Swings & Dramaturgy: Matthew Hawkins @ Edfringe 2017

In-The-Making Collective

Swings & Roundabouts

Opening: 7, 14, 21 Aug 15.30 | £10.00 (£8.00) | 2 hours, drop-in

Dance Base (Venue 22) 14–16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh

Engage with Edinburgh’s most accomplished independent dance artists, every Monday at Dance Base.

In-the-Making Collective is a gathering of accomplished, independent dance makers who work nationally and internationally but abide largely in Edinburgh. Focusing on the process of making, each performance within the Swings & Roundabouts is different, offering a variety of dance every Monday.

In-The-Making Collective will be in the studio for 2 hours on the 7, 14, and 21 August, improvising and creating to a live electronic score by composer Bill Thompson. Audiences are invited to enter the studio for as long as they please and find their own vantage points among the artists.

• What was the inspiration for this performance?

MH. Alongside fully and conventionally produced performances, I DREAM there could be a light-touch, streamlined way of performing. I am in search of this. A year ago I was approached by Merav Israel and Claire Pencak with ideas that affirmed we were on a similar track. We were, and still are, inspired to design and steer toward this kind of collective event that takes its own shape.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

MH. It’s always going to be a compressed experience of ideas in a heightened circumstance, methinks. Often the public discussion happens before and after, whereas I think the ideas mainly discuss each other within the show’s duration.

• How did you become interested in making performance?

MH. Dancing in a performance always brought out an array of intense feelings in me. I feel I ‘belong’ in that zone. Performance vindicates the training and growth I am constantly sharing in. Making performance means there is a performance I can find myself in.

• Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

MH. It’s a collective approach, stemming from an individual initiative, steered by the three of us.

• Does the show fit with your usual productions?

MH. It’s an alternative: something that can’t be reached in the usual way, but yet feels compatible with an ongoing outlook.

• What do you hope that the audience will experience?

MH. A fulfilling epic space in time: a pleasure in the witness of something shaping before the eyes in real time and a lucid probe into the ‘how’.

• What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

MH. Strategies grew from an open-door invitation to inhabit studio 2 at Dancebase. Being invited stemmed from a programmer’s great experience of seeing our collective perform in a gallery space last year. In the new circumstance, we look for strategies to combine elements that we feel ‘work’ (a reference to practices we know) with the right kind of departures and risks that made our previous outing shine.

We opt now for fewer decisions to be made in any rehearsal process. We are hatching ways of deftly writing (and editing) short scores, to trigger and define structures and ‘events’ whose dancing is entirely fresh.

Formed by Matthew Hawkins, Meray Israel and Claire Pençak, performers will include Nicholas Bone, Ian Cameron, Amy Longmuir, Rosalind Masson, Alex McCabe, Sheila Macdougall, Brigid McCarthy, Tony Mills and Bill Thompson.

Binari Dramaturgy: MAC company @ Edfringe 2017

MAC Company presents

BINARI

A traditional Korean Storytelling

At C Venue C royale C royale (studio 4) venue 6

22 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ

A story about the life of an old woman who has been numbed by a difficult and challenging life. She arrives at the end of her life, but she cannot leave the world in peace. The woman represents the mother figure who has Han. 

This journey incorporates Korean folk songs, rituals, dances, artefacts and symbolic objects. Discover this poetic, mysterious and beautiful Korean tale. (Han is a Korean cultural expression for emotional baggage accumulated through pain and life trauma.)



Director : Jungnam Lee

Actors: Jungnam Lee, Jaewook Jung, Miran Sim, Sangmi Lee, Jeonghyeon Heo, Ziwon Yi,Kangrok Park, Taegyu Lee, Myeonghee Kim

AND

MAC Company in association with Assembly Hall presents

KOKDU

A new creation by MAC Company


At Assembly Hall, Rainy Hall, Mound Place, EH1 2LU

Inspired by Korean traditional shamanistic rituals and beliefs, <Kokdu> is full of artistic languages: traditional folk songs, choreography, lines, exotic masks, shadows, and flamboyant attires. Especially, the innovative and modern scenography is notable.


Director : Jungnam Lee

Actors: Jungnam Lee, Miran Sim, Sangmi Lee, Jeonghyeon Heo, Ziwon Yi, Kangrok Park, Taegyu Lee, Myeonghee Kim

What was the inspiration for this performance?

It's from Korean tales and legends. 

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Yes as the audience is full of ideas after seeing a show. But maybe something ideas are coming the day after, when our brain sees the entire picture. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

Mr Lee the director worked in the industry for a long time now, it started with famous traditional shows and now adding a more modern point of view but still with this poetic and traditional way to do theatre. 

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

It's a lot devised. The dans parts are created by the actors and the songs are all traditional. All the actors are playing multi characters. 

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

yes indeed

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Sharing our culture, it's a journey through human life and death. We love when the audience thinks about the message after the shows.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Well the magic of theatre will do the job! 

“Kokdu” is a wooden figurine used to decorate and to design aesthetically a bier called “Sangyeo” in Korean. Their purpose was to accompany and guide the deceased to the afterlife and to provide them with friendship, companionship, spiritual guidance, protection and entertainment along the way. This was a reflection of the optimistic perspective at the time on death and the afterlife, that a person’s passing shouldn’t be filled with sadness, but rather viewed as a celebration because, after all, the spirit lives on and is moving to a better place.

Dame Dramaturgy: Peter Duncan @ Edfringe 2017

PETER DUNCAN RETURNS TO THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE FOR ONE WEEK ONLY IN THE DAME, A BRAND NEW PLAY WRITTEN BY HIS DAUGHTER KATIE

THE DAME, 21-26 August, 10.45am (45mins), theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (venue 53)

A Pantomime Dame sits alone in his dressing room, applying his make-up and preparing for the performance of a lifetime. He has returned to the northern seaside town where he grew up for the Christmas season, and is bitterly confronted with the reasons why he left all those years before. 

As he excavates his childhood as a seaside performer, he steps back into history, conjuring up the ghosts of those who once paraded and performed along the piers and promenades. 

But as the ‘good old days’ are brought to life, long-hidden truths are also revealed…

What was the inspiration for this performance?

The Dame written by Katie Duncan is performed by her father Peter Duncan and is directed by Ian Talbot. Three generations of performers are the source material and background to this play, although it is not autobiographical.  

Katie’s grandparents (Peter’s parents) were variety artists and started by putting on beach shows on Redcar sands. It is not about Pantomime but tells of one man’s reflections of his personal and theatrical past. 

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

This piece has an element of the political and social dilemma, but is firmly rooted in the idea that the mask of entertainment takes priority.

How did you become interested in making performance?

Influences of childhood eventually find their way through to self-expression.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

The playwright/daughter- actor/father is an interesting dynamic.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Peter was last seen in Edinburgh as Jack Firebrace in Birdsong and then as Wilbur in Hairspray so it’s a merging of the highly charged emotional performance and the talents of a song and dance man.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Tears quickly followed by laughter.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

We have a good flyer man: David Kurk of the famed Flyermen.

Peter Duncan last performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2009 with his Daft & Dangerous show, recounting the lighter side of his personal theatrical history, from acting in Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre to presenting Blue Peter. 

More recent visits to the capital have included the role of ’Wilbur’ in Hairspray and a tour de force performance in Birdsong ('Peter Duncan shining as Jack Firebrace’ - Critics Choice, The Times). He now returns with the brand new work The Dame, a fantasy written by his playwright daughter Katie.

Peter’s family have a long association with pantomime. 

His parents, light comedian Alan Gale and soprano Patricia Kaye, were panto producers and he grew up surrounded by the paraphernalia of pantoland. 

In his own career as a producer, he has concentrated on pantomime, creating original shows at Hackney Empire and the Broadway Theatre in South London, and has written and directed Oxford Playhouse’s Christmas productions for many years – often while appearing in pantomime somewhere else!

The Dame gives Peter the chance to explore his emotional and comical range as an actor in a one-man show where magical realism meets music hall and nostalgic reveries meets harsh reality head on. 

21-26 August, 10.45am (45mins), theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, Nicolson Street, EH8 9DW.

Ami and Tami and Dramaturgy: Floating Tower @ Edfringe 2017

Ami & Tami

A Musical Fable

Music by Mátti Kovler Book & Lyrics by Mátti Kovler and Aya Lavie Translated by Spencer Garfield Directed by Doug Fitch 

August 11th – 24th

Underbelly Cowgate 

10:30am – 11:35 (1.05hr)

Fantastical Forests! Wicked Witches! An… an Imf? 

Following a sold-out run in New York City, Israeli-American composer Mátti Kovler and his music theatre company Floating Tower bring their reimagined story of Hansel & Gretel – Ami & Tami –

to the Underbelly at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. 

Ami and Tami, trapped inside by their overbearing parents, escape their humdrum house to find adventure in the enchanted forest. Their journey sends them into the clutches of the Evil Humm, the lair of Yaga the Witch and the depths of their own imagination. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

The inspiration for the performance comes from Floating Tower's cross-cultural mission. Ami and Tami was originally written in 1999 in Jerusalem as an Israeli take on the classic Hansel & Gretel folk tale. The story offers audiences of all ages something familiar, while presenting them with cultural traditions, tropes and musical styles that they may not have heard before, in this case introducing children to operatic music and aspects of Jewish folk music. 

Floating Tower continues to perform Ami and Tami to international audiences in the hope that our work will spark the curiosity of audience members and inspire them to learn more about music. 

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Performance is definitely one of the best spaces for a public discussion of ideas. Floating Tower tries to create work that will foster conversation among audience members. For example, we staged a 15-minute satirical opera,The Drumf and the Rhinegold (guess who that's about), days before the US election. 

We felt it was our small contribution to the discussion around politics at the time, and we hope that it offered audience members a chance to see some of what they were feeling reflected in a performance. I think it gave everyone involved, onstage and off, a sense of catharsis. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

For starters, it's just great fun! We are constantly amazed by the people that we get the opportunity to work with and the audience members we meet. On a more serious note, Floating Tower's mission is to create meaningful experiences through music. We became performers so that we could reach out to people. 

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

The show is driven by it's music. The words, the movements, everything flows with the complex musical accompaniment. Most importantly, all of the participants in this production, actors, composer, children's choir, play musical instruments and help create the atmosphere through sound. 

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Floating Tower has an incredibly diverse range of productions. Ami and Tami reflects our mission statement, and Floating Tower's commitment to musical quality, but we produce shows as diverse as a 15-minute satirical opera about Donald Trump to an orchestral concert piece reflecting on the notion of 'the soul' in 4 languages. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Ami and Tami is surprising, engaging, and just good fun. We want kids to feel like they're on an exciting adventure with Ami and Tami. As the siblings climb through their bedroom window and out into the forest, audience members are right there with them, laughing at the ridiculous Imf, running from the terrifying Ogre, singing along with Yaga the Witch and smiling when it all works out in the end. 

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

This show has been performed in multiple versions, from performances with a full orchestra to tiny cabaret shows. But with all of those differences, we always approach the show with the same strategies. 

We are here to bring the music and the story to audience members in as full and engaging a way as possible. With the smaller version of the show, this means integrating music into the blocking, with the cast playing their own instruments and a chorus featuring local children. 

Directed by Doug Fitch (New York Philharmonic), the sophisticated musical fairytale features six versatile actors, who all sing and play musical instruments, and a dancing children’s choir. The lively familiar story is replete with new characters and witty unexpected twists that will engage and delight both kids and adults. The performance is headlined by the renowned author Prudence Steiner as Storyteller and Ami and Tami's composer Mátti Kovler performing the actual role of Composer on stage.

Join us for the European premiere at the Underbelly, Cowgate. Beware of the Evil Humm, who chases passersby through the woods, and Yaga the witch, who runs a surprisingly sophisticated restaurant. Follow Ami and Tami as they find their path in the dark forest, and discover how the power of imagination can bring a family together.

“The best day of my life so far”

(Maya Reuven, 8 years’ old)

Listings information

Show:  Ami & Tami

Venue:  Underbelly Cowgate

Dates: August 11 – 24th Time: 10:30am – 11:35am

Tickets: £10.00| Conc £9.00: 

Underbelly Box Office: 03333 444 167

Underbelly Press Office: 0844 545 8242

PMK Link to pictures: https://tinyurl.com/y7lkjr6r

Website: https://www.floatingtower.com/ami-and-tam-edinburgh

NOTES TO EDITORS

ABOUT FLOATING TOWER

Founded in 2011 by composer Mátti Kovler, Floating Tower is a cross-cultural musical theatre company aiming to create high-impact, immersive work that opens up dialogue among audience members of all ages.

AMI & TAMI PRODUCTION TEAM

DOUG FITCH Director

Doug Fitch’s creative life began with his family’s touring puppet theater. While studying visual arts at Harvard, he collaborated with Peter Sellars on Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. Fitch directed several projects conducted by Alan Gilbert for the New York Philharmonic, including Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (cited as the top opera of 2010 by The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Time Out New York), Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (2011, New York Magazine’s “Best Classical Event of the Year”), A Dancer’s Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky (2013, later screened in movie theaters worldwide); and HK Gruber’s Gloria – A Pig Tale (2014, with forces from The Juilliard School as part of the NY PHIL BIENNAL).  Mr. Fitch was the inaugural WBFO visiting artist at SUNY, where he created an opera of images, How Did We…? He has created productions for Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Santa Fe Opera, and directed projects for Canada’s National Arts Centre, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tanglewood (Elliot Carter’s What Next?,screened at The Museum of Modern Art).

MÁTTI KOVLER Composer; Artistic Director, Floating Tower

Mátti Kovler is an Israeli-American composer and creator of new musical theatre. Described as “a potentially estimable operatic composer in the making,” (New York Times) Kovler’s music has been commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Centre, Carnegie Hall and the Israel Philharmonic. Born in Moscow, Russia, he was raised in Jerusalem, Israel, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, the foremost training ground for new musical theatre, where the writers of A Chorus Line, and The Book of Mormon, among others, learned their craft. 

ERIN SIMMONS Producer

Erin Simmons is a producer and comedian who has worked in London, Edinburgh, Oxford and NYC. Her past credits include Edinburgh Fringe 2015 Sell-out Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes, Diva Magazine's 'one-to-watch' Manic Pixie Dream Girls and large scale events at Lincoln Centre, the Tower of London and the University of Oxford.

Macblair's Dramaturgy: Charlie DuPre @ Edfringe 2017

MACBLAIR

by Charlie Dupré

Falling Sparrow 

Actor-writer Charlie Dupré brings his Brighton Fringe hit satire to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 

C Venues – C primo, 13-28 August (not 21), 18.15, 1 hr

It is 1994. Returning from a successful parliamentary meeting, Macblair and Macbrown meet three weird hacks on a stairwell in the House of Commons. They prophesy that Macblair will become Leader of the Labour Party, then Prime Minister, and eventually… King of the World! But how seriously will Macblair take these omens?

Macblair (13-28 August (not 21), 18.15, C primo, Lodge No. 1, 19 Hill Street, EH2 3JP).

What was the inspiration for this performance?

The life and times of Tony Blair, from his becoming Labour Leader in 1994 to his present day interventions.. and Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'!

I wanted to show how Shakespeare's insights into human frailty are just as potent when applied to the titans and tyrants of today.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

Absolutely – and I hope this will be both provocative, and resonate with the current unfurling of political events. Often it can take an artistic repackaging to shed light on a truth, or encourage people to examine an opinion, a wisdom or a narrative under an alternative tint.

How did you become interested in making performance?

When I was 11 my dad recorded some half hour animated versions of Shakespeare plays and bought me the books (abridged to half-an-hour, with pictures) Within months, I was staging them in my garden with school friends.

A later obsession with Eminem developed my

interest in words, rhythms and flows, the parallels with Shakespeare was clear to see, and I decided that my aspiring acting and rap careers needed to converge.

A spell on the London Spoken Word scene became a regular solo slot in Edinburgh with work that attempted to combine the classical and contemporary in various configurations...

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

Once I'd had the idea for this one, it kind of wrote itself. The template of Macbeth lent itself delightfully to Blair's rise and fall. I tried not to stifle the Blair story by adhering to Macbeth too rigidly, allowing it to follow its own trajectory, but to be puncutated and bookmarked by Shakespeare's recognisable conventions, and ultimate message.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This is my first play for a larger ensemble. My previous two theatre pieces have both been solo performances. It picks up stylistically with its use of rhythm and rhyme. My first show, 'The Stories of Shakey P' retold Shakespeare stories as 8-minute bouts of rap-comedy, and 'Philosorappers' was a re-hash of the history of Philosophy through spoken word and hip-hop. 

'Macblair' is a collage of iambic verse and sketch comedy, and includes a House of Commons rap battle, so while the rap is less prevalent, it is still a feature, and the re-writing of Shakespearean verse has certainly encouraged me to further my grasp of meter and cadence!

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Some may worry that the Macbeth-Blair combo will be gimmicky. So I hope they will be awed and exhilarated and by the depth of the exploration, while roaring with laughter at the same time.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

To combine the light and the dark in perfect balance. To include moments of pure satirical comedy interspersed with harrowing scenes where the full force of Shakespeare's poetry and potency is invoked. To educate within the bounds of entertainment, rather than the other way around.

In May 1997, 13-year-old Charlie Dupré met Tony Blair in a BBC studio after the then-Leader of the Opposition had given an interview on Breakfast with Frost. 

The next morning, a photograph of their meeting appeared on the front page of the Independent and days later, Blair's premiership commenced. Exactly 20 years later, Dupré takes on the role of Blair in his controversial new play, his third production at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the first outing for his new company, Falling Sparrow. 

This is the story of Tony Blair as a Shakespearean tragicomedy. Performed by four actors – Dupré is joined by Matt Morrison, James Sanderson and Olivia Chappell – it uses verse, rap, physical theatre and comedy to examine the inner workings of one of the most detested men in modern political discourse. The show’s debut at this year’s Brighton Fringe was greeted with sell-out houses and rave reviews.

About Charlie Dupré

As a performance artist, Dupré has supported the likes of Scroobius Pip and Ghostpoet, and is a BBC and National Slam finalist. Previous work includes his one-man show The Stories of Shakey P, which was commissioned in part by the RSC and gave Shakespeare stories a riveting contemporary slant by re-imagining the Bard as a playground battle rapper. 

He followed this up with Philosorappers, re-telling the entire history of Philosophy via a kinetic mish-mash of rap, comedy and solo performance. In 2016, he won the Rising Star Award at the Let's All Be Free Film Festival, for his Arts Council-funded short film, Faustus: Remixed.

13-28 (not 21) Aug, 18.15, 12+, C venues – C primo (v41), Lodge No 1, 19 Hill Street, EH2 3JP. Ticket prices: 13, 18-20, 25-28: £11.50(£9.50). 16-17, 23-24: £10.50(£8.50). 14-15, 22: £9.50(£7.50). Venue box office: 0845 260 1234 / www.CtheFestival.com  Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / www.edfringe.com 

Osama Bin Dramaturgy: Knaive Theatre @ Edfringe 2017

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Explosive Osama Bin Laden Show Returns To Edinburgh Fresh From US Tour

“Tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

I am going to show you how to change the world”

BIN LADEN: THE ONE MAN SHOW returns to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 2nd-28th August at C (Venue 34).

The world’s most notorious terrorist tells his story in BIN LADEN: THE ONE MAN SHOW a remarkable, provocative and multi-award-winning production from Knaïve Theatre. 

The twist? Bin Laden is 28 years old, White British and charming as cream teas in summer. After a critically acclaimed and highly successful American Tour, this ‘must-see’ production returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it originally premiered, from 2nd-28th August before beginning a UK tour that includes The Royal Exchange Theatre, The Sherman and The New Wolsey.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

We don’t want to give away too much of the show, but what we can say is that we believe that the best theatre tries to understand the world, and even the most terrible actions within it. A quest for understanding was the starting point for this show.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

We hope so! In our experience audiences are becoming more and more eager to see work that provokes them to discussion. Theatrical performance can – like very little else - combine the messy and personal with the universal and academic, the imaginative with the factual; and immerse you in a dialectic world of ideas, images and stories and confront you with things you might have never wanted to consider before. That, to us, provides very fertile ground for the public discussion of ideas – particularly ideas we might rather not discuss.

How did you become interested in making performance?

We were both engaged with performance making from a frighteningly young age. At age 3 Sam (the actor) spent whole days as his female alter-ego, Madam (complete with pearl necklaces and red leather handbags). He would also put on strange musical comedies with his two older brothers for their parents’ “benefit” which mostly involved Sam flinging himself about the living room trying to catch an imaginary cow and milk it. 

Tyrrell (the director) spent his early years refusing to wear anything but his Thunderbird Two costume and spent his university days (while apparently studying politics) refusing to do anything but theatre. We met in 2012 working for the Barbican Theatre in Plymouth and began making theatre together in 2013 with this show!

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

This show came about through heartbreak, particularly awful accommodation in London and a lot of rum – a long story we will happily tell when asked! It was made through 3 months of intensive research, reading and watching everything we could lay our hands on related to Bin Laden. 

Then we locked ourselves away in various parts of the world (to stave off insanity) and experimented with the source material, wrote, improvised, invited some people to impart some thoughts with us and eventually we had something looking like a show and opened it – terrified – at the Buxton Fringe. Since then we have rewritten, developed and taken further risks every time we have taken the show out. So not a particular approach, more a desire to provoke the most exciting debate we can with the extraordinary story of this man.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

We haven’t yet tied ourselves to an approach as a theatre company. We try to let the form be governed by how best to communicate the content of the piece. We have, since Bin Laden made immersive games-based theatre (Power To The North), a Dance-Theatre adaptations of Baal with Impermanence Dance Theatre, Public Understanding of Science Theatre (Pain, The Brain & A Little Bit of Magic) and we are currently working on an adaptation of 1936 apocalyptic Sci-Fi novel, War With The Newts, with writer Tim Foley. 

Although in form our work is broad, we have a very focussed intention which unifies all of the work we have created so far: to create dangerous theatre which engages and empowers audiences into vibrant discussions around the political dialectics of our time. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

The audience will experience, not just watch, an incredible story and a world-changing journey. We hope they will experience, as we have done, something that will change the way they view the world, perhaps in some small but very real way. 

We hope they will experience something they never expected. But mostly, we hope they experience an unforgettable evening that lasts far longer than the Edinburgh hour; long into the night with fellow audience members, and long into their lives as they share their experience with others.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Let’s just say that we did a lot of research into American self-help culture…but what that means, you’ll have to come see to find out. The audience experience is still evolving, in front of our very eyes. The more we have performed the show (the 28th August is our 100^th performance) the more we have realised that the audience experience is key to the success of the show. 

So we have crafted and honed that experience over 4 years, and it is still growing. Every time we tour the show we challenge our assumptions about the last time and challenge ourselves to see if we can go further.

With populist rhetoric playing an ever-increasing role in Western politics, Knaïve Theatre’s Tyrrell Jones and Sam Redway pry apart what it is that draws us to follow demagogues, asking if the world’s most wanted terrorist might have been more persuasive than we ever imagined. They ask audiences to re-examine their own information and prejudices from a naïve perspective, just as the company have.

The award-winning hit of the fringes in San Diego and Hollywood, Bin Laden returned home to perform a sell-out show at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Knaïve Theatre are now Supported Artists at the Exchange and have redeveloped the show with the help of the theatre’s creative team ready for a return to Edinburgh before the company’s first national tour.

Having provoked important and timely debate surrounding Middle East conflict and the War On Terror internationally, they will now bring that discussion to a national audience. Though they expected this story would become less relevant, current global tensions and recent events have galvanised an ever-increasing appetite for the debate they inspire.

Bin Laden was made in 2013 on a shoestring by Tyrrell Jones and Sam Redway. After previews in Buxton and London, it opened at Edinburgh and the show was awarded the first Broadway Bobby of 2013. It was in The List’s Top 5 Theatre Shows To See and received a host of first-rate reviews. Quickly, the show started selling out, and before long it was a hit. With the success of Edinburgh 2013 behind them, Tyrrell and Sam undertook formal training (Birkbeck MFA in Directing and RADA MA Theatre Lab respectively). They then redeveloped and toured the show, this time around USA with Arts Council AIDF funding.

AWARDS

Encore! Producer’s Award – Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016

Critic’s Pick Of The Fringe Award – Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016

Outstanding Actor in a Drama – San Diego International Fringe Festival 2016

Gold Award – Tvolution Los Angeles 2016

Broadway Bobby (Sixth Star) – Broadway Baby, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013

Top 5 Shows at the Fringe ­– The List, Edinburgh 2013

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Venue: C, Adam House, Chambers Street, EH1 1HR, venue 34, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Dates: 2-28 Aug (not 15)

Time: 18:30 (1h00)

Ticket prices: £9.50-£11.50 / concessions £7.50-£9.50 / under 18s £5.50-£7.50

C venues box office: www.CtheFestival.com/2017/bin-laden-the-one-man-show or 0845 260 1234 

Fringe box office: www.edfringe.com or 0131 226 0000 

Full Tour Dates:

2^nd – 28^th August – C Venues, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

5^th- 7^th September – Royal Exchange Theatre

21^st September – Square Chapel, Halifax

28^th September – New Wolsey, Ipswich

5^th October – CAST, Doncaster

19^th- 20^th October – Sherman, Cardiff

24^th- 28^th October – Bike Shed, Exeter

3^rd November – Litchfield Garrick

9^th- 11^th November – Mercury, Colchester