Edinburgh Fringe is now finally …finally… over!
So a few interesting tie-ups before diving forward into next phase of work in Slovakia, Russia and good ol’ UK…
Firstly I got quite a lot of flack from artists I gave negative reviews to in my series of blogs about Edinburgh Fringe shows – not happy that I was “slagging” their shows off.
Quite right too – on both counts. If you are not happy about what I wrote – fight for your right to defend yourself, but not for me to edit the blog.
However one artist – Valerie Hager who performed Naked in Alaska… got in contact…
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/naked-in-alaska
She did convince me that writing she only “had one talent (pole-dancing)” was a bit harsh, so…edited .. (need to increase her talent list to include tenacity as well!).
Actually her response about her show was interesting and challenged my thinking on how and why she told her story as a stripper and the empowering nature of ‘true stories’. There is a place for that in the theatre of course – just the night I saw the show it got under my skin and stayed there. Gosh I feel like this is an apology.. not quite – as they say if you have opinions you have enemies .. but I don’t want to harm anyone in my blogs just say it as I see it … when I see it!
So I leave 2 stars for Naked in Alaska but encourage people to see the show and decide for themselves (it got great reviews from everyone but me!) and one day maybe I will see it again too…
But Andrew O’Neill at Pleasance, your compering of late night comedy was shit, and you are still getting only 0.5 stars and don’t come fucking moaning to me about it!!
Having said all that the final twist for our production of Swimming, was getting an amazing five star review on the final weekend from one of the main national papers – Edinburgh Evening News:
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/what-s-on/theatre/review-swimming-1-3518113
Of course we had to cancel the next three performances as the queues formed around the theatre.!!!!
One of our actors hurt herself (back) moving set pieces at the end of a show – the curse of Edinburgh- and couldn’t perform. The final show was performed, but I was determined that we made sure she didn’t do it for us, but because she wanted to. Anyway she did the final show with limited movement which included having to stand for an intimate scene. It was fine, but just reminded me how delicate movement and space in particular are. Just standing there doesn’t cut the mustard!
So what will happen with Swimming? I would like to see it carry on – maybe with some re-writes.. but it will be back! It was great to produce a play by a young writer with a young cast talking about issues that really challenge young people’s sense of the future.
So back in Cambridge…
Picking up emails – Artist Chris Dobrowolski let me know that he had included a section on his website on how I had forced him to be a performing poodle…!
http://cdobo.com/default.asp?id_site=56143905&id_primesubject=58&id_subject=219&xp=6648471393
Not true of course … he has lots of other talents… woof! woof !
Paul Bourne on tour 