This year the Edinburgh Festival Fringe celebrates its 75th birthday! We’re no strangers to this extraordinary festival, having been producing and co-producing our own shows there for the last ten years.
Man to Man dazzled audiences and critics in 2015, and Carys Eleri’s Lovecraft (Not the Sex Shop in Cardiff) in 2019 put this exceptional Welsh talent on the map. If you missed it then, you can listen again on BBC Sounds here.
This year, we’re supporting three fantastic shows at the Fringe in August.
Following a sold-out run at WMC in April, Luke Hereford’s solo musical Grandmother’s Closet – a co-production with Wales Millennium Centre – will be performed 3-28 August at the Summerhall venue.
This autobiographical play by first-time writer (and long-time theatre-maker) Luke Hereford is about queer identities, and how Luke learned to love his with the help of his grandmother and her colourful wardrobe.
It features modern arrangements of pop classics from female icons including Madonna, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Judy Garland and Björk, and is directed by first-time director (and long-time actor) François Pandolfo. As in Cardiff, there will be a dementia-friendly performance too.
Also at Summerhall, our Creative Associate Jo Fong has teamed up once more with George Orange to create The Rest of Our Lives – a cabaret of life and near death performed at Summerhall 16-28 August.
Jo is an old dancer, George an old clown. They are international artists with 100 years of life experience between them. They’ve reached the mid-way point, and now they’re looking at the rest of their lives and wondering, what next? Highly recommended.
And finally, today the iconic Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh have announced their programme for this year’s Fringe. It includes Blood Harmony; a highly visual and musically charged new play about love, loss and legacy.
It’s a compelling, intimate reflection on grief and the invisible bonds within families.
Blood Harmony is created by Matthew Bulgo, Jonnie Riordan, Jess Williams and commissioned and produced by ThickSkin and Lawrence Batley Theatre, in co-production with Watford Palace Theatre and Wales Millennium Centre and supported by The Lowry. Catch Blood Harmony at the Traverse Theatre 6-28 August.
All three will be making the most of the opportunities the Fringe brings, as international delegates, a swarm of critics and discerning producers looking for their next smash hit, rub shoulders with thousands of artists eager to share their newest work.
We are immensely proud of all three and wish them all the best!