Will Edinburgh Still Keep Waiting for Godot???
August 10, 2010
All pupils of the City of London School, the nod/nod first performed a version of Waiting for Godot last term… in their school toilets. After brilliant feedback nod/nod arranged to take their production to the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe. A licence was sought and granted from the Beckett Estate, but after unexpected publicity in the national press their licence was withdrawn at the last minute and so, £800 in the red and with a pining to still perform, a new version of Beckett’s classic has been written by 17 year old director Harry Michell entitled Still Waiting for Godot; in part homage to the original and in part a boisterous response to the Beckett Estate’s heavy handed approach. Read more
In for a Penny, In for a Pound – Or a Thousand???
August 9, 2010
The State We’re In is being performed at the Edinburgh Suite from the 6th-31st August (excluding 18th) between 12:10 and 13:20. It is part-funded by ‘a pound’ appeal that went viral; emails asking people if the issue of eroding civil liberties in the UK was worth a quid, to get it a platform at Edinburgh Fringe, and raised nearly a grand!
Michael Byrne (Coronation St/ Indiana Jones/Braveheart/Z-Cars/Yes Prime Minister) plays the main role based on peace campaigner Brian Haw who has camped outside Parliament for EIGHT years. It is his moving story but also reveals the erosion of civil liberties in the UK over the last ten years.
The play had a reading (with Samuel West and Racquel Cassidy) last year, but this is its first full production and as such is the world premiere at the Fringe.
- Anna Maysey
An Ex-Editor Treading The Boards- Safe???
August 8, 2010
A new career is never easy, but for John McColl, switching from a hack to potentially being hacked can’t be a particularly pleasant change. Now, as the lead male in Ella Hickson’s Precious Little Talent, the ex-editor at the Edinburgh Evening News is almost certainly aware of the pressures upon him, having been a reporter and editor on various daily, Sunday and evening newspapers for 30 years.
That’s not to say he’s not come across these pressures before – in 2008 he performed in Saint Joan and To the Cross at the Fringe (Theatre Alba) and was also in the film Lapse, 2009. Not only this, but John has kept is hand in on the writing side of things by penning not one, but four plays, all of which have been or are being performed.
Provided McColl’s ex-colleagues are kind to him, I don’t see any reason why he would have problems in his newly chosen career – unfortunately, journalists and reporters are not best known for their kindness!
-Anna Maysey
EIF: 14 August-6 September
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