list.co.uk/festival Previews | FESTIVAL THEATRE
THE INEVITABLE HEARTBREAK OF GAVIN PLIMSOLE Exploring the power of the heartbeat
STOP THE TRAIN (THE MUSICAL) Uplifting musical asks what it would take to bring commuters together TWO KITTENS & A KID (A GAY MAN RAISING HIS INNER DIVA) Musical take on the challenge of foster parenting
With an exciting combination of puppetry, three actors, a toy pig and a marble run, Sharklegs brings its Les Enfant Terribles 2016 award-winner to the Fringe, posing the question: if you knew how many finite heartbeats remained in your life, how would you make the most of what you had left? ‘The audience will see and experience something
that they rarely even notice,’ say Sharklegs. ‘But it is with them every second of every day.’ Through the fanciful tale of Plimsole, who hoards his heartbeats and ponders how emotional upset has changed his life, Sharklegs presents an intimate, emotional and yet technologically fascinating experience. ‘We are using heart rate monitors during the show
which will measure the audiences’ heartbeats,’ the company explains. ‘The collective heartbeats will be totalled and used to make decisions about what happens.’ This inventive use of technology encourages the
audience to see the beauty and creativity within their own lives and engage actively in the making of a subtle tale of human potential. (Alex Eades) ■ Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 6–29 Aug (not 16), 1.40pm, £7.50–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 3–5 Aug (£6).
Inspired by a bizarre and threatening incident on a commuter train, Stop the Train is a musical by songwriters Rich Guard and Phil Rice. ‘This incident planted the seed’, says Guard. ‘What would it take to bring such a group of people together, to discuss their hopes, dreams and similarities with their fellow commuters?’ The show’s creators want it to be an uplifting and life-affirming experience, ‘to bring slices of fantasy alive through music: comedic, fun, sexual, emotional, camp, all in the name of raising the mood of an audience’.
Two Kittens & A Kid tells the autobiographical story of Christopher Wilson’s foster parenting journey. A gay white dad raising a troubled black adolescent girl sounds like a box-ticking sitcom pitch, but in reality Wilson was forced to negotiate a series of profound emotional challenges to care for someone who had little care for themselves. Wilson is keen that the work should not be seen as all doom and gloom. ‘This piece is layered with frivolity, humour and levity,’ he says. ‘My parenting journey with my foster daughter was full of nuance, rich in anecdotes, and fierce in emotional challenge.
While many shows play to the public for the very ‘My intention is to encourage the audience to
first time at the Fringe, the audience has been integral to the creation of Stop The Train. ‘From day one, we would get some form of audience to witness each scene we tried. We’d take their feedback, insults and encouragements, listen to our guts, then move forward.’
Beyond the Fringe, the musical has West End ambitions and documentary filmmaker Chris Swann has been charting their progress, so keep an eye out for filming in Edinburgh. (Rowena McIntosh) ■ Paradise in Augustines, 510 0022, 15–28 Aug (not 21), 3.40pm, £14 (£12).
personally engage with me. I am hoping that the audience will feel comfortable and intrigued about being invited into my personal world.’ Although at first glance it may seem too deeply
personal a topic for the construct of cabaret, Wilson believes his desire to make performance was born out of a compulsion to express rather than repress inner demons and challenges; music feels like the ideal medium to explore such a poignant story. (Irina Glinsky) ■ theSpace on the Mile, 510 2382, 6–20 Aug (not 7, 14), 7.30pm, £10 (£9). Preview 5 Aug, £8 (£7).
ADLER & GIBB Master of meta-theatre strips back his London success
Tim Crouch’s theatre combines an intellectual rigour with an emotive power: even at his most provocative, he consciously invites audiences to recognise the trickery of performance, drawing attention to theatricality while delivering serious reflections on extremes of human experience. Adler & Gibb has already been received with enthusiasm in its expansive production at London’s Royal Court: for Edinburgh, Crouch is offering a stripped-back version. While Crouch (pictured) admits that he has been making
theatre for long enough that his work has become an expression of his own interests and experiences – ‘It’s not really possible to an artist to do anything else, and remain true to themselves,’ he comments – the themes addressed in Adler & Gibb are, typically for him, profound and resonant.
Following the journey of an actor who is preparing for the role of a lifetime, while worrying whether they will do justice to the ‘real’ person that they will be playing, Crouch explains that ‘like much of my work, it explores ideas of ownership’, as well as his ‘age-old bugbears around the political nature of representation and the problems of capitalism in art’.
The high concept – and Crouch’s willingness to expose and
subvert the format of theatre – does not, however, undermine his lightness of touch as a writer. Previous visits to the Fringe have seen him ponder grief, death, violence and even Shakespeare’s most maligned characters without losing his humane warmth and generosity towards the audience.
His marriage of the cerebral with the compassionate and emotional has ensured that Crouch’s work inspires at the same time that it challenges. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Summerhall, 560 1581, 6–27 Aug (not 8, 15 & 22), 5.15pm, £15 (£12). Previews 3, 5 Aug (£12).
4–11 Aug 2016 THE LIST FESTIVAL 99