Someone to Watch Over Me

I nipped to the Summerhall Courtyard and bumped into this guy who turned out to be one of the first students to come through the new BA(Hons) Acting for Stage and Screen at Napier. Now he has a show at Ceca, a version of Someone to Watch Over Me, Frank McGuiness' tense exploration of a hostage situation.  I invited him into the Subcity Studio, he is about to interviewed by me.

So - it's a popular play, even if I didn't know about it until you reminded me and I sneakily checked it on Wikipedia. What made you pick it for your professional début at the Fringe?

As part of the course we had to pitch our proposed fringe projects to our tutors and out of about 10 projects, 7 were 'green-lit' to go ahead. I had been developing a stage adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity but that hit a wall due to the rights which were unavailable. Therefore I was told to find a 3 hander play to showcase myself and two other fellow students who had been involved with the High Fidelity development. I actually performed the play five years previously as an amateur actor and the quality of the writing and the positive experience of being part of the play has stayed with me ever since.

So, it was an easy decision to revisit the play and perform it again. To showcase myself as a newly trained professional on the world stage that is the fringe is a wonderful thing and I couldn't be happier with our production of Frank McGuinness' outstanding play.

It's certainly a heavy duty script: and the Fringe is full of cheap fun and laughter. How does it feel dealing with a tale of three men stuck in a cell during the Festival of Stand Up?

It is a bit of a tough sell for punters during the Fringe but as actors who are emerging into the industry we are very proud to perform such great writing and really test ourselves with the skills the new training programme has provided and the challenge of ultimately getting bums on seats is a real thrill and we are embracing the festival as much as we can outwith our production.

Also, Frank McGuinness does not dwell on the characters' pain and fear but highlights our human ability to endure great suffering with humour and imagination. The three men pass the indefinite time by reinacting their favourite films, 'breaking out' of their cell and going for a drink and telling stories. Their strength of spirit shines through the darkness and allows the audience to laugh, cry and hope for the men. Everything we do as actors is ultimately for the audience and while we want the audience to enjoy the play but we don't want it to be easy to watch either.

Thank you for doing all the hard work for this interview: I am just going to nip out to the bar for a drink in the bar: any last words before I finish my beer?

Just to mention the details of the show really. We are performing at Venue 50: C Venues ECA(Edinburgh College of Art) on even dates until 26th August @ 4.50pm (1hr10mins). The cast is myself (Alan MacKenzie), Mark Toddie and Christopher Cubitt. Professional debut of 3 new Scottish actors trained right here in Edinburgh. You'll laugh, you'll cry and still have plenty time fora bevvy! Cheers!