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The Edinburgh Fringe is a sloppy messy ball of glory

The writer and director of ”Patricia Gets Ready (for a date with the man who used to hit her)” discuss the risks and hopes at this year’s Fringe

© Greta Mitchell

Making art has always been a risky and vulnerable process, especially as a majority female company made up of many intersections across race and class.

But the last year has made everything feel ten times harder. Sharing space with people has suddenly become both a threat and a luxury.

When you can't put theatre in front of a live audience, when you can't get in a rehearsal room, when you're on your fourth pack of digestives… you begin asking yourself some questions. What am I doing this for? What matters? What the hell is art? There's no answers immediate or graspable but deepening your connection with your own work… it's a good thing. It's a good thing.

And then by some miracle, the Edinburgh Fringe emerged like a phoenix from the ashes. And with huge thanks to The Pleasance and the Charlie Hartill Development Fund, our show is a part of it.

Almost immediately, the fear creeps in. What if it's not perfect? Do we even remember how to make art anymore? All thoughts that cut deeper after a year of intense introspection.

The only way to move forward: to pour our hearts into creating something we were proud of. To make art for the art of loving it and oneself. To remember the story we're sharing with our audience and who for: for Patricia, for us, for many women we shall not name here. It's a good thing.

So, this year you have the luxury of being invited into Patricia's bedroom of all spaces, somewhere many of us have spent the last 18 months feeling the most safe, suffocated, experiencing the most growth and meeting our demons. But we mustn't forget- some demons are bigger than others, some are less easy to escape, and some hold the names of the people we love.

Bringing this show back has allowed us to reach new depths of vulnerability and truth than ever before. We hope that it allows our little show, one woman's story, to be heard far beyond the stages of the Fringe and into the hearts of all who come to see it.

In a time where making work feels scarier than ever, we chose to take a risk. Not just to remount a show, but to elevate it. To keep playing, to keep trying new ideas even if they don't work. We rehearsed with a new set in four and a half days, scrambling together pockets of time and money between other work in true Fringe fashion.

We could not be more thrilled to be programmed alongside artists who've undergone the same self-excavation in the name of a good time.

Because that's what the Fringe is, and should be: a good time. A celebration of people. A sloppy messy ball of glory.