Scotsman Announces Final Round of Fringe Firsts

The third and final weekly round of this year’s Fringe First Awards are announced today (22 August 2008) in Edinburgh, with five more shows being singled out for distinction. In total, 18 productions – out of 480 awards eligible shows premiered at this year’s festival – have been recognised with Fringe Firsts.

There were two more prizes for the Traverse Theatre today, bringing its Fringe Firsts total to seven for 2008. The physical theatre production of Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen (pictured), performed by a group of 13 teenagers, is by Ontroerend Goed, the Belgian creators of last year’s The Smile Off Your Face, which also won a Fringe First. Slick, by Vox Motus and Glasgow’s Tron Theatre, concerns a skateboarding, tenement-dwelling nine-year-old named Malcolm.

This week’s other winners are: Crocosmia, Little Bulb Theatre’s story about the Brackenberg siblings, at the Space on the Mile; In Conflict, a verbatim drama about Iraq War veterans by the US Temple Theater, at Assembly @ George Street; and The Idiot Colony, Red Cape Theatre’s piece about three women locked up for their illicit loves in the 1940s, at the Pleasance Dome.

Winners from the past two weeks are: from week one, The New Electric Ballroom, Deep Cut, Architecting, Stefan G Talks About a Girl He Once Loved and Tailor of Inverness (See News, 8 Aug 2008); and from week two, from week two, 66a Church Road, Terminus, The Caravan, Itsoseng, Paperweight, Motherland, Eight and In a Thousand Pieces (See News, 15 Aug 2008).

All 18 winners are presented with their trophies at the final Fringe First awards ceremony, hosted by Simon Callow in Edinburgh today (22 August 2008).

The Fringe First Awards were established in 1973 when there was concern that the Fringe was not attracting the right quantity and quality of shows. The awards are announced weekly during the festival, with the final round of winners being announced next Friday 22 August 2008. There is no fixed number given and the only requirement is that the work must be new – having had no more than six performances in the UK, prior to the Fringe.

– by Terri Paddock

** FOR MORE COVERAGE ON THIS YEAR’S EDINBURGH FRINGE – INCLUDING OUR COMMUNAL FESTIVAL BLOG – VISIT www.whatsonstage.com/Scotland **