Five shows to see at the Edinburgh Fringe, vol. 6
An award-winning play by Julia Grogan, a musical storytelling show about Vietnam War babies, a one-woman play about an Irish chicken, and more. Plus: news and views on the festival elsewhere.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a Substack about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This newsletter is the sixth in a series of issues focusing on the Edinburgh Fringe, which runs throughout August. Each one will contain a brief round-up of updates from the festival, plus recommendations for five shows to see. Regular newsletters will resume in September.
There is a couple of things you can do to help me keep this newsletter and its coverage of fringe theatre going. Firstly, you can share it far and wide, forward it to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage them to subscribe. And secondly, you can become a paid supporter of The Crush Bar - it’s £50/year or £5/month - via the button below. Thanks.
The festival is here…
The Edinburgh Fringe has become so big and so complex in recent years that few people truly understand how it works, especially those who shout their opinions about it the loudest. So, for The Stage’s Edinburgh Fringe special, I wrote a long-read explaining everything about the festival, from management, to funding, to accommodation, to accessibility. You can read it online here.
“What exactly is the fringe, though? How does it work? Who is in charge? How do artists take shows there? Why is it so expensive? How do those shows stand out and succeed? What does success even look like? And how can the festival’s myriad problems be solved?
Once, the answers were obvious. As the festival has grown and grown and grown, however, they have become increasingly complicated. Today, even to the experienced festivalgoer, the fringe can seem overwhelming and its problems insurmountable.”
A load more articles recommending shows at the Edinburgh Fringe have been published. Here is one from The Guardian, one from iNews, and one from Lyn Gardner for Stagedoor, and here is one from Natasha Tripney in Cafe Europa…
“The Fringe is exciting but tiring. It’s everywhere in Edinburgh, however, you can find peace by leaving the centre and climbing one of the city’s many hills, such as Arthur’s Seat, Blackford Hill or Corstorphine Hill. Alternatively, stroll through the Royal Botanic Garden or along the Water of Leith Walkway to Dean Village one way and the sea the other. After that, take a dip at Portobello Beach or Cramond Island — they’re only a short bus ride away.”
Summerhall was put up for sale in May, prompting widespread concern over its future as an arts venue, during and outwith the festival. This week, the charity that operates its arts programme signed a new lease, securing its future for the next three years at least. You can read more about that in The Stage here.
Also: a deep dive into the accommodation crisis affecting Edinburgh; producer Richard Jordan on the changing identity of the festival; take home your rubbish during the bin strikes (or does that qualify as scabby behaviour?); Joyce McMillan previews the EIF; Fringe Firsts return with new sponsorship.
Playfight - Roundabout @ Summerhall, 5.30pm
There are so many exciting names attached to this: producer Grace Dickson, who brought Martha Watson Allpress’ Lady Dealer to the festival last year, which I loved; writer Julia Grogan, co-creator of Gunter, which was also brilliant in 2023; and award-winning director Emma Callander, who leads acclaimed company Theatre Uncut.
The winner of the Finborough Theatre’s ETPEP Award, long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, and a finalist for both the Papatango Award and the Theatre Uncut Political Playwriting Award, Playfight focuses on three teenage girls and their formative experiences with “proper, ugly love” in a world of rising sexual violence.
Grogan’s play received a rehearsed reading online during the pandemic, and now gets its in-person premiere in a staging co-produced by Grace Dickson and Theatre Uncut that runs in the Paines Plough Roundabout. You can get tickets via the button below.
Precious Cargo - Summerhall, 3.10pm
Trad music star Andy Yearley grew up on the Isle Of Lewis and has lived there for the last fifty years. He was born, though, in Vietnam, arriving in Scotland as an infant after being “rescued” from a Saigon orphanage as part of president Gerald Ford’s controversial “Operation Babylift” evacuation during the Vietnam War.
Now, Yearley has collaborated with Australian theatremaker Barton Williams, who was also “rescued” from Vietnam as a child, to create a stage show all about Operation Babylift. Written and performed by Williams and featuring live music from Yearley, Precious Cargo interweaves the moving true stories of six Vietnam adoptees.
Produced by Isle Of Lewis-based company sruth-mara and directed by Fringe First-winner Laura Cameron-Lewis, the show runs at Summerhall throughout the festival. You can read Mike Wade’s fascinating interview with Yearley and Williams in The Times here and you can get tickets via the button below.
Chicken – Summerhall, 4.15pm
Irish writer and performer Eva O’Connor has brought several superb shows to the Edinburgh Fringe over the last decade, including My Name Is Saoirse, Maz and Bricks, and Mustard, which memorably involved her covering herself in the yellow condiment.
In absurdist satire Chicken, co-created with long-term collaborator Hildegard Ryan, O’Connor puts on a giant rooster costume and transforms into Don Murphy, an Irish actor and activist, who also happens to be a cockerel. Over an hour, O’Connor’s Murphy struts and pecks her away around the stage, recounting his remarkable life story, which stretches from rural Country Kerry to the hills of Hollywood.
It was a hit at last year’s festival, when I called it “clucking clever stuff” and praised O’Connor’s “back-breakingly physical performance.” Now, it is back at Summerhall for a short run, ending on August 11. You can read my four-star review for The Stage here, my 2021 interview with O’Connor here, and get tickets via the button below.
It's Not My Body Chapter 3.5 / This Is – Assembly @ Dance Base, 4.05pm
One of three shows arriving in Edinburgh as part of the Hong Kong Soul showcase – alongside TS Crew’s No Dragon No Lion and Theatre du Pif’s Must I Cry – this is a double-bill of contemporary dance shows from two celebrated Hong Kong artists.
This Is Not My Body Chapter 3.5 is the latest instalment in a Wong Tan-ki’s decade-long exploration of his evolving relationship to his own body, inspired by the award-winning dancer’s rediscovery of his love for movement through martial arts. This Is, meanwhile, is Dick Wong’s conceptual contemplation of time, space and movement in the modern world, inspired by Joseph Kosuth’s 1965 installation One and Three Chairs.
“The two pieces really contrast and complement each other,” says Wong. “One is all about pushing the physicality of dance to its extreme. The other considers the philosophy of dance.” Both dances run at Assembly @ Dance Base for the first half of the festival, ending on August 11. You can get tickets via the button below.
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Chatterbox – Pleasance Courtyard, 4.55pm
In recent years, local actor, writer and comedian Lubna Kerr has been a familiar face at the Edinburgh Fringe. She started doing comedy at the festival in 2016, performed her first solo stand-up show in 2017, then turned to drama in 2021 with Tickbox, an acclaimed one-woman play about her Pakistani parents and their arrival in Scotland. That show returned in 2022, then again in 2023, in a reworked version called Tickbox 2.
Now, Kerr is back with a new show, Chatterbox, in which she multi-roles as eight different characters – her family, her friends, school bullies and more – to relate her experiences growing up in Scotland as the child of Pakistani immigrants. “I couldn’t speak any English when I started school,” Kerr says. “I was called stupid and a whole load of other things. Chatterbox is the story of how I overcame those labels.”
Directed by Emily Ingram, it is at Pleasance Courtyard throughout the festival, after previewing in Morecambe, Carnforth, and Bedford. There will be a pre-show touch tour for blind/partially-sighted audiences on August 14 and a BSL-interpreted performance on August 15. You can get tickets via the button below.
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Thanks for reading
That is it for this issue. I will be back in your inboxes on Friday with five more shows to see at the festival. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this email or find me on Twitter, where I am @FergusMorgan.
A quick reminder of the two ways you can support The Crush Bar. You can share it and encourage others to subscribe. And you can become a paid supporter. There are currently 3156 subscribers and 103 paid supporters. You can join them using the button above.
Fergus