Bloody Elle – A Gig Musical

Meet Eve. She has a freckle on her chin, some rather posh-hair, green eyes, and whenever she places her hand on Elle’s arm… well, you can imagine. A part of the 2022 Travfest Bloody Elle is set to blow out the cobwebs and draw audiences in from across the city with Gig theatre at its boldest. With a brutal and beautiful appreciation of the moments in life.

In a flash, audiences are surrounded by the ten-piece band instrumentals and aura of a 10,000-seat stadium, and then right back to the intimate (if sweaty) scents of a pack-out pub gig. Lining up a series of original numbers, this Best Regional Production Nominee is a loud, proud, and heart-warming story rammed with stomach-flipping and time-halting moments; touches, glances, and stolen kisses that we all recognise.

Times vary (90 minutes), 4th-7th, 9th-14th, 16th-21st, 23rd-28th Aug 2022
Venue 15 – Traverse Theatre, Traverse 2
10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED
Tickets: £22.00

Green Knight

Before she goes, she has a story to tell.

Gather brave folk for a tale of monsters, adventure, Camelot, love, and the woman at the heart of it all. Riding into the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Green Knight returns again to Edinburgh. Christmas in the Kingdom of Camelot: a green warrior issues an unwinnable duel to Arthur’s finest knight.

Debbie Cannon’s Green Knight has been a winner at previous Fringes, and truth be told – one we’ve never had the pleasure of seeing. Well, this year that’s going to change; join us for this one-woman solo show where the medieval poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is retold by the woman at the heart of it for new, and likely revisiting audiences.

17.00pm (60 minutes), 6th- 14th Aug 2022
Venue 30 – Storytelling Centre
43-45 High Street, EH1 1SR
Tickets: £10.00

Sandcastles

Speaking to the world right now, through the eyes of two young women, Steve McMahon’s Sandcastles shifts through the dynamics of time and memory to portray the boisterous friendship between millennials Hannah and Beth.

Beth is moving to New York, something Hannah should be happy over.

But when Beth goes missing, Hannah struggles to resolve how she initially reacted to the idea of Beth being gone. A bold piece of storytelling, Sandcastles seeks to explore grief and the balance of friendship and growing up and parting: tossing in a dash of millennial angst for good measure.

With an international cast and creative team, Brite Theater and Sandcastles have already been awarded the Assembly ART Award for emerging companies.

12.50pm (60 minutes) 4th – 27th (not 16th) Aug 2022
Venue 20 – Assembly Front Rooms
54 George Street, EH2 2LR
Tickets: £12.50

Caligari

This evening, a new Caligari is born.

Accompanying them is a five-piece band, as the Off West End Award-Winning Chewboy Productions bring their brand-new take on the German horror icon to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Reimagining the influential silent film this cast of five actor-musicians transforms the original 1920 text, reversing the focus as the Doctor’s victims take the spotlight. Accentuating the long shadows and brushstrokes of German expressionism, Caligari bares parallels between the post-war Weimar and the contemporary UK. Tackling the ever-increasing class divide, subliminal desire for tyrants and the vacant response and unwillingness to revolt against unhinged authority.

Perhaps this is precisely what the country requires.

18.30pm (60 minutes) 4th – 28th Aug 2022
Venue 61 – Underbelly, Big Belly
66 Cowgate, EH1 1JX
Tickets: £13.00

The Beatles Were A Boyband

In the world of criticism, the term ‘urgent’ is often tossed around concerning emerging works. But there is no question of The Beatles Were A Boy Band’s importance and relevancy. Following their sell-out and well-received production Afterparty in 2021 (our review for which can be found here), Scottish Women’s theatre company F-Bomb Theatre returns with a radical production by award-winning playwright Rachel O’Regan

In an unapologetically feminine response to misogyny, there is only one real question to ask ‘when women are threatened daily, how do you really make the change?’ Something women are asking themselves frequently, but men aren’t asking themselves enough. Violet’s scared walking home. Daisy fights to make the streets safer. And Heather? She’s just over it (and who can blame her). With the roots of misogyny rotted to an obscene (and unknown) depth, the more pieces of new writing which tackle the issue, the better. And F-Bomb have previously proven itself as capable of undertaking subjects and producing quality theatre around them.

20.00pm (60 minutes) 6th – 13th Aug 2022
Venue 24 – Gilded Baloon Patter Hoose
3 Chambers St, EH1 1HT
Tickets: £13.00

The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart

Spare a thought for the Devil, won’t you?

One of David Grieg’s masterstrokes, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, this pasquinade of bardic theatre is storytelling in its purest form. A piece of midwinter magic, this wild and unruly piece of archaic theatre, with its beguilingly haunting presence, has left an impact on all those who have watched.

Revisiting, Greig and Wils Wilson return to the production in the exquisite surroundings of the Playfair Library.

Finding themselves at the precipice where magic and modernity collide, Prudencia finds herself trapped by the snow, surrounded by the egocentric ideas of her colleagues and more dangerously, in a setting where temptation may take hold.

We had the pleasure of attending this piece in 2018 and have been eagerly awaiting a return. All good things come to those who wait…

12.30pm (145 minutes) 3rd – 28th (not 8th, 15th or 22nd) Aug 2022
Venue 311 – University of Edinburgh Playfair Library
Old College, EH8 9YL
Tickets: £25.00

Ghosts of the Near Future

One minute to midnight: Armageddon. There’s just enough time for two magicians to present their final trick, one final disappearing act – the end of the world.

And if that isn’t one hell ova’ hook, you live a more exciting life than us.

A cacophony of music, micro-cinema and storytelling, Ghosts Of The Near Future is set to be one of Summerhall’s stand-out Fringe pieces, as the western noir draws on elements of surreal fever dreams to discuss extinction. Taking audiences to the drink of despair, it has the brass to then ask us if we’re ready for what comes next in this hallucinatory visual experience of miracle and misdirection.

Are you watching closely?

12.00pm (60 minutes) 3th-14th, 16th-21st, 23rd-28th Aug 2022
Venue 26 – Summerhall
Old College, EH8 9YL
Tickets: £13.00

The Not So Ugly Ducking: A Play For Grownups

As a child, he never felt ‘right’, whatever that means. The man who would grow to write some of the world’s fondest fairytales, Hans Christian Anderson placed a lot of himself in the story of the Ugly Duckling, a creature who felt that it never belonged but knew there was a reason why.

We think we know the story: Maria MacDonnell and Jo Clifford tell us that maybe there’s an element we don’t. Retold by two older women, this familiar tale takes on a dark, chaotic and comedic fresh light in the hands of this marvellous storytelling team. Celebrating both the pains and joys which come with life, this theatrically poetic reimagining speaks to many on the importance of recognising change, wherever or whenever it occurs, and the strength in realising our lives are often spent looking for this inner duck, or swan, or even goose.

A tale of transformation, in a time of change, of becoming oneself no matter the stage in life.

16.45pm (60 minutes) 11th, 13th, 16th-17th, 19th, 21st, 25th and 27th Aug 2022
Venue 30 – Scottish Storytelling Centre, Netherbow Theatre
43-45 High Street, EH1 1SR
Tickets: £12.00