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Ringing home some festival fun across the city
Hello, who’s calling please? A new Fringe innovation rolls into town Words: Anna Millar
W hat with the Fringe being the Fringe, it’s only right and proper that some of this year’s shows should crop up in the most unlikely of places. And so it is that The Invisible Dot have brought four old British Telecom payphone booths to this year’s jamboree. Installed on four streets across the city – namely the Pleasance, Bristo Square, George St and Chambers St – ‘audiences’ are invited 24/7 to drop in for a spot of storytelling, and can pick up the phone and listen to a plethora of names from Will Self, Mark Watson and DBC Pierre to Simon Munnery, Tim Crouch and Hans Teeuwen in anything from a 3–17 minute tale of their own making. Better still, it’s free.
‘The idea’s been floating around for a while and now felt like the right time and place. It fitted in nicely with
the other things we have going on and there’s no better place than Edinburgh to try something like this,’ explains Team Dot. ‘We invited people from the Fringe; comedians and playwrights, and also a variety of people from the book festival. There are a few curveballs in there, a few people playing against type. But it’s panned out well, there’s a real mixture and everything’s entertaining.’ And The Invisible Dot are sure it can add something
a wee bit special to this year’s Fringe. ‘We set out to provide entertaining short stories by Festival names via phone boxes. We wanted them to look good and entertain all sorts of people. That seemed good enough to us and that’s why we did it. We hope it works.’
GET FRESH ■ Here at List Towers we love a launch and we love doing our bit for the greater good, so top marks all round for last week’s FreshFringe Broadcast. Fresh Air have launched a free downloadable album, celebrating some great Scottish talent, in support of Waverley Care. The track list includes offerings from eagleowl, Admiral Fallow, Kid Canaveral, Swimmer One (pictured) and more. To get the album, visit freshair.org.uk, follow the instructions and choose your price, which can be as little as nothing. All proceeds donated to download this album will be given to Waverley Care in support of their LaffOffStigma, on behalf of all the artists taking part in the project. For more information on a great cause see www.waverleycare.org.
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BOOK Booker Prize-winner AS Byatt is the latest name to be added to this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival roster. Byatt will be waxing lyrical about her latest, The Children’s Book, on Fri 20 Aug at 10am. THEATRE Fringe performers continue to go a bit fruit du loop with their modes of transportation for getting to this year’s festival mayhem, and we love it. Last week we celebrated strongman Mr Plonk, who cycled all the way here from London to perform with Circus Trick Tease. This week writer and performer Will Armstrong planted himself in a box and posted himself from Brighton to Edinburgh to understand what some of the 84 million daily letters go through to get from A to B. Is it a convoluted prank to get more coverage for his show? Probably. But we admire his dippy doings nonetheless. Check him out in Post Me to the Fringe at Espionage until 20 Aug, 1pm.
VISUAL ART And finally, in all things arty, look out for a new project happening at the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens this Fringe. The Secret Grove of the Garden is entirely voluntary-run project bringing modern ecological living in to the minds of Edinburgh’s community through an array of performance, skill sharing workshops, storytelling events, and more. The project runs until 29 Aug (not Mon) from 10.30am–5.30pm outside the Fletcher building in the Botanic Gardens. See thesecretgrove ofthegarden.blogspot.com.
LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL Visit us daily for arts & entertainment news 12–19 Aug 2010 THE LIST 7