief. And maybe most importantly, kindness, looking after the people around you.” Since his teenage years, Target has worked in the care sector, for the elderly and children with special needs. In 2017, co-founded The Care Home Tour with Pope Lonergan, featuring comics performing for people with dementia.

When Lorenzo got back in touch, after years living alone and with his health rapidly declining, Target and his cousin resolved to move in and nurse him in his final days. “I wanted to repay the care he had gifted me as a child, when he was the only adult I felt safe around” he explains.

A humble, celibate man who’d led a monachal life, the “smart, fascinating, silly” Lorenzo was nevertheless “disrespectful of authority” and had been expelled from Cuba. In Swinging Sixties London, he “knew people

Ben Target

Photo: Ed Moore

from all walks of society, gangsters, landed gentry, international playboys, famous models, human rights lawyers”.

Target asked Lorenzo if he could record their conversations. “Just for myself at first, figuring it would be an oral document to put in the family archive with my grandparents’ architectural drawings. Lorenzo knew no-one else would carry his legacy.”

Lockdown satisfied Target that his performing career was all but over yet he continued to direct and appear in other comedians’ shows. The day Lorenzo died, he thinks he was on stage with regular collaborator Joz Norris.

“Suddenly all this stuff about Lorenzo started flowing out of me. And it was making the audience laugh.”

Director Adam Brace, whose resume includes acclaimed recent shows for Liz Kingsman, Alex Edelman and Leo Reich, had become a friend in the meantime. And he persuaded Target there could be a show in his relationship with the older man.

“Adam was a phenomenal listener with a great eye for detail” Target recalls. “He effectively interviewed me for three months. We selected the most special bits, I went away, performed them and come back to him with transcripts. Then he and I would craft the lines.

“He had phenomenal discipline but liked how free my work was, unfettered by the expectations of the industry. I’m not motivated by money or status. Still, I was in a very cynical place, having lost all my work during the pandemic. Adam reconfirmed my belief in adventurousness and in making work with purpose, to lift people.”

Sadly, Brace also then died suddenly in April, aged 43 after a short illness.

Target is now “not only grieving a friend but also the loss of the show we were making together. I hope we have something that’s still rather special.

“It’s principally become a tribute to men I loved. Burying Adam, it was so important that we all came together, cried, hugged, laughed and shared stories, accepted that this person is gone in one form. I hope this show creates a space for people to be lovingly held, as we acknowledge the losses we’ve all just been through and live for what we really care for.”

SHOW Ben Target: LORENZO

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 11:55am – 1:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21

“Lorenzo knew no-one else would carry his legacy”

Ben Target

Photo: Ed Moore

20–27 AUGUST

Vital, genre-defying performances

The Talent Action Hero & Deborah Pearson

Birthmarked Brook Tate

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World The Javaad Alipoor Company

Always Already Haranczak/Navarre Performance Projects

FORGE Rachel Mars A Crash Course in Cloudspotting Raquel Meseguer Zafe/ Unchartered Collective BODIES Ray Young

TOM.

Photo © Genevieve Reeves

Thanks to our media supporters The Fest & Skinny

This Time for Edinburgh

Alex Hill, Lucy Hayes and Nell Bailey are all bringing footy to the Fringe and exploring soccer's wider cultural impact

Words: Evan Beswick

Sure, Hamlet killed a few folk, but he never missed a penalty in the Euro ’96 final. There is, of course, nothing more dramatic than football. Or, indeed, anything which dribbles so silkily past our critical defences, making neat passes straight into what we think of as a national psyche.

Think Bend it Like Beckham, which seemed to capture the multicultural optimism of the turn of the millennium; or Green Street, which exploited early 2000s lads lads lads. Or Dear England at the National this year, which saw Joseph Fiennes channeling exactly the opposite with a generous and empathetic portrayal of Gareth Southgate.

“Football is a whole world in itself and a great imitation of life. It’s utterly relatable to such a big group of people and I think that’s why it’s such a good lens to explore complex issues,” says Alex Hill, writer and performer of the exquisitely titled Why I Stuck A Flare Up My

Arse For England. His debut play tells the story of Billy, who finds belonging – for good and bad – as a die hard.

It’s a particularly masculine scene that Hill explores, one he experienced first hand both as a season ticket holder of ten years (Brentford: taken reluctantly as a child where “everything changed”) and in the run up to Euro ’20 final, “a wicked atmosphere on Wembley Way that slowly turned sour as the day progressed.

“Tribalism can have its benefits,” Hill explains. “Roy Williams said in an interview for his play Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads that football hooligans fascinate him, it’s not that he condones their behaviour but it makes him wonder ‘what happened to you?’ I find that an incredibly exciting and rich point of view to explore.”

Masculinity seeps between the lines of Lucy Hayes’ Bitter Lemons, too, but as a normalising force which shapes the paths of two ambitious women, one a goalkeeper, the other a

Image: courtesy of Pleasance

PITCH

banker. “I wanted to write about two fields where the culture was traditionally male,” Hayes explains. “I was interested both in how these characters might struggle against the expectations of their jobs, as well as on some level have desired and internalised them.”

Again, for Hayes football provides a unique artistic route into a culturally salient space. “I think it’s the sport that most tracks our national identity. Anyone can talk about or bond over football, and the country feels electric and united during a major football tournament.” But there’s a flip side: “Despite this, I’m amazed by how, as a woman, men have always been curious about ‘testing’ my knowledge, as if everyone is a gatekeeper to a boy’s club I’ve invited myself too.”

Football does, it seems, have a knack of shining a light on the fault lines in society – of dramatising its own contradictions: “It feels incredible that although the Lionesses won the Euros last year, we currently have a play about the men’s team on at the National Theatre,” observes Hayes.

The same goes for the experience of the LGBTQIA+ community – at once rejected by the sport (30 per cent of football fans around the time of the Qatar World Cup admitted that they’d find two men kissing at a match uncomfortable), and able to find community in its grassroots. That’s the subject of a new play, Pitch, directed by Nell Bailey. “We made a queer group of mates watching the women’s Euros last year, and that community has held fast,” Bailey says of her inauguration into the game. And it’s that same peculiar status of the England woman’s team which has provided a springboard for the work: “When Qatar boiled

down to a debate about a rainbow armband, and yet the Lionesses brought home the Euros with so many out gay players, it felt like the time to hold that disparity up to the light.”

Pitch is a devised piece, and I wonder if that team spirit had infused itself into the creative process. “Exactly that! It always had to be made with the cast and team. So working with the cast, and with [writer] Tatenda, the shaping of this script has come naturally. The difference here is we didn’t start with a script, so there’s been a huge learning in letting go of control, coming with far more questions than answers, and trusting completely in the talent of the team to find the characters and stories that feel authentic to them.”

So, it seems, footy mirrors art, and art, footy. There is, though, only one competition that counts. How many keepy uppies can each of them do?

Alex Hill: “I’m absolutely dreadful at football. If I got over 1, I’d be happy.”

Lucy Hayes: “100. I don’t have to prove it right?”

Nell Bailey, though, proves the game is nothing without the team: “Me? Like one. The team… Hundreds between ‘em.”

SHOW Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England

VENUE: theSpace @ Niddry St

TIME: 10:20pm – 11:10pm, 4–22 Aug, not 13

SHOW Bitter Lemons

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 2:20pm – 3:20pm, 2–28 Aug, not 16

SHOW Pitch

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 3:45pm – 4:45pm, 2–28 Aug, not 9, 16, 23

“Football is a whole world in itself and a great imitation of life”

Alex Hill

Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England

Trauma Bonds

The performers behind Lie Low, Sad-Vents and Summer Camp for Broken People discuss mining trauma for art and connection

Words: Kirstyn Smith

Not everyone’s born with gallows humour. While some are happy to exert it thoughtlessly or problematically, there are others for whom it dug its roots in deep after a traumatic experience or a loss, leaving them reluctant but “happy” members of the Gallows Humour Club. This club is one Ciara Elizabeth Smyth is fine to be a member of.

“If you want to make that a thing, I’m on board,” she says. “We can have wine.”

Smyth’s “gallows” refers to theatre-makers granting their audience the permission to laugh at what they are presenting. Her show Lie Low is about nightmares and trauma and trying to find yourself again. It’s a dark mixture of incidents that have happened to her, experiences she has a unique perspective on, and things she’s made up.

“One of the influences for the play was I got a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she explains. “And it was manifesting itself in a way I really hadn’t anticipated. I was convinced I was going to get murdered.”

It’s a heavy sentence, she admits, but can’t help laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of what her mind was insistent would happen to her. Letting the audience respond in the same way and not gatekeeping their reactions is an important part of her work.

“I’m very serious about comedy,” she says. “There’s a real physical connection there, a real generosity to it, and a mathematical element that I find really exciting.”

This makes sense. Laughter is an innate reaction, so when we laugh unexpectedly at something that isn’t, on the surface, accept-

Photo: Joe Twigg

Sad-vents

able or amusing, we can feel shock or horror at our response. That’s what Smyth and fellow trauma explorers are hoping to extract from their audiences.

“It’s tragicomedy, heavy on the comedy,” says Eleanor Hill, whose one-woman show SadVents emerged from a real breakdown she had during lockdown. It was an unhidden, unfiltered experience for Hill, who couldn’t connect with anyone in real life due to restrictions, so turned instead to Instagram to scream into the void.

“I spent a lot of time at home in my room just losing my mind,” she continues. “I put it all over Instagram because that was my portal to the outside world. Now I’m well, I looked at it and thought, ‘This is potentially art, in a really tragic way.’”

Hill remains steadfastly behind her phone for most of the performance, with audiences encouraged to take photos or videos, and reply to messages she’ll be sending them throughout. This digital/in-person confusion is inspired by Hill noticing what she calls, “secret watchers”: people she knew who would religiously binge her Insta-breakdown, but never reach out in real life. By placing her audience behind their screens, she essentially transforms them into these viewers and forces them to consider how we view the performativity, or sincere lack thereof, of social media. Pics or it didn’t happen.

For Emily Beecher, whose Summer Camp for Broken People deals with spending her time in two different spaces: the Priory and being

a single mum to an eight-year-old, the space inhabited by someone experiencing trauma is also a central theme.

“It’s about how we navigate different spaces when we’re unwell,” she says. “But also about what it takes to put a broken human spirit back together.”

This question is explored through a variety of media: projection, sound design, video. Their ability to shift and change mimics Beecher’s experiences of constantly having to move from one mental space to another, questioning her role in things, challenging pre-existing notions of trauma and recovery, and wanting to “burn the fucking house down.

“Theatre as a medium for trauma is conversational. It’s live and it’s visceral. I can feel the audience, but they can also feel me and each other. That’s an incredible thing to have when you’re talking about something like trauma which is isolating. It’s an amazing way to make us feel less alone.”

SHOW Summer Camp for Broken People

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 1:30pm – 2:30pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21

SHOW Lie Low

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 3–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

SHOW Sad-Vents

VENUE: Underbelly, Bristo Square

TIME: 2:30pm – 3:30pm, 4–28 Aug, not 14

Lie Low

Photo: Alex Brenner

Photo: Ciaran Bagnall

Summer Camp for Broken People

Good Vibrations

MEMBER and TOM are two pieces of theatre whose powerful queer stories are amplified by the addition of live music on stage

Words: Laura Kressly

“Iapproach music from a place of embodied emotion, using sound as a tool to reflect different and complex emotional states. The live music is used to support the text, evoke different environments and to reflect the characters’ internal worlds. The music really becomes the second presence on stage, it becomes a storyteller”, says cellist Simone Seales about music in the show MEMBER, that they created with Ben Noble. This show, and artistic pair BULLYACHE’s (Courtney Tyler Deyn

and Jacob Samuel) debut production TOM, both incorporate music in exciting ways to tell queer stories and bring audiences together. The theatre and music combination is a familiar one, and for good reason. As Seales suggests, it is a powerful creative device that communicates what words can’t. It also fundamentally shapes how artists make a show. BULLYACHE explain: “We start with the music, what feels right to us and how it supports what we’re trying to approach. Making the

Photo: Genevieve Reeves

Photo: Deryk McAlpin

TOM

MEMBER

work is us trying to understand the show and trying to understand ourselves. The fluidity of music allows that”.

The music also plays a key role in conveying queer narratives. MEMBER tells a true, traumatising story from Australia’s queer history. Noble shares, “During the haunting period of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, known as the 'gay-hunting' era in Sydney, gay men were specifically targeted, hunted down, assaulted, and even killed. Shockingly, over 80 murders occurred during that time.” Given this trauma, Seales adds that, “live music can provide an anchor point. Unfortunately, we are still exposed to queer hate crimes and hate speech, to the point that some of us may have become dissociated from it. Live music gives people the opportunity to open up to the raw emotions that exist in the present and in the past”.

TOM is grounded in more recent history. BULLYACHE detail, “we started during the pandemic along with our sobriety as an act of us coming together to create something beautiful that embraced a journey of healing.” The show also demonstrates how varied the use of music in performance can be: “we make working class, queer reconstructions of classical texts through the lens of a pop music video. We use music videos as a vehicle to communicate our ideas to audiences. Their iconography, pacing, and layering are tools that we use to experiment with theatre”.

As well as communicating stories, music has the ability to bring people together in ways other forms of performance don’t. Think

of the euphoria at raves, gigs, and even a good karaoke session. Seales notes “it encourages the audience to pay attention in more than one way, and gives them the ability to connect in more than one way. If someone cannot connect to the text, then they can connect to the music”. BULLYACHE recognise this, as well as the dual function of performance and its component parts: “ultimately we want to entertain and engage our audiences with groundbreaking work where each element could stand on its own.”

By variously drawing on text, video, and dance in addition to the artists’ queerness and commitment to music, TOM’s audiences will get the myth of Orpheus, the DWP, and “a melodramatic, deconstructed pageant of exhaustion. Faggotry, pop music, slutty Nijinsky and commercial-dancing”. MEMBER asks, “what leads a person to be drawn into the herd mentality? What leads a person to commit an act of violence?” Ultimately, these two shows use music well beyond the more familiar queer forms of musical theatre, drag and cabaret, to thrilling effect.

SHOW MEMBER

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 2:00pm – 3:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

SHOW Horizon Showcase: TOM

VENUE: Zoo Southside

TIME: 6:25pm – 7:25pm, 21–27 Aug, not 23

Photo: Beth Chalmers

Simone Seales

“Live music gives people the opportunity to open up to the raw emotions that exist in the present and in the past”

Simone Seales

by

27th of August @

TARANTARA

JULIAN CLARY MICHAEL & HILARY WHITEHALL DAME ARLENE PHILLIPS JANEY GODLEY STEPHANIE BEACHAM

BIGGINS WITH

Rooted in the System

We catch up with reggae legend Levi Roots about his first foray into the world of musical theatre with Sound Clash: Death in the Arena

Words: Becca Inglis

To get to the root of why reggae artist, entrepreneur, and St Paul’s Carnival director Levi Roots has chosen to dabble in musical theatre, we first have to go back to 2007, when he successfully pitched his kitchen staple Reggae Reggae Sauce to Dragon’s Den. “Everybody said to me, ‘Levi, don’t take the guitar,’” he says. “But I wanted to bring something different to the table. It’s the same thing – a couple of years ago, I thought to myself, well, I’ve never seen a stage play about dancehall music and sound systems.”

Sound Clash: Death In The Arena is Roots’ first stage production, set in a dystopian world ruled by two rival sound systems. As The Thunders and The Eagles battle for supremacy in Sound City, two star-crossed lovers find themselves caught between. Roots says that he’s remixing classics like Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, but with one crucial difference. “I want to do a ‘sound play’, which is mixing sound systems and stage acting together,” he says.

Roots spent 45 years embedded in sound system culture, holding down residencies with London’s Sir Coxsone Outernational after he left school. He’s peppered his musical with the scene’s key ingredients – the dancing, the selecting and the classic reggae records that form a DJ’s weaponry at a sound clash, beefed up onstage by the familiar weight of bass. “This is what makes it the first dancehall musical. Instead of the artist singing, it’s a sound system that’s going to play the songs,” he says. “I

wanted it to be authentic. When you say ‘sound clash’, for people that know about sound systems – like David Rodigan or Coxson or Saxon Sound System – it’s like a war in there.”

Part of his motivation for putting sound system culture onstage has been to introduce it to new audiences. “I was always thinking of how I can bring this fantastic genre to the mainstream,” he says. Despite its sizeable impact on music on both sides of the

Photo: Tony Attille

Levi Roots

Atlantic, Roots believes that Jamaica’s export still doesn’t get the full credit it deserves for inspiring genres like drum & bass, jungle, grime and hip-hop. “The great Jah Shaka is responsible for these young artists who are making millions out of these types of music,” he says. “Kool Herc is down in history as one of the key people that brought Jamaican music to America. Rapping has become like sliced bread now.”

Implied in any celebration of sound systems is a tribute to the Windrush generation, whose outsized impact on British culture began with the records they imported. “The Windrush people used sound systems to gather themselves when they came to this country,” says Roots. “They were creating music in their houses, then having competitions between each other with a normal old radiogram.” Just as West Side Story once drew from Latin music

to portray New York’s evolving demographics, Sound Clash evokes the vibrancy of multicultural Britain, though with a degree of authenticity that Bernstein could not match. To bring his story to life, Roots enlisted help from an old school friend, the award-winning author Alex Wheatle MBE (who also happens to be a graduate of the Crucial Rocker sound system, where he DJed as Yardman Irie). “Alex fell in love with the whole thing, because that’s his background as well,” says Roots.

At its heart, Sound Clash is a story about overcoming adversity – something that Roots knows plenty about. “I proved to the world that you can be a dreadlocked Rastaman from Brixton that sings a little bit, cooks a little bit,” he says. Now he’s a cultural ambassador, helping to throw open doors into the theatre industry or encouraging hopeful entrepreneurs at St Paul’s Carnival. Only the day before we speak, he’s been at Buckingham Palace at the King’s invitation, marking the 75th anniversary of the Windrush. “My mum died a couple of years ago,” he says, “and I know she would have been proud to know that she came from Jamaica with absolutely nothing but a dream, and now we’re representing that generation. I do it for her.”

SHOW Sound Clash: Death in the Arena

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 4:10pm – 5:20pm, 2–28 Aug, not 8, 21

Photo: Pawel Spolnicki

Sound Clash

“I proved to the world that you can be a dreadlocked Rastaman from Brixton that sings a little bit, cooks a little bit”

Jazzing It Up

The multi-Grammy Award-winning singer Cécile McLorin

Salvant tells us about her two International Festival performances and the radical potential of jazz

Words: Claire Sawers

“For the last ten years or so, a lot of my audience have come along expecting a straight ahead jazz singer,” says multi-awardwinning artist Cécile McLorin Salvant, chatting over the phone while she strolls near her apartment in Brooklyn. “That’s fine of course, but it’s also overlooking a huge part of my interests and maybe denying what jazz really is. Jazz has long been associated with radical ideas, it has a rich feminist history. Jazz is also very gay, historically it’s very queer music!”

Salvant has made a name for herself with her spellbinding cocktail of jazz, blues, folk, vaudeville and musical theatre, with some voodoo, modern feminism, political activism and ancient mythology stirred into the potent mix too. She has won three Grammys and last year’s album Ghost Song made The New York Times' and NPR’s album of the year lists. She brings two performances to Edinburgh; the first is the UK premiere of her dark fairy-tale musical Ogresse, the second is a solo

concert of reimagined jazz standards and rare musical discoveries sung in French, English, Occitan or Haitian Creole, featuring new tracks from her latest album Mélusine.

Ogresse was partly inspired by the true story of Saartje Baartman, a black South African woman exhibited in European ‘freak shows’ during the 19th century, where people paid to look at her large buttocks. Salvant has a Haitian father and French mother and grew up listening to a broad range of music styles from her mother’s travels in Africa, South America and Europe. She incorporated Haitian goddess folklore into Ogresse, with 17 songs drawing from country, folk, baroque and jazz styles.

“Performing Ogresse is tiring, it’s emotionally and physically draining. I almost go into a trance-like state to carry the story, along with the 13-piece band. I’m really in it, believing it, I go somewhere else,” she explains.

Salvant describes her story of a forest dwelling lovesick monster as ‘a heartbreaking tale with black comedy and romance’. “For Ogresse I exaggerated the female character’s blackness and fatness. It deals with the male gaze. It asks questions – like what is female beauty? What is fatphobia? I cry about the issues it touches on, but I have to laugh at them and make light of them too. It’s hard waking up every day and having to deal with sexism and racism and body horror, but we do.”

Mélusine is based on a story written in the 1300s about a beautiful half woman, half snake who is seen skinnydipping in the Fountain of Thirst by a grief stricken man called Raymondin. From there, Salvant weaves in her own songwriting and storytelling with adaptations

“Jazz has long been associated with radical ideas, it has a rich feminist history. Jazz is also very gay, historically it’s very queer music!”

of jazz songs including ‘Il m’a vue nue’, originally sung by the French entertainer Mistinguett in the 1920s.

“It’s funny because that song is intensely prudish. Mistinguett is acting coy and pure and innocent because a man has seen her naked, but obviously we’re listening knowing she’s putting on an act. We know she’s been around the block. There’s a power in that performance of femininity. Women still do it – act shy when they are hooking up with a guy. They are protecting their reputation and bamboozling him at the same time. They are being a con and a lot of guys are dupes; some men aren’t interested in female sexuality at all.”

The patriarchy, white supremacy and gender politics will all be explored during Salvant’s two evenings in Edinburgh, where a strong visual aesthetic plays a key role alongside her

striking voice. She will perform in costume, with her own vivid, multicoloured artworks projected around the stage.

“For women, of course it’s great to walk into a room and be appreciated for our beauty, maybe to be considered stunning, but we also want to be appreciated for being individual. To know that we are adding something new to the monolith of being a woman.”

SHOW Cécile McLorin Salvant: Ogresse

VENUE: Festival Theatre

TIME: 8:00pm – 9:30pm, 5 Aug

SHOW Cécile McLorin Salvant in Concert

VENUE: Usher Hall

TIME: 7:30pm – 8:40pm, 7 Aug

Photo: Pawel Spolnicki

Cécile McLorin Salvant

Shadows of Dusk

Merging film and theatre, director Christiane Jatahy discusses racism, toxic masculinity and the rise of the farright in her work, which is based on Lars von Trier’s Dogville

Words: Veronica Finlay

Following the rise of the far-right in her native Brazil, Christiane Jatahy set out to explore the mechanisms of fascism in Dusk It’s the first part in the Trilogy of Horror, which also tackles toxic masculinity and racism, and while the subject matters are challenging, she’s convinced that the time is right. “I believe in the intelligence and the interest of the audience,” she says on a crackling phone call from Zurich. “Something happened after COVID and now, everywhere, theatres are full. People go because they want to be in a collective, to feel that they’re part of something. And you can talk about political issues and provoke this communication that only live art can provoke.”

Blending film and theatre, Dusk tells the story of Graça fleeing the oppressive regime in Brazil in search of a new life. She joins a community of artists who attempt to rewrite Lars von Trier’s Dogville because they don’t want to follow the trajectory of the film, by failing to accept a stranger. But although they’re open to change, initially welcoming Graça into the group, faced with the risk of losing their privilege, they start to repeat the same violent actions against the Other.

“I always think about the relationship between present and past,” Jatahy says. “I think it’s very important to not forget the past to be able to transform our present moment.” When Bolsonaro won the election, she was stunned to realise that history might repeat itself, despite democracy in Brazil being relatively young.

“Even people who thought they would recognise fascism, started to change their minds and think that these horrible things being said are normal,” she says. “For me it was unbelievable –and then I remembered Dogville.”

She’s conflicted about the film for various reasons, one of them being von Trier’s

“There’s a real danger if I stop to see that the Other is a person like me”

Photo: Estelle Valente

Christiane Jatahy

depiction of the characters, particularly women. “But at the same time, it represents the violence very well,” she acknowledges, “and the idea to help the Other, who then becomes someone who has a debt. And then this person becomes an object, and then finally you can do whatever you want because they’re not human beings anymore.”

In Brazil, the Other are people on a lower social level who, when they ask for their rights, become a risk to those who have something to lose. But Jatahy stresses that the problem is not unique to Brazil: “I think it’s possible to [draw parallels] with Europe when immigrants or refugees arrive and people fear that there are too many of them and they will create social issues. But we can’t forget that society is built on movement; our parents and grandparents were immigrants and refugees, and it’s because of this that society exists.”

Jatahy hopes that Dusk is the beginning of a conversation about how we can take

our responsibility, as human beings, and ask ourselves why we keep repeating the same mistakes. “Dogville or Dusk are kind of fables,” she says. “There’s a real danger if I stop to see that the Other is a person like me.”

Jatahy believes that change is possible and she emphasises her belief in the audience once more: “We live in very complex and challenging times, where it’s difficult to know what is true and what is not true. Narratives are invented. The internet has helped create superficial narratives and [the endgame] is to keep the power in the same hands. But when we talk about the theatre, I believe it’s possible to open a dialogue and to open minds. Because I don’t believe that people really want to live on the surface.”

SHOW Dusk

VENUE: The Lyceum

TIME: times vary, 5–8 Aug

Photo: Magali Dougados

Party Down Under

Meet the drag artists from Australasia who are ready to turn the Fringe upside down

Words: Francesca Peschier

Australasia has a fair slice of the global drag royalty pie: the superstars of Drag Race

Down Under, iconic Dame Edna Everage and the cultural meteor of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Plus, there is a long tradition of drag from down under that subverts the artform, from Leigh Bowery to contemporary drag king Sexy Galexy.

What makes Australian and New Zealand drag different from the rest of the world? “Larrikinism, mateship and authenticity,” says Skye Scraper (The Life and Times of a Drag Queen Accountant). “Australian drag artists can take a joke far better than most of them.” According

to Perth troupe, The Hairy Godmothers, it’s the scene’s ability to be “unique, to carve out its own identity,” although they have found that the Australian sense of humour can sometimes get lost in translation. “There are some songs, or jokes that people find really funny or thought provoking, and the same line in a different country could get no reaction.”

Perth, where three of the acts spoken to for this feature originate, seems to be a hotbed of innovation. “Darling, Perth does drag different!” effuses Skye. “We’re the most isolated city in the world – we can’t escape, so we need to connect and grow a strong community.” This rings true as alongside her solo show, you can find Skye acting the ‘colossus of camp’ in Perth legend Ginava’s Messy Friends with with Mary Lamb O God, Flynn V, Bobby Knox and Bebe Babow. “Each of these artists represent a unique corner of drag,” explains Ginava, and bringing them treats audiences to a full spectrum – it’s a veritable drag Avengers.

If you are looking for a place to start your road to Oz, The Hairy Godmothers have got a pumpkin carriage waiting for you. Encompassing LGBTQIA+ performers and allies, hailing from a wide range of backgrounds including academia, law, engineering and piano, the Godmothers recognise that “we all have something to learn from each other.” Their unique mix of drag and pantomime was born out of a group of mates wanting to create something meaningful for the 2020 Perth Fringe. Their Edinburgh debut, Dizney in Drag: Once Upon a Parody, a nostalgic comedy musical, is the ide-

Photo: Matto Lucas Leather Lungs

al gateway Fringe show with familiar fairytale narratives given an adult twist. Their second offering for this year, WET explores all facets of what it is to be a woman through kaleidoscopic cabaret offerings. “There’s comedy skits, heartfelt poems, cathartic contemporary dances – even physics lectures,” Godmother Jae West explains. It’s an artistic smorgasbord ensuring “everyone is welcome into this space.”

If you prefer a more intimate hour with some of Oz’s leading talent, join ‘Kwozzie’ (a Kiwi born of both Maori and English descent, based in Aussie) Leather Lungs for their self-titled show Leather Lungs: Higher Love. Through “sprinkling moments of vocal masturbation on top to shock and excite,” Leather Lungs brings their own flavour of “hilarious but heartbreaking” cabaret with a powerhouse voice that boasts four octaves to the average mortals’ two.

Drag necessitates chameleon-like powers, something Leather Lungs has in droves. Their previous impersonation show saw them rattle through 27 famous voices. But there is also a power in drag to uncover and accentuate aspects of self. For Leather Lungs, their personae

allow them to create meaningful connections whilst standing with the vulnerable. “Leather Lungs is an extension of the day-to-day,” they explain. “They have all the courage and fearlessness to say and do things others might be afraid to.”

Simarlily, Ginava, while known for their ‘acid’ drag featuring incredible full costumes and make up transformations, is aiming to strip it back through Messy Friends. The performers are unmasked in verbatim interviews played throughout the show, creating a generous and inclusive invitation to their inner lives. “I’ve often found transphobes and homophobes are scared of what they don’t understand,” says Ginava. “This is an opportunity to tell our unapologetically authentic stories, humanising drag and queer performers without an agenda, which arguably is what the world needs right now.”

In the UK, where we are facing an increasingly hostile climate towards drag, connected with a frightening rise in transphobia, it feels vital to see diverse and representative LGBTQIA+ work. For Leather Lungs, maintaining a hope that their confrontation of trauma

Photo: Kaifu Deng

Ginava's Messy Friends

through art might “inspire someone else in their own journey” is paramount. The Hairy Godmothers see their art as education through entertainment.

“If we can empower change to the benefit of this beautiful community, that has so much value to share, then that’s a massive win.” And they put their money where their glitter lips are, donating $1 for every ticket sold to their June shows to Transcend Australia, a charity working to support trans, gender diverse and non-binary children. Ginava summarises their message simply: “To my gender diverse people out there, I see you. To my heteronormative thinkers, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Leather Lungs adds, “It’s important as a queer person to show up, be seen, tell our stories and put a spotlight on the fact that we aren’t going anywhere and we are shining examples of success and kindness!”

SHOW Ginava’s Messy Friends

VENUE: Assembly George Square Gardens

TIME: 5:55pm – 6:55pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

SHOW Skye Scraper: The Life and Times of a Drag Queen Accountant

VENUE: Assembly George Square Studios

TIME: 9:30pm – 10:30pm, 4–27 Aug, not 15

SHOW Leather Lungs: Higher Love

VENUE: House of Oz

TIME: 9:30pm – 10:20pm, 4–27 Aug, not 9, 14, 21

SHOW Dizney in Drag: Once Upon a Parody

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

TIME: 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 3–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

SHOW Wet

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

TIME: 9:45pm – 10:45pm, 15–27 Aug, not 21

Photo: ADB Imagery

Photo: Sahan

Skye Scraper

Dizney in Drag

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An immersive 360° dome experience, set to the official 1973 album, in spectacular surround sound

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Staging a Revolution

The creatives

behind After the Act (A Section 28 Musical) and Public tell us why musical present fertile ground for discussing gender and identity

Words: Katie Goh

“A musical feels like a fun Trojan horse for having important conversations,” says Ellice Stevens, the co-writer and a cast member of After the Act (A Section 28 Musical). “It’s emotional and serious, but it’s also camp and dramatic. Yes it’s about legislation, but it’s also about Margaret Thatcher in a huge wig prancing about the stage.”

After the Act arrives at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 20 years after Section 28 was repealed in England and Wales (the act was repealed earlier, after 17 years, in Scotland). Stevens, alongside her co-writer and the show’s director Billy Barrett, were both in

school during Section 28, which was a piece of legislation that prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities, such as schools.

“We interviewed over 30 students, teachers, activists who were all impacted by the legislation,” says Barrett. “We set those interviews along with archive material such as parliament debates around legislation to an original musical score which references ‘80s pop music of the time. There’s Margaret Thatcher’s famous speech which led to Section 28 set to a Bonnie Tyler-esque power ballad, and tabloid news headlines about the AIDS crisis and fear

mongering turned into a sort of Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’.”

Although After the Act is a historical musical set in the late 20th century, Barrett and Stevens see similarities in contemporary conversations and politics around LGBTQ+ rights. “Since we’ve started making the show, it’s become more relevant,” says Stevens. “It doesn’t feel wildly dissimilar to conversations happening now. We were making After the Act when the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill got blocked, for example, and now there are conversations happening around drag storytimes. It feels very relevant and that’s why we’re excited about bringing it to the Fringe and the potential of international audiences seeing it.”

Like Barrett and Stevens, the creative team behind another musical exploring LGBTQ+ experiences at the Fringe were similarly inspired by the potential accessibility of the musical form. “Public – The Musical is a pop-rock musical with original music that follows four strangers who get trapped in a gender neutral bathroom for an hour,” explains the show’s producer, Hannah Sands. “They’re four very different people who would normally never choose to share a space with each other. The musical explores the joys and challenges we all face when we step outside and into society; the masks we put on and the roles we fall into.”

In recent years, gender neutral public toilets have also become a target for transpho-

bia and homophobia, something at the forefront of Public’s creative team’s minds. “We want to share with more people that these places exist and that they’re not something to be intimidated by or afraid of,” says Sands. “If anything they should become an accessible and open part of the structures of our society. We hope by sharing this story in an entertaining and accessible way, we can introduce and open up that idea to more audiences.”

For Public’s makers, the musical form was the perfect way to connect audiences with serious ideas around identity struggles, the climate crisis and the rising cost of living that are explored in the show. “I think we’re too quick to roll our eyes at musicals,” says Sands. “Like they’re too commercial or too easy. But audiences love them and that’s not something to be scoffed at; it’s something to be celebrated. I think it’s extraordinary to not only offer an audience the chance to laugh, but also the chance to care about something that they didn’t even think that they had an emotional attachment to – and I think that’s the gift of musicals.”

SHOW Public – The Musical

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 2–28 Aug, not 9, 21

SHOW After The Act (A Section 28 Musical)

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 3–27 Aug, not 4, 7, 14, 21

Photo: Alex Brenner

After The Act

“The musical explores the joys and challenges we all face when we step outside and into society; the masks we put on and the roles we fall into”

Hannah Sands

Fear and Loving in the Circus

The innovators behind The Wing Scuffle Spectacular and Party Ghost talk about celebrating fear

Words: George Sully

Of the many modes of self-expression available to audiences at the festivals, few carry as much inherent risk as the circus. That’s arguably the chief draw, after all. And while the art form’s history is steeped in bravado, spectacle and exploitation, it has stayed fresh thanks to scores of new, young companies refining, challenging and modernising the discipline.

Fear, naturally, has always played a core role. But where traditional circus might have portrayed its players as fearless daredevils, modern efforts take a more honest, personal approach. The Revel Puck Circus, an East London-based troupe formed in 2018, is bringing

The Wing Scuffle Spectacular to Edinburgh for the first time. Fiona Thornhil, the outfit’s general manager (and resident Cyr wheeler), calls it “a celebration of fear”.

“It’s real people doing extraordinary skills,” she says. “We’re not afraid of things going wrong. In fact, we lean into it.”

There has been a growing trend in contemporary circus – particularly in younger companies – of weaving performers’ individual stories into the fabric of a production. In that vein, Wing Scuffle’s 10-strong cast each have routines tailored to their personal fears, and we, as the audience, join their journey in facing them. (Via, of course, a clown who “is scared of everything”.)

The Revel Puck Circus

Image: courtesy of Underbelly

From the other side of the world, another troupe seeks to explore the personal while deconstructing circus conventions. Australians Olivia Porter and Jarred Dewey – both seasoned acrobats in their own right – stormed the Adelaide Fringe this year, winning the overall Best Circus award for Party Ghost

An intimate, darkly comic two-person show, Party Ghost marries Porter’s fascination with death and Dewey’s fascination with birthdays, uniting their complementary specialisms and senses of humour. Unlike Wing Scuffle, this is very much not for kids – though they couldn’t give me much in the way of specifics without spoilers. “It’s a show of reveals,” says Dewey.

“The one thing we can tell you,” says Porter, “is you’ll never be able to listen to ‘Hello’ by Adele the same way ever again.” The press imagery and trailer feature spooky doll heads, birthday hats, strangulation and dismemberment – so take from that what you will.

These two shows also represent very different scales of production. The Pucks (as Thornhill affectionately calls them) have taken the traditions of a big top circus show – big cast, big stunts, fun for all the family – and channelled them into a modern, inclusive joyride that doesn’t compromise the company’s values.

“It is born out of the idea that circus should evolve and be accessible for absolutely everyone, from every walk of life,” says Thornhill proudly. As a company, they are founded on an ethos of community outreach, sustainability and empowerment, ensuring everyone in the troupe has a voice. “A bunch of mates who are trying to do circus in the right way in the 21st century.”

Not that Porter and Dewey are against the idea of big variety spectaculars or ensemble

productions. They met while doing La Clique in Leicester Square in 2016 (“immediately there was a kind of an alchemy between us,” says Dewey), and have massive respect for those kinds of shows.

“Because you get to see the five minutes of the best that artists can do,” Dewey continues. “But this show gives an audience 50 minutes to get to know us as people, which is a lot more intimate.”

They’ve both relished the opportunity to have total control over both the macro and micro. ”It’s my pride and joy show,” beams Porter. Like The Wing Scuffle Spectacular, Party Ghost is an expression of its constituent members, writ large and yet captivatingly personal.

“We like to make light of dark things and just have a really good time, and have the audience have a really good time too,” says Dewey, before pausing a moment and adding: “While doing some sweet tricks.”

SHOW The Revel Puck Circus: The Wing Scuffle Spectacular

VENUE: Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows

TIME: 4:10pm – 5:10pm, 5–26 Aug, not 14, 21

SHOW Party Ghost

VENUE: Assembly Checkpoint

TIME: 2:55pm – 3:55pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21

Photo: Hamish McCormick

Party Ghost

“We’re not afraid of things going wrong”

Fiona Thornhill

“GORGEOUSLY

Nurture Nature

Niall Moorjani talks about the joy to be found in gardening

Words: Rho Chung

Grow is an interactive story about caring for a friend’s garden allotment while they’re away. The instructions for looking after the allotment are simple: say hello to the animals, check on the plants, and help a new plant to grow. The show is a natural follow-on from writer and director Niall Moorjani’s celebrated works on nature and identity Faerie Tale, Mohan and Selkie. In work for both children and adults, Moorjani has consistently offered novel methods for recognising and loving ourselves.

“I really wanted to ground the show in this notion of [nature] being accessible to… any urban audience,” Moorjani says. “Most people don’t have access to big gardens. Even if you’re not living in a city, or if you’re in a smaller town, you might have a little garden with a little vegetable patch. I wanted the show to still express the joy that you get from the natural world in those spaces, too.”

One of Moorjani’s main goals with the production is to impart a skill to the young audience. “I like the idea that a little two-yearold who has no concept [of gardening] could come and have a basic understanding of how to grow a plant by the end of it.

“It’s very cheesy, but it’s a very deliberate thing that all the other animals help the gardener grow the plant. The natural world will tell you what it needs, if you’re just able to sit and listen to it.” The garden animals in Moorjani’s script aren’t scary or annoying. They exist in symbiosis with the gardener and the allotment, and they are an essential part of the ecosystem.

When working with such a young age group, Moorjani says, strong visuals are essential. Diana Redgrave and Vickie Holden, who developed the show alongside Moorjani, lend the show an even stronger clowning bent. The show is brought to life by moments of physical comedy discovered through devising.

Niall Moorjani

Image: courtesy of the artist

“The natural world will tell you what it needs”

Moorjani says that multiple sensory elements are essential to making the show entertaining for young children. The audience will get to hold things, even make things. There are things to touch and smell and questions to answer. The experience of watching Grow mirrors in many ways the experience of gardening. It’s all listening, learning, and responding. The show’s actual duration is closer to 25 minutes – the remaining time in the show’s slot will be spent doing a simple craft.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the impetus for Grow originates in part from the climate crisis, as well as from the ever-shrinking well of opportunities to engage with nature while living in a city. “We are robbing ourselves of the potential for these spaces to be immensely positive while the climate crisis rages on,” Moorjani says.

The show highlights the thought that, like our plants, we, too, are worthy of care, pa-

tience, and celebration – that engaging with those processes can be fun and invigorating. If we can employ patience and gentleness in the growing of a plant, can we not extend that same care to ourselves and our communities?

It’s not often that we get to see something inspired by possibility – by the potential for our children to grow up in a framework that celebrates and cohabitates with nature. Sitting in a concrete-paved, generally un-tilled garden while talking to Moorjani, we can already feel the pull of the soil. Through its unwavering commitment to play and community, Moorjani’s writing inspires something deeply essential: hope.

SHOW Grow

VENUE: Scottish Storytelling Centre

TIME: 10:30am – 11:10am, 4–27 Aug, not 9, 16, 23

Photo: Alice Tucker and Discover Children’s Storytelling Centre

Vickie Holden

Black History Walking Tours Lisa Williams on

Lisa Williams, founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association, has been running Black history walking tours of Edinburgh for a number of years, using the city’s built heritage to highlight its deep links with Africa and the Caribbean over the past 500 years. Here, Williams spotlights seven locations in the city which have connections to Black people with heritage across the globe, who visited and lived in Edinburgh and have fascinating legacies.

Parliament House

Three important legal cases were brought by Black men previously enslaved in the Americas during the 18th century when advertisements for the return of “runaway slaves” in Scotland were commonplace. They insisted that being held against their will or forced abroad was illegal under Scots law. Joseph Knight, a young man formerly enslaved in Jamaica, won the landmark case of Knight v Wedderburn in 1778 that led to his freedom and that of others in Scotland.

Old Medical School, Teviot Place

The first of several medical students at the University of Edinburgh from the Caribbean and Africa in the 19th century was Scottish Jamaican William Ferguson who went on to become the governor of Sierra Leone. James ‘Africanus’ Beale Horton graduated in medicine in 1859, wrote several books and became one of the wealthiest men in Africa. Clara Christian from Dominica, the first Black woman to enrol in 1915, was a member of the pan-African Afro West Indian Association.

Assembly Rooms, George Street

On 1 May 1846, while living in Edinburgh, African American abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass made an impassioned speech for the abolition of enslavement with the tale of Madison Washington’s dramatic takeover of a slave ship. The many speeches Frederick made across Scotland demanded that the breakaway Free Church of Scotland send back the “bloodstained money” they had received from American enslavers. The Quaker women of the Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society took up the cause.

Assembly Rooms

Old Medical School

Parliament House

Photo: Sylvia Stanley,

CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Lauren Hunter

Photo: Lauren Hunter

Adelphi Theatre, Little King Street

African American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge played the role of Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus here in 1845. Born free in 1807 in New York, Ira had been the first Black man to play Othello at the age of 17. He starred in abolitionist dramas, created heroic roles for Black men and directly addressed his audiences on abolition. One review of his Edinburgh performance stated that it was “exceedingly clever and effective, tempered by dignity and discretion”.

Carubbers Close Mission (65 High St)

African American journalist and civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells spoke here in 1893 as part of a UK tour to denounce the practice of lynching at home. Working alongside anti-racists and anti-imperialists, her experience was like being “born into a new world”. Ida also fought for women’s suffrage and co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in the U.S. in 1909.

Boteco do Brasil, Lothian Street

During the 1820s, this was the location of the taxidermy studio of John Edmonstone from Demerara (now Guyana). Previously enslaved on a timber plantation by a Scottish family, John had learned taxidermy from naturalist John Waterton. Using these skills on arrival in Scotland in 1817, he sold exotic animal specimens to museums. John taught taxidermy to Edinburgh University students for a guinea an hour, including an appreciative Charles Darwin in 1826.

York Place

British Honduras House on York Place was a hostel for the 900 lumberjacks who came from British Honduras (now Belize) to provide the timber needed during World War Two. They were stationed in camps across rural Scotland, and the hostel was their base when visiting Edinburgh. One of the men, Sam Martinez, worked as a cook here after the war. Sam remained in Edinburgh until his death aged 106 surrounded by a large and loving family.

Follow Lisa Williams on social media:

f: blackhistoryedinburgh

i: caribscot

t: edincarib

Lisa Williams chairs the following Edinburgh International Book Festival events:

SHOW Alford Dalrymple

Gardner, Howard

Gardner & Colin Grant: Beyond Windrush

VENUE: Baillie Gifford West Court

TIME: 12:30pm - 1:30pm, 15 Aug

SHOW Alex Wheatle: Catch a Fire

VENUE: Spark Theatre

TIME: 7pm - 8pm, 22 Aug

Lisa Williams

Carubbers Close Mission

Boteco do Brasil

Image: courtesy of Lisa Willaims

Photo: Lauren Hunter

Photo: Lauren Hunter

Western General Hospital Liam

A stand-up's guide to Edinburgh (with inflammatory bowel disease)

Well sit again

• Start reading that book you’ve been telling people you’ve read

• Give up on the book and scroll social media until bedtime

• Play with the bed buttons

• SIT

Where to stay:

Ward 75, the Edinburgh Western General. Locals refer to this as “The Gastroenterology Department” – it’s a charming spot on the third floor of Edinburgh Western General Hospital. All rooms are en suite (that’s one of the benefits of bowel disease, they don’t make anyone share toilets with you). And the staff are on call 24/7 to make you comfortable/administer life saving medicine.

Each room enjoys a view overlooking the hospital car park, which is particularly beautiful at sunset. Rooms are equipped with one of those electronic beds with buttons, which is quite frankly more fun than it ought to be. Wake up calls are mandatory, but you’ll find you’re giving blood at 6am.

What to eat:

Love breakfast in bed? Well

the room service is exquisite, with a selection of meals brought to your room daily. Careful though, bowel disease calls for a low fibre diet. No grains, nuts or wheat. You can however eat as much mashed potato as you like. And guess what? It’s free.

Your visitors (if you have friends) will likely bring you grapes (annoying), chocolate (great) or crisps (also great). But you might not be able to eat them. (Annoying).

Things to do:

There’s too many activities to list – so here are some of our favourites

• Lie Down

• Sit

• Walk in a little circle around your room

• Stare out the window

• Watch terrestrial television

• Did we say sit?

All in all, a fantastic ten day trip with only the slight peril of potential surgery! Don’t forget to pack souvenirs – bedpans make a great gift for all the family!

SHOW Liam Withnail: Chronic Boom

VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy TIME: 7:10pm – 8:10pm, 2–27 Aug

Liam Withnail

Western General Hospital

Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

Photo: M J Richardson

Arthur’s Seat David McIver on

How to maintain your wellbeing in Edinburgh: the mysterious healing powers of Arthur’s Seat

I moved up to Edinburgh in 2021. I’d just spent seven years in London, grinding away at the comedy circuit, working minimum wage jobs, and paying extortionate rents. City life was getting me down, and I left in search of peace, quiet and green spaces. My world has been totally transformed since I moved to Edinburgh, where I grind away at the comedy circuit, work a minimum wage job, and pay an extortionate rent, except now I live near a big hill.

The big hill is a giver of life; whenever you feel bad, go up the big hill. It is like a medicine for when you are sick with the illness of being in a city. Whatever malaise you feel lifts with every step you take towards its tourist-strewn peak. Climb it with your back turned away from the buildings below, pretend you’re deep in the wilderness with only a £3 ice cream for sustenance, and watch as your soul becomes lighter.

Sometimes my friends come to visit from other cities that do not have a big hill. They come with lungs blackened by soot, and eyes strained from a lifetime of squinting through smog, and I say to them, look, we differ from your bleak industrial multi-chimneyed hellscape, we have a big hill. I take them to the big

hill to admire its beauty, and of course they cannot begin to imagine scaling our Everest, accustomed as they are to perfectly flattened concrete. Instead, they walk an impotent little circle around it, like a lost man travelling through the desert on a broken leg.

From atop the big hill the problems of the city are far away enough to seem small. As I look out across a sea of unaffordable homes, I can spot my flat, where I am lucky enough to contribute to the passive income of a woman who had the smart idea of being born in the 1960s. I breathe in the fresh air, I gaze hungrily upon the surrounding greenery, I listen as… ah shit, some arsehole has brought up his bagpipes.

VENUE:

TIME: 12:20pm – 1:20pm, 5–27 Aug

SHOW David McIver: Small Boy Trapped in a Wellness Retreat

PBH’s Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth

David McIver

Arthurs Seat

Photo: Andrew Jackson

Photo: Rachael Hood

NEED ART SUPPLIES DURING FRINGE?

VISIT CASS ART - 77 GEORGE ST, EDINBURGH EH2 3ES

Spotting a Daddy Sam Lake on

A handy guide to finding a Daddy in the wild

So you’re in Edinburgh for the Fringe and you are desperate to find yourself the hot new accessory, a Daddy. Someone with that commanding but considerate, caring energy and a nice dadbod to boot. Scotland has top quality Daddy livestock. Until recently it was led by someone with overwhelming big Daddy energy, Nicola Sturgeon. (Don’t question it, you know she was Daddy.)

First, head to The Meadows, the lush green space often adorned with circus tents in August. On a hot summer day, the Daddies will be out in force, manning a barbecue bare-chested, in true “taps aff” style. Introduce yourself to one and ask for their opin-

ions on smokeless charcoal. They’ll love it. They might even let you hold their spatula and flip a burger as they guide you from behind, like a meaty version of Ghost. DO NOT approach those guys whose thing is walking between two trees while balancing on a wobbly tightrope thing. That’s not Daddy energy, not even uncle energy.

Next, head to a good barber’s or men’s hair salon, like The Players Lounge on Rose Street. A Daddy’s calling card is his facial hair. The beard is the rug of the mouth. The ‘tache is the curtains of the lips. Hang around outside and look for any man with a chin that says “Rest your head on this and the pain will go away.”

Daddies have a uniform. And what rhymes with Dad? Plaid!

Well, when you say it out loud it does. Get to Armstrong & Son, a gorgeous vintage store in Grassmarket and head straight to the men’s section. You’re looking for any man with a crypto lumberjack kinda vibe, like at any point he might need to liquidate his ethereum AND build a log cabin.

Trust me, follow this advice and you’ll be Daddied up in a heartbeat. You could also come to my Fringe show, Aspiring DILF, if you need anymore guidance. (Shameless plug? That’s Daddy energy).

Happy Daddy hunting!

SHOW Sam Lake: Aspiring DILF

VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy

TIME: 12:05pm – 1:05pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

Sam Lake

Armstrong & Son

Photo: Corinne Cumming

Poledancing Jay Lafferty on

A beginner's guide to poledancing in Edinburgh

At the end of 2022 I decided that juggling a career in the arts while raising an energetic three-year-old was not quite stressful enough. I needed a new challenge. One that made me feel good and more importantly – would look impressive on Instagram.

I had watched a handful of pole-dancing reels and for some inexplicable reason I thought that at the age of 40, having done very little in the way of physical exercise for the previous four decades, that pole was the sport for me.

Rule One

It’s all about your core, I swapped sweet treats for green juice. Don’t try to make them at home – no matter

how many TikTok tutorials I watched it looked and tasted like swamp marsh blended with frogs. Instead, head to the Grassmarket and chose from one of Hula’s many tasty options.

Rule Two

Pole is much easier if you have been working on your flexibility. When I started, I had the elasticity of an arthritic Pinnocchio. You need to put the work in. Dangling threeyear-olds off your legs while trying to get across the monkey bars at the soft play may sound like a plan but it results in squashed children and angry parents. Instead, my advice – download a good yoga app, and get yourself along to the beautiful surroundings of

The Meadows for some downward dog time surrounded by nature and people too self-obsessed or stoned to care what you’re up to.

Rule Three

Get yourself a support network and someone who knows what they’re doing. I found a fabulous team of cheerleaders at Clanfit in Leith. Headed up by the inimitable Dan, my twice weekly sessions have paid dividends in getting my bahookie ready for this years’ Fringe.

SHOW Jay Lafferty: Bahookie

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 6:20pm – 7:20pm, 2–28 Aug, not 22

Jay Lafferty

The Meadows

Photo: Rod Penn

Picnics Charlie Vero-Martin on

Indulge in freshly baked cakes, authentic Italian treats, and gourmet delights

I love picnics, especially in my hometown of Edinburgh. We’re very lucky to have so many beautiful green spaces and delicious delis. So here are my top tips for places to fill your baskets and spread your blankets. Arthur’s Seat is a classic spot and great if you need a quick get away from the noise of the Fringe.

Before you start your hike up the ancient volcano, head to Red Kite Cafe at Cadzow Place for an incredible range of freshly baked cakes, croque monsieurs and coffees. There are lots of amazing independent places around that neck of the woods.

If your taste buds are feeling adventurous try Polentoni on Easter Road and for authentic

Italian arancini and pastries head to Maria’s Kitchen on London Road. For even more Italian delights, there is always Edinburgh’s iconic Valvona & Crolla

If you don’t want to wander too far from the Fringe action, the Meadows is always a perfectly pleasant choice. Swing by Victor Hugo Deli for a sandwich as big as your face or head to the hot chocolate and gourmet sausage roll vans before walking back up to the mayhem.

For a day off from the festivals I recommend a stroll around the

Royal Botanical Gardens. You can’t take your picnic in, but Inverleith Park next door is a perfect place to view the castle and Edinburgh’s skyline in all her glory. Have a wee explore around Stockbridge first and pick up treats from Caffe Gallo or Twelve Triangles (there are a few 12Ts in Edinburgh and they’re all worth a visit).

But of course the ultimate way to experience a picnic with true Edinburgh hospitality is to come to Underbelly Cowgate at 6.55pm. Just beware that I go all out for this summer ritual…

SHOW Charlie Vero-Martin: Picnic

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 6:55pm – 7:55pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14

Charlie Vero-Martin

Royal Botanical Gardens

Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

Photo: Astur Design

Fatherhood Gareth Waugh on

The Edinburgh-based comedian advises on how to be a new dad in Auld Reekie

As a new dad it is my duty to tell every single person (and publication) that I am a new dad.

Those are the rules, I’m so sorry.

My son was born at the very end of 2022, so I am still navigating my way through

everything that being a parent entails. Poop, snot, puke and everything in between.

Edinburgh is a beautiful oold city full of history. As such, here is the first piece of advice for any soon to be dads. When you leave the hospital with your partner and child for the first time make sure whatever route you take home avoids any cobbled streets… Your partner will thank you.

Nappies really aren’t as bad as you might think. The first few will make it seem like your baby has spent their time in the womb drinking nothing but Guinness; and they take some wiping let me tell you. However as Edinburgh residents we are born with a special ability to not notice bad smells – Auld Reekie has

prepared you for this your whole life. Is it hops from the breweries or is it an forgotten egg sandwich under your car seat, who knows!

The tired parent trope is very real and sleep deprivation is inevitable but also a cool way to feel like you’re on drugs without doing anything illegal (I laughed at a sausage on and off for two hours on Christmas Day).

Be prepared to notice prams and other babies like you never have before. Have they always been here? Yes. You just now find yourself in different places than you used to go. You will find yourself at an M&S café in a shopping centre you never visited previously like Craigleith or The Gyle and its like stepping into a sensibly clothed Narnia, this is where you belong now. You and everyone else who still remembers Stereo nightclub. And it’s a bit sentimental but try and enjoy it, I guess.

Plus you’ve now a free pass to enjoy cartoons! Final piece of advice – watch Bluey and thank me later.

SHOW Gareth Waugh

– Wouldni Be Me

VENUE: The Stand Comedy Club

TIME: 6:45pm – 7:45pm, 3–28 Aug , not 14

Gareth Waugh

A Sausage

Photo: Troy Edige

Photo: Yasin Aribuga

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2 August – 27 August 2023 Pleasance at EICC • pleasance.co.uk

‘COLOSSALLY TASTELESS... HIGHLY ENTERTAINING’ THE NEW EUROPEAN

Fringe Dog meets Mog the Forgetful Cat

In a meeting of minds, Edinburgh’s canine journalist cross examines everyone’s favourite tabby

cats have a reputation for being curious. what are you most curious about seeing and doing in edinburgh ???

I am extremely curious about which Pleasance venue is the most pleasant and whether there is a Winterhall. Although I do get quite freaked out when things are covered in snow.

you’ve been labelled forgetful. what’s the most important thing you’ve ever forgotten ??! I would love to tell you that but I can’t remember.

in the spirit of friendship between cats and dogs, do you plan to visit the statue of greyfriars bobby ???

Of course, I can’t wait to rub

its nose with my nose, I think that’ll be cute.

when i’m dog-tired i have a catnap. have you ever learnt a handy habit from dogs ?!?

I wouldn’t say it’s handy exactly but sometimes when I forget my cat flap I get caught in the rain and then I smell like a wet dog.

at my v-e-t’s they have one waiting room for dogs and one for cats. is this a sensible policy or do you prefer it when we all muck in together ??!

I would prefer to stay as far away from the V-E-Ts as possible, no matter what the waiting room arrangements are. That place is hell.

i read you had a run-in with a burglar. how exciting! have you ever been tempted by a life of crime, maybe becoming a cat burglar ?!?

I don’t want to steal any cats. I would prefer to be an egg burglar please.

a popular cat stereotype is that you are independent and aloof. i’ve sometimes wondered if you secretly enjoy cuddling up with someone (when nobody’s watching!). is that true ???

My owner has a hat that she keeps on a chair and I really like cuddling that hat. It’s so pretty.

if i replaced my chewed tennis ball with a yarn of wool, would you like to join me for a game of fetch in edinburgh ?!?

If you give me a boiled egg I’ll play fetch whenever you fancy.

Fringe Dog and Mog ask you to follow their lead and donate to Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home: edch.org.uk

SHOW Mog the Forgetful Cat

VENUE: Underbelly, Bristo Square

TIME: 11:20am – 12:20pm, 3–27 Aug, not 16, 21, 22, 23

Photo: Manuel Harlan

Hanora Kamen as Mog

GLIDE INTO AND SPICED SIESTAS TANGERINE SUNDREAMS