Tall Stories with Gruffalo
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Ridiculusmus & Gruffalo Lead Edinburgh Exodus

The Edinburgh Fringe's reputation for fashioning the unusual continues in 2001, with a number of innovative works taking to the road post-Festival. They include Ridiculusmus' Say Nothing, the Tall Stories (pictured) The Gruffalo offering for children and Borderline/Tron with Our Bad Magnet.

Other projects moving on from Edinburgh include Spymonkey's Stiff, Suspect Culture's Casanova, Grid Iron's Decky Does a Bronco, Theatre Babel's Medea, Mike Maran's Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Theatre Absolute's Raw. Rumours persist regarding a London return for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with several other companies also expected to be bargaining in the post-Fringe fray.

Elsewhere, the Bright Choice production of A Tale of Two Cities is heading to London and beyond, running at Camden People's Theatre until 22 September 2001. Also coming to the capital is the Cambridge Footlights' Perrier-nominated Far Too Happy revue. It plays at the Fortune Theatre, Covent Garden in September before hitting the ADC Theatre in Cambridge next month. Tim Fountain's show Resident Alien, starring Bette Bourne as Quentin Crisp, is transferring to the Drill Hall in December and Mike Bennett's musical All Cloned Up calls at London's Bloomsbury Theatre in October.

Ridiculusmus are the brainchild of Jon Hough and David Woods. Winners of several awards, including a Time Out Live Award, they present acclaimed and challenging works. Say Nothing is described as a "loving attack on apathy in the war zone", and took in three different Edinburgh venues. Their forthcoming schedule covers over 50 venues, from Dublin to New York and Glasgow.

Tall Stories represented England at the Scottish International Children's Festival (including the Fringe) with The Gruffalo. Based on the popular storybook of the same name, the production follows a mouse on his mischievous journey through the woods. The extensive tour programme opens at Bristol Old Vic on 13 October 2001, and continues into next year. A rumoured stint at the National Theatre's Olivier Foyer has yet to be confirmed.

The acclaimed Our Bad Magnet was one of two plays by Douglas Maxwell at the Fringe. The other, Decky Does a Bronco has just completed a short Scottish jaunt. Our Bad Magnet portrays the difficult reunion of four friends from Scotland's west coast, and follows their progress over a 20 year period. It is also undertaking a low-key Scottish tour, winding up at Glasgow's Tron from 25 September.

- by Gareth Thompson

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