Five more shows to catch at the Edinburgh Fringe.
There is one week to go, and here are several more shows worth booking - from devised dramas, to multimedia meditations, to acrobatic explorations of romance and religion.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a weekly newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This issue is one of twelve specials I will be sending out during July and August, all focused on shows performing at the Edinburgh Fringe. Each issue will highlight five shows worth watching - three picked by me, plus a couple of promotional ones, too.
Some issues will be themed, some won’t be. Some shows I will have seen and loved myself, some I will just have heard good things about. All of them, though, will be made by exciting, mostly emerging/early-career artists.
You can read more about the thinking behind The Crush Bar here, and you can subscribe to get it sent straight into your inbox - go on! - using the button below…
Dreamsick - Zoo Southside, 5.40pm
Along with emma + pj’s Ghosts of the Near Future and YESYESNONO’s We Were Promised Honey!, Nat Norland and Ben Kulvichit’s Dreamsick is one of a raft of experimental shows at this year’s festival focusing on the future – and particularly how bleak it looks for the planet and its population.
Dreamsick is a solo show, written and performed by Norland, directed by Kulvichit, and constructed with a combination of “lyrical storytelling, fragile image-making and meticulous sound.” It is “a nocturne of memories, dreams and visions” that meditates on “the losing of hope, the architecture of gender, the act of transformation, and the construction of the future.”
So far, so vague, but it will be worth embracing the uncertainty, as Dreamsick comes from two of the most exciting emerging artists on the fringe. Norland’s previous show Portents played at the 2019 festival and introduced them as a uniquely creative theatremaker, while Kulvichit is artistic director of Emergency Chorus, the acclaimed company behind Landscape (1989), another 2019 hit.
Caste-ing - Roundabout @ Summerhall, 8.25pm
Nouveau Riche is the powerhouse production company led by Ryan Calais Cameron that gave us Queens Of Sheba and For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. Now, the company is bringing a new, gig-theatre show to the Summerhall Roundabout.
Written by Nicole Aqcuah, directed by Shakira Newton, and performed by Rima Nsubuga, Yemi Yohannes and Stephanie Da Silva, Caste-ing uses beatboxing, rap, song and spoken word to explore the experiences of three black actresses attempting to survive in the performing arts industry.
Queens Of Sheba was something of a sensation at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe, as was For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy when it transferred from the New Diorama to the Royal Court’s main stage earlier this year. Caste-ing could well cause a similar stir.
The Chosen Haram - Summerhall, 9pm
Edinburgh-born actor and circus artist Sadiq Ali’s debut show The Chosen Haram first ran at Manipulate – Scotland’s annual festival of animation, puppetry and visual theatre – back in January to widespread acclaim. It returns as part of the fringe’s Made In Scotland Showcase.
The Chosen Haram is a two-hander inspired by Ali’s own struggle to reconcile his Islamic faith and his sexuality. Through dance, movement, and spectacular, soaring skills on the Chinese pole, Ali and co-devisor Hauk Pattison mesmerizingly map out the story of a relationship gone wrong.
It is – as I wrote in The Stage at the time – a beautiful story, beautifully told, with stark lighting from Jamie Heseltine and a stylish score from Guy Veale and Kester Hynds. Religion and romance compellingly collide over a thought-provoking, imaginatively choreographed hour of acrobatics.
Cassie And The Lights - Underbelly Cowgate, 12.30pm
Multi-award-winning company Patch Of Blue Theatre had a hit at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe with We Live By The Sea, subsequently toured the show to London, New York, Adelaide and elsewhere, picking up Fringe First and Offie nominations, and being hailed by both the Guardian and the New York Times. Now, Patch Of Blue return to the festival with a new show, Cassie And The Lights.
Written, directed and designed by Alex Howarth, with music from Ellie and Imogen Mason of experimental ensemble Voka Gentle, Cassie And The Lights uses Patch Of Blue’s trademark combination of intimate drama and live music to tell the story of teenager Cassie and her sisters, who are taken into foster care when their mother disappears. Cassie wants to adopt them herself, but is she prepared to be a parent? Would her sisters be better off fostered by someone else?
Cassie And The Lights has already had acclaimed runs at both VAULT Festival – where it was one of the legendary Lyn Gardner’s recommended shows – and Adelaide Fringe back in 2020, and won the Excellent Play Award at China’s Central Academy Awards in the same year. “We would love to tour this show as extensively as we can, in order for it to reach as many people with lived experience of these issues as possible, and to help promote understanding of the challenges they face,” says Howarth, the company’s artistic director. “We would love to take it back to London for a longer run in 2023, too.”
This is promotional content.
Gash Theatre Needs Some Space - Assembly Rooms, 10.25pm
Nathalie Ellis-Einhorn and Maddie Flint met at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2019, and realised they shared a love of pop culture, gender theory, and the ridiculous. Together, they formed Gash Theatre, and produced two acclaimed online shows during the pandemic – 2020’s Gash Theatre Makes A Thirst Trap and 2021’s Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted. Now, the duo make their live debut at the Edinburgh Fringe with Gash Theatre Needs Some Space.
Where their first two shows offered provocative pastiches of horror genres, their third slides towards sci-fi silliness. Running late at night at Assembly Rooms for the entire month, Gash Theatre Needs Some Space is a multimedia performance piece that deconstructs ideas of sexuality and body image, all through the metaphor of humanity’s obsession with outer space. Expect drag, burlesque, puppetry, pop songs, some questionable theories about tentacle porn, and plenty of references to sci-fi films, from Alien to Close Encounters.
“We treat experimental theatre like a roller coaster ride: speeding through total nonsense and visual overload so quickly that you don't even realise when you've landed in some serious shit,” explains Ellis-Einhorn. “We are so excited to bring what we've learned from our filmic work back to being in front of a live audience, to keep developing this piece, and hopefully to bring it back to London at some point, too.”
This is promotional content.
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Fergus Morgan