Here comes the wagon…

July 12, 2011, 1:40 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

In a mere 25 days we will be performing our first Edinbugh Fringe show of ‘little matter’ in our travelling theatre wagon… eek! And whilst we are very excited about this it sure has been a long long process!

The idea for this show started with a work in progress show we did 2 years ago, titled ‘AngelRust’ which we scratched in 2009 at the Bedlam Theatre during the Edinbugh Fringe (alongside ‘Lilly through the dark’) armed with all the feedback given by our audiences – maybe you were there? We have transformed the show with the help of the Edinbugh International Festival 2010, into ‘little matter’, a folk tale about an ancient battle between light and dark.

While all of this devevlopment was going on, Ed, myself and our friends from Spinney Hollow, Kate and Geoff , stumbled upon the fact that we all wanted to make a theatre wagon. We had a shared interest in making theatre in a format that can access a new audience and everyone can enjoy, we also gave ourselves the challenge of keeping the whole wagon self sufficient and low impact, just to make things easier…!!

So, last summer, we four and an awful lot of willing volunteers built a little (albeit slightly shaky!) theatre wagon, material for which we begged, borrowed and definitely stole to make the wagon. Geoff took the lead, managing the team and directing them how to build it, ready for last years Hat Fair.

That year we took ‘terrible tales’ to the Hat Fair, Bestival and up to the Edinburgh Fringe – sadly minus the wagon as there was just too much standing in our way to get the wagon up there. However the dream to be on the meadows with our wagon began to grow…. how very romantic.

After the Fringe in 2010, Ed and I were determined to take the wagon up to fringe in 2011 and began to approach the Edinburgh council about performing on the meadows. Then followed a series of emails, extension numbers and far, far too many departments to recall here, to then be told that the meadows were ‘booked up’ for 2011 (so expect wall to wall shows this year!). So we approached our lovely friends at The Bedlam Theatre and together we have created Venue 47 – The Bedlam Chambers, which is where this year we and our wagon will be performing ‘Little Matter’.

The Team this year have had a few additions, the cast this time is Ed Wren, Kate Hadley (‘Terrible Tales’), myself, and new comer and violin dynamo Ivan Stott of Hiccup Theatre. Also Alice Carter, our administrator, will be making the trip to Edinbugh this year to deal with all the things we can’t do, and Eimhin Walker will be joining as our production assistant… so hopefully we’ll have a very organised, well-manned Fringe for once!

The next few weeks sees us rehearsing and tweaking ‘Little Matter’ following our tour that began in May – thanks to those who have come out to support us and have been kind enough to give us feedback, say hello, help us fill in flyers and more. We were also lucky enough to have Georgia Green on a placement with us, meaning we can get even more done over the coming weeks, she is writing this months newsletter as I right this and is herself performing at the Edinbugh Fringe with Tiny Dickens and Titus Andronicus: Bingo”

Thanks for reading, and hopefully we’ll see you fringe side!

Claire x