In Part Nine of our Guide to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Series we focus this time on Theatre and Dance, links to parts 1-8 can be found below.
Harry Butler: Changing the Sheets
Venue: Assembly Rooms, The Drawing Room, 3–28 Aug 2022
Time: 21.15 (22.10)
This new comedy by Irish writer Harry Butler sees two strangers in bed together after a first date. As the two characters act out their intimate encounter with words only, it exposes the gap between romantic ideal and reality without exposing any flesh. Changing the Sheets gives an insight into hook-up culture and dating in the modern age through the spicy and carnal, honest and intimate things we say behind closed doors when the lights are off and no one’s around. Changing the Sheets premiered at Bewley’s Café Theatre, Dublin in 2021.
Guy Masterson, TTI in association with Flying Bridge Theatre Company: Horse Country
Venue: Assemby George Square Studios, Studio 2 9 – 29 Aug
Time: 16.45 (17.50)
C.J. Hopkins’ 2002 winner of everything returns! Clowns Sam and Bob shoot the breeze, drink bourbon and hunt the elusive nine of diamonds, while casually dissecting capitalism, sea-lions, western culture, fishing, genocide… stuff like that. Not so much waiting for Godot, more keeping up with him, their window on the world is one of menace, hilarity, disappointment and improbability, delivered with magnificent high-octane comic brio. Directed by Olivier Winner Mark Bell (The Play That Goes Wrong), this anarchic, surreal satire provokes in spades – or diamonds!
Lea Blair-Witcher and Pro Helvetia: Mama Love
Venue: Summerhall, Red Lecture Theatre, 3-28 Aug 2022
Time: 15.00 (16.00)
A one-woman show in which Lea Whitcher plays with the absurdities of the idealised and toxic images of motherhood through her own personal experiences. Against the backdrop of the 2020 Swiss vote on granting new fathers a whole two weeks’ paternity leave (18 years behind the Brits’ oh-so generous offer) Whitcher links her lived experience with current discourses on motherhood, thrashing out a path through a jungle of everyday situations, social clichés and quizzical utopian models of life in a society beyond the bounds of patriarchy. Part stand-up comedy, part theatre, this show takes a sharp pop at what we consider ok in the name of ‘love’ through the lens of a new mama.
Theatre Moksung: Puppet Pansori Sugungga
Venue: theSpaceUK, Niddry Str, 5–20Aug 2022
Time: 18.10 (18.50)
An untraditional staging of classical Korean themes using the traditional puppetry of pansori and live music. Witty and creative, and appealing to adults and children alike, Moksung bring international influences to traditional forms. Puppet Pansori Sugungga gathers the residents of two worlds together to explore their prejudices, as a single performer uses puppets, various theatrical objects, stage lighting and non-traditional music instruments to create a beautiful, emotive performance. Puppeteer and object artist Suho Moon and pansori performer Eunsil Noh create work around the pansori epic chant, which is listed as part of Korea’s UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
Dutch Kills presents Wolf 359’s: Temping
Venue: Assembly, Buccleuch Place, The Cubicle , 9 – 28 Aug 2022
Time: Every 90 mins from 10.30 until 22.00 (50 mins – 70 mins)
Contrasting the anonymity of recording births and deaths in Excel spreadsheet with furtive moments of human intimacy, interactive show from Dutch Kills Theater and Wolf 359 examines mortality, capitalism and the value of a human life. Sarah Jane Tully, a 53-year-old actuary, has gone on vacation and the audience member steps in to cover for her. As they update her spreadsheets, they realize her job involves calculating the life expectancy of strangers. Meanwhile, an intra-office romance is spilling out of the printer, and all the inner life of Sarah is there for anyone who has access to her cubicle and computer. As the audience member completes tasks, which colleagues will they decide to trust, and will they stumble on the formula to predict their own lifespan? Temping is a show with no performers, just an audience and the ether.
The HandleBards: Twelfth Night
Venue: The Tree House, Assembly George Square Gardens,19 – 20 Aug 2022
Time:14.00(15.40)
The hugely popular Shakespearean troupe are back with another bicycle-powered tour to outdoor venues and open-air theatres across the UK this summer. From Bude to Bolton, Inverness to the Isle of Wight, The HandleBards are to reprise their hit production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy Twelfth Night with drunkenness, frivolity and cross-dressing aplenty.
TOB Group: Are You Guilty?
Venue: Dance Base, Studio 3, 16 – 28 Aug 2022
Time: 16.50 (17.40)
Korea’s TOB Group presents a double bill: Are You Guilty? explores the ‘bystander effect’, the social psychology theory that people are less likely to help someone in need if there are other people present. It fuses together hip-hop, theatre and dance to ask timely questions about the nature of empathy and our appetite for coming to the aid of others. And Barcode, a bold new work about mass consumerism, including the post-lockdown phenomenon of ‘revenge consumption’. Using a collection of paper boxes as props, the work questions our need to acquire goods and the value we attach to products and even people. Choreographed by Min Kim, the show also explores the concepts of ‘conspicuous consumption’ (buying to show one’s wealth) and ‘revenge consumption’ (overindulging in retail therapy when restrictions are lifted).
The Place presents Yolanda Mercy’s: Dance Body
Venue: Summerhall, 3–28 Aug 2022
Time: 16.15 (17.15)
In an uplifting, joy-filled show about where a plus-sized body fits into the world of contemporary dance, this new work challenges the assumption that only people with a certain type of body can make it as a ‘dancer’ and deserve to take up space on the stage or the dance floor. Written, choreographed and directed by Yolanda Mercy (Quarter Life Crisis), Dance Body reconnects with her own background in dance and unpicks how formal dance training neglects to represent the majority of body sizes. Through movement and text, the show offers a glimpse of a more inclusive and progressive future for dance.
FLIP Fabrique: Muse
Venue: Assembly Hall, Main Hall, 6–28 Aug 2022
Time: 17:20 (18:20)
Caught between choosing either a ballet outfit or a football uniform, FLIP Fabrique’s new show explores gender identity through breath-taking contemporary circus performance. Asking what it means to be a woman, a man, or anything in between, the world-class circus artists don both their high heels and their shoulder pads to playfully explore gender across the spectrum. Muse brings together spectacular stunts including FLIP Fabrique’s much-loved trampoline wall alongside a live singer in a joyful celebration of being yourself. The Quebecois company return to the Fringe following in the footsteps of previous critically acclaimed shows including Attrape Moi, Blizzard, Transit and virtual performances ofSix°.
WeMu: Six Stories
Venue: theSpace @ Symposium Hall, 8–18 Aug 2022
Time: 22.40 (23.30)
The music of traditional Korean shamanic rituals is given new life in a concert welcoming international audiences. The Korean shamanic ritual of ‘Gut (to pronounce as Good)’ is a designated part of Korea’s National Intangible Cultural Heritage and is actively protected and championed by the country’s preservation societies. Contemporary musical ensemble WeMu invites Fringe audiences to experience the atmospheric sounds and emotions of the ritual in a concert which shifts the focus of the event away from the greeting and repatriation of deities to an all-encompassing welcome for audiences.
You can find tickets to all Edinburgh Fringe events here and the rest of out festival guides here
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