The world’s largest arts festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, is back with a hybrid of both in person and online shows and events, and we are delighted to present a list of the shows involving Central students, staff and alumni.
If you’re a Central student, staff member, or graduate, and are involved in a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year that is not listed below, please get in touch with us at alumni@cssd.ac.uk and we will include it on this page.
Please note, we have included a few shows in this list that, whilst not part of the Fringe programme, will also be in Edinburgh throughout August for you to enjoy!
#CSSDEdinburgh
Catherine Bohart: Work in Progress
Written and performed by Catherine Bohart (MA Acting for Screen 2013)
The Monkey Barrel, Venue MB3
IN PERSON - Aug 2-7 @ Times vary
At the beginning of 2020, Catherine Bohart was busy writing a stand-up show about moving into a new home with her long-term partner and about how life in general was going pretty well. This is not that show.
An hour of new material from the star of BBC2’s The Mash Report. As seen and heard on Mock The Week, Roast Battle, 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Stand Up Sketch Show and The Guilty Feminist Podcast.
Doppler
Grid Iron Theatre Company. Adapted and directed by Ben Harrison (MA Advanced Theatre Practice)
Newhailes House and Gardens - Near the Shell Grotto (Venue 529)
IN PERSON - Aug 6-9, 11-16, 18, 20-23 @ Times vary
‘I am a man of my time. A failed man of my time. Or just a man of a failed time. Depending on how you look at it.’ Doppler had everything. He thought. Wife, two kids, 23-hour working week and time to ride his bicycle. Until the accident. Now he lives in the forest with an elk. Come into the woods with multi-award-winning site-specialists Grid Iron for this funny and subversive fable about existence, consumerism and trying to live life in isolation when people just won’t leave you alone.
Friday Night Love Poem
Written by Natalia Knowlton (MFA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media 2016) and directed by Mariana Aristizábal (MA Performance Practice as Research 2016). With performance from Amanda Vilanova (MA Acting 2017) and stage management from Sam Campbell (MFA Creative Producing 2021)
Zoo TV
ONLINE - Aug 16-29
From our obsession with early 2000’s virginal pop stars, to mid 2000’s dreamy emo boys, to baring it all on social media today…
Friday Night Love Poem is a funny, cringey and heartfelt throwback to the female teenage experience, from the early 2000’s to today. Three coming-of-age stories, one epic play about the journey to embracing female pleasure.
Future Cargo
Requardt&Rosenberg, co-founded by David Rosenberg (Tech 1998)
Horizon Online (Venue 460)
IN PERSON - Aug 26, 29 @ Times vary
A truck arrives from an unknown location loaded with a mystery shipment. As the sides roll up a strange and unstoppable process is set into motion. Future Cargo is the latest outdoor work by Frauke Requardt and David Rosenberg. Created with long-standing collaborators, Hannah Clark (set and costume), Ben and Max Ringham (music and sound) and lighting designer, Malcolm Rippeth. Future Cargo is a sci-fi dance show performed in a 40-foot haulage truck and, like all Requardt&Rosenberg’s shows, it delivers the delicate integrity of a deeply intimate experience within a large-scale dance spectacle.
Gash Theatre Gets Ghosted
Gash Theatre, founded by Nathalie Ellis-Einhorn and Maddie Flint (both MA Advanced Theatre Practice 2020)
Assembly Showcatcher (Venue 71)
ONLINE - from Aug 6
A referential piece of immersive digital theatre set in a flat that’s been possessed – Poltergeist style – by the ghost of pop-cultural masculinities. The Gash gals find themselves stuck, forced to encounter chit-chatting desk lamps, harmonising closet drawers, a TV that plays nothing but romcoms, a werewolf singing classic rock and way too many Rick and Morty references (one). In this macho world, they grapple with romance, bisexuality, their fears of men and how they’ll connect with other people once they finally escape.
It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut
Holly Boyden (MA Acting 2017) with Curve Theatre and Pleasance
Pleasance Online (Venue 117)
ONLINE - from Aug 16
Two girls; one kind of a lesbian, one kind of a liability, are friends. Kind of. This is kind of their story, and it’s kind of yours too. A story about sexuality and sexual health steeped in the beautiful bluntness of the rural East Midlands, It Kind of Looks Like a Doughnut collides the living with the dead, friendship with grief, and seeks to reawaken our relationship with a dazzling matriarchal heritage that we’ve been encouraged to forget.
Recipient of the 2021 National Partnership Award with Curve Theatre, Leicester.
Just These Please: No Worries If Not
Just These Please, including William Sebag-Montefiore (MA Acting 2014) and Philippa Carson (MA Acting for Screen 2014)
Gilded Balloon Teviot - Wine Bar (Venue 14)
IN PERSON - Aug 5-21 @ Times Vary
Just These Please are back with 25 sketches and songs in 55 minutes. With over 40 million views online and ‘a formidable gag rate’ (Chortle.co.uk), these three actor-comedians and one maritime lawyer bring you a mixture of old favourites and some brand-new material. Expect ‘countless highlights’ (ThreeWeeks) in this ‘hour’s worth of solid gold’ (Popdust.com). They will blow your mind from a safe two-metre distance. They come recommended by the British Comedy Guide and you may have seen them on BBC Scotland or heard them on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Knot: The Trilogy
Darkfield, including David Rosenberg (Tech 1998), Andrea Salazar (BA (Hons) Theatre Practice 2006), and Victoria Eyton (BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Education 2014)
Summerhall Online (Venue 253)
ONLINE - Darkfield App, Aug 6-8, 13-15, 20-22, 27-29 @19:00
Knot is a trilogy, a three-part immersive audio experience unfolding in three different locations – for the first episode audiences will situate themselves on a park bench, for the second in a car, and for the third in a room of their home. Three intersecting, interwoven episodes question how inevitable anything is. You will need to experience all three for the story to be complete. To access the experience you will need a phone, the Darkfield Radio app, tickets and headphones.
Ludala Collection
Initiative.dkf, with Associate Director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu (MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media 2017)
Summerhall Online (Venue 253),
ONLINE - from Aug 6
Ludala, meaning ‘happiness’, is three short films fusing dance, poetry and good vibes. Produced by Initiative.dkf (Eclipse Award winners 2020-21). Supported by Albany and Tamasha Theatre. The poetic Gele captures a son’s wonder witnessing this majestic matriarch manifesting her crown, a traditional head tie. Endures is healing through movement. In a unified defiance against life’s heavy dredges, love’s tenacity boldly survives as Black bodies mirror the shape of water. Taking you way back when, Is Day U Yh? is the surreal journey from Elephant and Castle to Peckham. With food, personified mannerisms and mixed blessings along the way!
On Blueberry Hill
With lighting design from Mark Galione (Tech 1986)
Traverse Theatre
ONLINE - Aug 10-16
In Sebastian Barry’s unique style, On Blueberry Hill features best of friends and worst of enemies Christy and PJ, played by Niall Buggy and David Ganly.
This new play, directed by Jim Culleton, is bursting with humanity, as it explores murder, forgiveness, survival and, ultimately, love in the prison of the human heart.
Patricia Gets Ready (For a Date With the Man That Used to Hit Her)
Written by Martha Watson Allpress (BA (Hons) Acting 2021), produced by Nur Khairiyah (MA Creative Producing 2019) and directed by Kaleya Baxe (BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Education 2019). The show includes performance from Angelina Chudi (BA (Hons) Acting CDT 2018), production management and lighting design from current student Steven Frost, and sound design from Beth Duke (BA (Hons) Theatre Practice 2019)
Pleasance at EICC - Lamond Theatre (Venue 150)
IN PERSON - Aug 17-22, 24-29 @ Times vary
Patricia has spent a year crafting a kick-ass speech while recovering from an abusive relationship. But when she bumps into her ex on the street, and accidentally agrees to dinner with him that night, she’s got some big decisions to make; what to wear? What to say? And whether or not to go? Join Patricia as she gets ready for the date, tells stories of her past and how it has affected her present, and looks honestly at her future.
A Play, A Pie and a Pint: Aye, Elvis
By Morna Young (MA Acting for Screen 2006)
Traverse Theatre - MultiStory (Castle Terrace Car Park)
IN PERSON - Aug 6-29 @12.30
Joan is an amateur Elvis impersonator with big dreams. And she’s got the outfit. With the regional heat of Ultimate Elvis coming soon, Joan knows there’s work to do. But Joan has The King inside – and The King always wins. Will Joan find her way to Graceland, to love and to riches?
Aye, Elvis is an alternative love story about escapism, identity and a Doric Elvis.
Still
With performance from Mecry Ojelade (MA Actor Training and Coaching 2008)
Traverse Theatre - Traverse 1
IN PERSON - Aug 2-22 @ Times vary
Across Edinburgh, five souls stagger towards each other, hoping to be transformed.
Full of tenderness and humour, and woven through with a live, folk-rock inspired, musical score, Still is a cathartic story of life, loss and joy. Set in familiar locations around Edinburgh, this stripped-back production draws audiences straight into the heart of the story as we welcome you back into our space for the first time since March 2020.
The Snail and the Whale
Tall Stories, co-founded by Toby Mitchell (MA Advanced Theatre Practice 2001)
Pleasance Online (Venue 117)
ONLINE - Aug 6-15 @13:30, 18:00
Join an adventurous young girl and her seafaring father as they reimagine the story of a tiny snail’s incredible trip around the world, inspired by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved book. Tall Stories brings this amazing journey vividly to life through storytelling, music and lots of laughs. The show is currently touring the UK (concluding with an August season at the Warren on the Beach in Brighton) but if you can’t make it in person, this is the next best thing – filmed especially for the small screen! Age range 4+.
work.txt
By Nathan Ellis (MA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media 2017)
Summerhall Online (Venue 253)
ONLINE - Aug 9-11 @ Times vary
You’ll clock in at the beginning. You’ll work in a team and under your own initiative. You will be your own boss. You will be free. work.txt is a play without actors performed entirely by the audience. A show that explores pointless work, financial instability and automation. ‘Poignant, quietly apocalyptic’ **** (Scotsman). ‘Mixes existential soul-searching with wry comedy’ **** (Guardian).
(Pictured above)