Author Archives: Dan Lentell

+3 Interview: Man vs Balloon: The Family Magic Show

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I saw some potential in mixing balloons with magic and now have a full show that uses both!”

WHO: Gareth White: performer, writer, producer

WHAT: “Witness a magical extravaganza where you will marvel at The Biggest Balloon in the World and risk your dryness at the ultimate game of Water Pistol Roulette! All live on stage in front of your very eyes! Man vs Balloon is the ultimate family show featuring magic tricks galore, comedy shenanigans and, of course, The Biggest Balloon in the World, all from Scotland’s very own Magic Gareth who will blow your minds – and his balloons – with a magical spectacular of epic and unimaginable proportions!”

WHERE: PBH’s Free Fringe @ CC Blooms – CC Blooms (Venue 171) 

WHEN: 11:15 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I am an Edinburgh local. Normally I am on the other side of the stage getting to watch the world’s entertainment. This is an exciting venture for me! I already have a small following in the City as this is my full-time job now. I would love to expand my following to visitors around the world!

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

This year I turned full-time professional magician. I left behind my coffee sales job and took the plunge and haven’t looked back!

Tell us about your show.

This is a culmination of my past 10 months being a full-time entertainer. I saw some potential in mixing balloons with magic and now have a full show that uses both!

I wrote the show, I produce the show and I perform the show.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

You should stick around at my venue – CC Blooms! There is a lot of magic for all ages, all day! Dan Bastanelli – Trixated – in particular.

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+3 Interview: Martha McBrier: Happiness Bully

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I love the Edinburgh Fringe with an ardency that has not diminished. Even completing this interview makes my vital organs tingle with excitement.”

WHO: Martha McBrier

WHAT: “Don’t be bullied into cheering up or thinking positive. Don’t let anyone tell you how or when to be happy. Stand up to happiness bullies. Frown, it’s already happened. Come and celebrate misery and country music, but don’t jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge. ‘Pure, dead, brilliant’ ***** (Scotsman). Let’s have a drink, put on some Johnny or Dolly and ride that lonesome train together. And remember, your life will never be as bad as Tammy Wynette’s… ‘A knack for funny storytelling’ **** (BroadwayBaby.com). ‘A naturally charismatic story teller’ **** (Fest).”

WHERE: Laughing Horse @ The Counting House – The Loft (Venue 170) 

WHEN: 19:15 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

This will be my 13th show (including 2 children’s shows) so not my first rodeo. I do not believe the number 13 to be a harbinger of misfortune, although I will get back to you on this after the Fringe…

I love the Edinburgh Fringe with an ardency that has not diminished. Even completing this interview makes my vital organs tingle with excitement.

Personal triumphs-wise, I once stood beside Christian Slater at the Comedy Awards. He had the most perfect complexion I have ever seen.

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

Professional biggies – I wrote a screenplay and a novel. I learned how to laminate. I am still afraid of laminators though, I find heat and plastic a very troubling combination. Also, I discovered I can make a darn good ramen.
Personal biggies – I am a sucker for lifestyle ads that pop up on social media. I have just purchased Acupressure slippers. This seemed to be a most well-being -y thing to do, and I fantasised about walking around as my important pressure points were attended to. Oh, the multi-tasking! Tragically, the reality is not so pretty. You know the abject torture of standing on a piece of Lego in bare feet? Imagine that sensation all over your feet, every step you walk.

Tell us about your show.

Easy Peasy. Yours Truly wrote the show. ‘Twas directed by my nephew the handsome and talented actor/director Matt McBrier. I have a massive team of 2. The company came together largely out of biology, as many families do. It is premier -ing (is that a word) at the Fringe so it’s just as new to me as it is to anybody else.

A happiness bully is someone who tries to pressure people into feeling ‘positive’ usually at a moment when the person is in the depths of despair. The show discusses this behaviour and also country music and suicide – comedy perennials, n’est-ce pas? It would be good to get more people talking about suicide. Let’s get it out there- chew it around. It will then become a less scary topic and we can maybe prevent our young men dying from it.

Post Edinburgh, who can say? It’s in the lap of the goddesses. Of course, the dream is to present my own Country Music Radio show. The ongoing theme would be to deconstruct Bobbie Gentrie’s masterpiece ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ (which features in my show). I should totally pitch that…

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

My personal Fringe recommendations are Sarah Kendall, Basil Brush, (obvs), Matt price, Janey Godley, Jojo Sutherland, Dave Chawner, and White Collar Comedy, and also go and see a play – any play – as theatre is dying at the Fringe, and we can’t have that.

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+3 Interview: Langston Kerman: The Loose Cannon

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I’ve performed it quite a bit in the states over the past few months and mostly audiences have booed me and called me a whore. That has nothing to do with the material though, they just don’t care for me as a person.”

WHO: Langston Kerman, Performer

WHAT: “Langston Kerman discusses the unexpected revelations coming from living with a convicted sex offender, questioning how these discoveries might prepare him to be a better man in the world, a better lover in the vagina and a better husband in his pending marriage. Best known as Jared from HBO’s Insecure, Langston has also starred in High Maintenance, Seth Rogan’s Singularity and Adam Devine’s House Party, and has written for the Oscars. His show Lightskinned Feelings was one of Vulture’s Top 10 Comedy Albums 2018. ‘You’ll want to hear what the man has to say’ (Paste).”

WHERE: Underbelly, Bristo Square – Jersey (Venue 302) 

WHEN: 19:45 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Yes, this is my first time in Edinburgh. And over the past three months, I’ve been hit with an unending wave of terror struck warnings as people prepare for the hardships I’m about to face. Half-empty rooms, unflinching reviewers, discarded flyers exploded across the ground like the corpses of Mel Gibson’s painted friends in Braveheart. Mostly, I’m just excited to tell jokes, listen to some shit I’ve never heard, and maybe find a black barbershop. I really believe in my hour, and hopefully, a chance to run it every day for a month is going to make it so that other people really believe in it too.

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

I got engaged almost a year ago to this day, which is probably the biggest thing to ever happen to me, and may explain why my writing has mostly been about that. I’ve to get these jokes out now before our bank accounts are fully joined and she finds out that personal debt isn’t just a silly “bit”.

This will also be my third international comedy festival in the past year. I’ve gotten to drink Guinness in Dublin and pet koalas in Melbourne and now I get to stare at old castles in Edinburgh and whisper Harry Potter spells under my breath.

Oh, also this year I found out that prunes are just dried out plums. That honestly was a huge game-changer for me.

Tell us about your show.

My show is called The Loose Cannon. It’s at the Underbelly every night at 7:45pm. I wrote the whole thing by myself, which is why so many of the words are misspelt. It’s about falling in love and sex offenders and somehow trying to find the happy medium in-between those two things. I’ve performed it quite a bit in the states over the past few months and mostly audiences have booed me and called me a whore. That has nothing to do with the material though, they just don’t care for me as a person. In all seriousness though, I’m really excited to follow this Edinburgh run with a run of as many clubs and rooms back home. This feels like a perfect way to sharpen what has already turned into a pretty cool sword.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

I’m excited to check out so many awesome comics while I’m there: Liza Treyger, Dan Soder, Catherine Bohart, Emmy Blotnick, Sarah Keyworth, Sean Patton, Dr. Phil, Mr. Clean, The Muppets if they’re performing. I don’t know, there are a shit ton of shows and I just want to get high after my sets and watch them all.

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“Ogg ‘n’ Ugg ‘n’ Dogg” (Gilded Balloon Teviot – Dining Room 12:30, AUG 13, 15-20, 22-26 : 12:30 : 60mins)

Posted in EdFestivals 2019, EdFestivals 2019 – Reviews by

“Tooth and Claw are (almost) as real and as cute as the terrier asleep on the hearthrug. Their puppies would melt the heart of an ice giant on top of a glacier, in deepest Narnia in the coldest days of the late, unlamented Queen Jadis.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars: Outstanding

If I could meet anyone from history, absolutely anyone, I should like to encounter with the individual who invented the shelf. Two brackets, one surface. Someone had to come up with that. Who were they? Where did they live? What did they plan to put on their novelty? Family Fringe favourites, Fideri Fidera, have a better answer. If they could meet anyone in history it would be the people who invented the dog. Those crafty hunter gatherers who, back in the day, when all the world was a garden, turned the ferocious wolf from a predator into a companion.

Ogg ‘n’ Ugg are out and about doing what they do best, getting tea ready. Watching the two legs are Tooth and Nail, two wolves wondering why omnivorous humans have to also eat meat which is the carnivorous wolfies’ only source of food. At the campfire that night the two sides of the equation begin to figure out a solution to the puzzle.

Fideri Fidera are not Fringe favourites for nothing. Every aspect of the production is marvellous. From the acting, which is pitched perfectly to the wide-eyed wee ones; to the puppets and puppetry, which are in turn beautifully constructed and wondrously brought to life; via the story itself which is full of heart and smiles.

The set is complicatedly simple. Two moveable and reversible panels dressed with leaves and undergrowth, vines and creepers. The lighting is liquid, washing all with a richness that transports us from the nondescript setting of the Teviot Dining Room in Fringe time.* But it’s the puppets that steal the show. Tooth and Claw are (almost) as real and as cute as the terrier asleep on the hearthrug. Their puppies would melt the heart of an ice giant on top of a glacier, in deepest Narnia in the coldest days of the late, unlamented Queen Jadis.

*49 weeks of the year the modestly grand dining room is considerably more interesting than the SRC meetings I used to attend in it.

Daughter 1.0’s first ever theatre production was Fideri Fidera’s Oskar’s Amazing Adventure. Now aged 4 Oskar continues to loom large in her imagination. It’s not yet clear whether the slightly fuzzier, more meandering, narrative at the heart of Ogg ‘n’ Ugg ‘n’ Dogg will stick as well. There is no doubting however that the show captured her in the moment. As the first crucial steps are taken on her (hopefully) lifelong journey through the arts I can think of no one I trust more than Fideri Fidera to keep her engaged, entertained, and excited.

outstanding

StarStarStarStarStar

—

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 12 August)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

“The Bubble Show” (Assembly George Square Gardens 10:40, AUG 15-26 : 10:40 : 60mins)

Posted in EdFestivals 2019, EdFestivals 2019 – Reviews, Theatre by

“Bubbleland is a real place, according to Mr Bubbles, a real place peopled by bubbles.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

There are two certain ways to get kids to disengage from whatever they are doing and excitedly focus on the novelty. The first is to enter the room and announce in a loud, clear voice, “Go Jetters to your stations.” Alternatively, one can enter singing “Go! Go! Go! Octonauts!” The outrage is real. The conclusion that you are the kind of halfwit who can’t even be trusted not to mix up the words to songs, is immediately, irreversibly drawn. The second method to get kids to stop whatever they are doing is more universal and has been since Cain, Abel and Seth were in pull-ups: bubbles.

Dr Johnson famously remarked that “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” Less well known are the words that followed, “and if he be tired of bubbles why is a coxcomb knave whose very soul is decayed, possibly beyond remedy save only by the immediate and direct intercession of his personal redeemer.” Bubbles, in short, are brill.

Mr Bubbles enters to a crowd of all ages. Daughter 1.0, aged 4, is somewhere in the upper, lower middle of the range. The staging is simple. Only the set necessary to facilitate the magic that is to come. Mr Bubbles tells his life story. Born. falls in love with bubbles. Made to join the army. Gets out of army. Back to bubbles.

And what bubbles they are. BIG bubbles. Small bubbles. Fire bubbles (really). Helium bubbles. Steam-powered bubbles. Frothy bubbles. Smokey bubbles. Bubbles inside other bubbles. Treasures and artefacts brought (Parthenon Marbles style) back by Mr Bubbles from his journey to Bubbleland. Bubbleland is a real place, according to Mr Bubbles, a real place peopled by bubbles.

Mr Bubbles, is of a similar size and build to Justin Fletcher – although his army days have kept him somewhat trimmer, as Granny is quick to point out. He is young and his show feels like it will ripen with age. The truly high notes are yet to come. But the globetrotting graft that has gone in, makes for a flawless performance. He is not one of those hyperactive performers who think it their business to rile the kiddies up into a state of frenzy. His connection is personal and personable. The kids who join him on stage are confident and happy (although he could make more effort to select kids from further back).

The show is in two distinct halves. There’s the lively, jolly, a bit sciencey first half. Then there’s the sensory light and sound second half. The latter is when the very young ones fully engage. The whisps of squally discontentment lift life a helium bubble on its way to meet the houselights. Daughter 2.0 (19 months) would have loved the second half, although I think I would have had a job to keep her settled through the first. 

This is not a show that will blow your mind, but it’s gentle humour and obvious passion will lift your spirits. Daughter 1.0 leaves with a spring in her step and her face. Mr Bubbles (B.Ed.) has entrusted her and all the rest with the secret knowledge that life is better with bubbles. That was good sharing Mr Bubbles. Good sharing.

nae bad_blue

Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)Star (blue)

—

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 12 August)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Interview: Endless Second

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I’ve pretty much grown up on fringe theatre.”

WHO: Madelaine Gray

WHAT: “A new play about consent within a relationship. A young couple at university have fallen in love. They listen to each other. They respect each other. But everything changes after a drunken evening with their friends. On this night, when he takes off her underwear and his boxers, she says, ‘No’. But he doesn’t stop. She struggles to assimilate the rape for what it was, because how could it be rape? He loves her. He couldn’t have done that. Endless Second explores how two people deal with a trauma that fundamentally alters the nature of their relationship.”

WHERE: Pleasance Courtyard – Pleasance Below (Venue 33) 

WHEN: 15:10 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I have family in Edinburgh so I’ve pretty much grown up on fringe theatre. Endless Second will be show eight for me, so by now I really should know my way around! I’m looking forward to long hours in dark, damp rooms with lukewarm pints and I’m ready to be rejected on the mile many, many times.

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

Biggest thing? Well, I’m quite an excitable person so even finding reduced red pepper hummus in my local corner shop was a massive deal for me. Oh, and I graduated from my MA and got to shake Grayson Perry’s hand.

Tell us about your show.

Endless Second is a two-hander about consent within a relationship, written by Theo Toksvig-Stewart and produced by Cut the Cord Theatre which is run by Camilla Gurtler. We premiered at Theatre503 back in January which gave us time to work on the text and bring it back tighter and better to 503 for our Edinburgh previews. The future? Who knows… We plan to take the play to schools and universities alongside our consent workshops for young people. We’d love for this show to have a long life either in London or around the country as we feel the theme and messages are relevant and timely to so many people.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

You should definitely check out our sister show I Run, at Pleasance Below (13:55). It’s on directly before us… intense theatrical double bill anyone?

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+3 Interview: Frank Foucault: Desk

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I watched Love Island for the first time. I have no idea why I’d never seen it before. If you’re resisting it, just watch one episode. It’s blown me away. It’s like watching Breaking Bad or Twin Peaks for the first time. It simultaneously presents the absolute worst and absolute best aspects of humanity.”

WHO: Luke Smith: writer and performer

WHAT: “Thump. James Corden hears a thump underneath his chat-show desk. Thump. It’s the evening before the start of his American talk-show career. Thump. This is not a stand-up show. Thump. But it’s written and created by my stand-up comedy persona. Thump. I understand that’s confusing. Thump. I hope you enjoy it. Thump. Thump. Love. Thump. Thump. Ego. Thump. Thump. Death. Thump. Thump. Sex. Thump. Thump. The Desk. ‘Baffling and daring’ **** (BroadwayBaby.com). ‘A tiny work of comic genius’ (Scotsman). ‘His real name is Luke Smith’ (Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk).”

WHERE: Paradise in The Vault – The Annexe (Venue 29) 

WHEN: 21:55 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I’ve been coming up to the fringe in some sort of performing capacity since 2014. Each year I feel like I’m stepping right back into an anxiety dream, exactly where it had stopped the year before. It’s great though. Doing the fringe is like fighting a boxer that will sometimes punch you in the face and sometimes give you a bouquet of flowers.

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

I watched Love Island for the first time. I have no idea why I’d never seen it before. If you’re resisting it, just watch one episode. It’s blown me away. It’s like watching Breaking Bad or Twin Peaks for the first time. It simultaneously presents the absolute worst and absolute best aspects of humanity. Just amazing television. Oh yeah, I went on a teaching course, moved to London, wrote a show and had a complete career change.. but it’s mainly the Love Island thing to be honest.

Tell us about your show.

We’ve been previewing it since Feb, but the idea had been knocking around the old noggin for about a year before then. I wrote it and persuaded the great Rosie Harris to direct it. Neither of us had done anything like this before. It’s a hybrid between stand-up and theatre and we couldn’t really predict what shape it would take until we started previewing it at comedy festivals. We would love to take it somewhere after this month, but a show like this really feels at home at the Edinburgh Fringe.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

The Death Hilarious: Razor. Incredibly funny, dark virtuoso performance from one of the most hard working people in comedy. Grotesque, beautiful, hilarious.

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“Clive Anderson: Me, Macbeth and I” (Assembly George Square Studios, AUG 13-25 : 21:30 : 60mins)

Posted in EdFestivals 2019, EdFestivals 2019 – Reviews by

“If Prime Minister* Ken Clarke’s Hushpuppies were an EdFringe act, this might be it. Stylish, comfortable, unthreatening, finely-crafted, and ex-barristery.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Outstanding

“So who is Clive Anderson?” my companion drawls Mid-Westernly. “He’s a pretty big deal,” I reply. “Ex-Footlights. Ex-Barrister. He interviewed Gorbachev. Not exactly a national-treasure, but definitely a favourite national tea-mug that’s been in use down the ages.” My companion looks blank and I recall the look on the guard’s face at the National Portrait Gallery when she asked him, “Sir, where are the famous people?”

My own personal favourite tea mug had been purchased from the EUSA shop, not a stone’s throw from where we stood behind a long queue of expectant punters. Said mug, which advertised that the Guardian newspaper could be purchased by students for 20p, saw service in both the undergrad and postgrad campaigns, toured the provinces during the lean years, and saw service in every rented cupboard and shabby (but not chic) dresser, right up to the forever house, with it’s surprisingly grabby preschoolers and less surprisingly unbouncy kitchen floor tiles. It’s currently helping to drain the soil for a scented geranium. It’s fair to say that my cherished mug has seen better days.

So what of the nation’s favourite tea mug, Clive Anderson? In what state will we find him? Faded? Chipped? Bitter from some sod putting making instant coffee in him and not washing him out properly?

The former chat show host and chair of Whose Line is it Anyway? arrives on stage dressed like what Henry Irving thought Macbeth dressed like. Pause for breath and… vroom! he’s off with the same stately, but dynamic energy as one of those Bentley motorcars he tongue-in-cheekedly plugged in a Christmas episode of HIGNFY. A lifetime on the after-dinner circuit and he’s cornering with precision, racing down the straights with material that is well-worn without being tired, homely without being plain. If Prime Minister* Ken Clarke’s Hushpuppies were an EdFringe act, this might be it. Stylish, comfortable, unthreatening, finely-crafted, and ex-barristery.

*apologies I watched the next episode from the Brexit box set while you were out.

Anderson opens with a learned essay on his favourite Shakespeare play, Macbeth. Not super researched, the historical Macbeth went to Rome and not the Holy Land, but sufficiently well remembered to open onto a scenic landscape of showbiz reminiscences and anecdotes. It is a very pleasant hour and we all leave pleasantly pleased… with one exception.

“This is just like that time you took me to see that Gyles Brandreth dude!” complains my companion. “This guy was good, and I get that he’s a big deal on your side of the pond, but did no one remind him that the people sitting stage right also paid for their seats?” Her case for the prosecution presents a litany of minor (and not so minor) staging errors, her criticism of Anderson’s admittedly frantic pacing is crushing, and her insinuation that the fowl specimen of wretched humanity in the dock has been driving without due care and attention of his director may stick in the jury room.

This is not objectively a *5 show from her technical perspective. Subjectively, however, if you are in the market for a Clive Anderson product this EdFringe, this is an excellent vintage. If Jack Pomeroy were selling it in his wine bar, it would deliver considerably more than his regular Chateau Thames Embankment. Chateau Clive Anderson has many finer seasons in store and I can’t wait to try them.

outstanding

StarStarStar

—

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 11 August)

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THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

+3 Interview: Hyper-Nice

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I had just started chemotherapy during last year’s fringe – I thought at the time I looked great. Having reviewed the photographic records turned out I looked like a duck egg wearing spectacles.”

WHO: David Watson: Solo Performer

WHAT: “Aspiring to be more vacuous? Thanking strangers for no reason? Hyper-Nice is a new, original, one person stand-up show in which David Watson mostly apologises for breathing and tries to be “nice”. It seems sorry is not the hardest word. Incisive social comedy.”

WHERE: theSpace @ Surgeons Hall – Haldane Theatre (Venue 53) 

WHEN: 17:20 (50 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I’ve been to the festival 5 or 6 times, as a punter and as a writer and director, but I’ve Never performed before. I’m doing a 1 man show, having done a bit of stand up in the past, mostly at home in Liverpool. What am I expecting? The ticket sales for my week look ok, but I’m all over the 2 audience members on a wet Tuesday situation and expecting it again. Doesn’t bother me one bit (he says now). I remember late-night drinking and possibly the best funk disco I ever attended in my life with cans of red stripe being distributed from dustbins – different times. I remember the faces of the poor residents marching past curiously dressed promotors with looks of disdain.

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

This answer was going to be straightforward until I read the stipulation “try and make the reader smile”. I had just started chemotherapy during last year’s fringe – I thought at the time I looked great. Having reviewed the photographic records turned out I looked like a duck egg wearing spectacles … and the weight loss was nowhere near sufficient for my purposes either. Anyway, much better now and I guess this 45-minute show (WHICH CONTAINS NO MENTION OF CANCER) is a reaction to that, I may as well just as well be jumping out of a plane or seeking to ride a bull…

Tell us about your show.

It’s a one-man stand-up show written and performed by me, and it contains, I would say, moments of genius, and, it will probably transpire some filler. It’s about being gauche and English and apologising too much, and getting off on the gratitude of others.

I did a free Liverpool show two weeks ago to about 90 mates and mates of mates. It was fun and chaotic, and I’ve toned down the swearing. No plans for after the fringe yet Burt probably a London show at some stage … and a lot of radio work (that was a joke).

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

Jonny Pelham: Off Limits – amazing subject matter, which doesn’t sound like it should ever be the subject of comedy, which is why it should.

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+3 Interview: Cathy: A Retelling of Wuthering Heights

Posted in *Written Interviews, EdFestivals 2019, Plus 3 2019 – Features by

“I also was on a popular Channel 4 reality tv show, although since it hasn’t aired yet, I’m unsure if I’m allowed to say which one!”

WHO: Michael Bascom: Composer

WHAT: “This new musical by Michael Bascom retells the story of Heathcliff and Cathy, two soul-bound lovers thwarted by family, society and God. The sun shines over the moors, but a storm of vengeance is brewing in this story of a passionate romance which transcends life – and death – itself. Described as ‘a highly moving production, brilliantly depicting the tragedy and passion of Bronte’s novel’ (TCS), the show sees its Fringe debut after premiering last November to a critically acclaimed, sold-out run at the University of Cambridge.”

WHERE: theSpace @ Niddry St – Upper Theatre (Thrust) (Venue 9) 

WHEN: 22:20 (75 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I visited Edinburgh briefly last autumn, but this is my first time to the Fringe festival! I was warned that it was ‘a lot’ and I have to say that it’s taken a little while to adjust to the perpetual exhaustion of putting on a show, flyering for a show, and then actually seeing shows, and so on. I arrived with high hopes, having had a surprise mention on Elaine Paige’s show on BBC Radio 2 the Sunday before the festival, although I’ve realised more fully since being here what a slog the Fringe is meant to be. I love a challenge, however, and I’m starting to find myself in my element amidst the madness of it all!

What’s the biggest thing to have happened to you since Festivals ’18?

The biggest thing to have happened to me since last year’s festival was probably graduating, finally! I started my undergraduate degree a tad later than usual, at 24, and it was something I’ve always known I wanted to do before starting my career. So it’s a bit weird adjusting to ‘real-life’ after feeling a bit on hold for the past 10 years! I studied music at Cambridge, but being a mature undergrad I got to study at St Edmund’s college with other ‘mature’ (aka over 21) students, where I met some truly incredible people. I also was on a popular Channel 4 reality tv show, although since it hasn’t aired yet, I’m unsure if I’m allowed to say which one!

Tell us about your show.

The show is a ‘retelling’ of Wuthering Heights; I wrote the music/lyrics and adapted the original novel into a script (who am I to change Emily Brontë’s own words?). It closely follows much of the original story, but I’ve altered the second half somewhat significantly to make it a bit more Shakespearean in its gesture, with the real-time events of the tragedy occurring all within a 24-hour period rather than over the course of 30-40 years. I first conceived the musical about 10 years ago when I was 17, being a young, closeted Mormon gay boy, and totally inspired by Heathcliff and Cathy’s tumultuous, passionate romance – putting each other above their own family, society, and even God – I knew I had to set it to music.

I also knew I had neither the talent nor means to pull off a musical at that time, so whenever a song would come to me (usually in its entirety, almost like a ‘download’, on random afternoons) I would just archive it until the time felt right. Finally (having since ‘come out’ and leaving Mormonism), last year seemed to be that time and so I put on ‘Cathy’ at one of the university theatres in Cambridge. It had phenomenal success, so I decided to take it to Edinburgh, although really I still consider it a bit of a showcase for a bigger, full-length musical (and I’m looking for a scriptwriter!). Hopefully, I’ll take it to London after, depending on what happens here in Edinburgh!

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

A friend of mine has written a show based on Northanger Abbey (called – surprise – Northanger Abbey), which will be on at the French Institute on the 12-13 and 16-24. She’s incredibly talented and the whole team are great – it also received a 5-star review in Cambridge last year! So I would 100% recommend catching that while you can, and it will probably help lift the spirits slightly after Wuthering Heights!

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