it seems to me that this thing better start rolling before august explodes upon us and, seeing as how it explodes in july this year, i thought i'd better push now - sysiphisian a task as it may be. my first real post of the festival concerns our origins at the
bedlam theatre at the end of george iv bridge in delightful edinburgh.
the dreadfuls arrived separately to study separate degrees at edinburgh university, but quickly found ourselves in the
improverts, edinburgh university theatre company's resident, self-renewing improv troupe. remarkably, if you want to see the work of other improvert alumni then edinburgh is the only place to be in august.
al smith returns after jealousy-inducing success with
enola and
radio and before that,
chalk, with his half of
the bird and the bee,
the bird.
lucy kirkwood is, unfortunately, not presenting a show at this year's festival. but she has
been busy. over the road, at
the forest fringe,
andy field is curating. while never strictly an improvert, he did come to "wednesday workshops" for a year.
(take a breath, there's a lot more).
juppers the tubby little comedian (NB he has lost weight) is back with a
brand new hour of mellifluous, confessional stand-up. miles is, of course, the narrator of our BBC7
radio series, the first series of which is repeated in september before the broadcast of the second. also appearing for their fortieth consecutive fringe are
garry dobson and stuart murphy at the stand. and if one full length comedy play ain't enough for ya, then briony redman attacks the fringe with
the rules of drama and suspense.
(tell me if this is getting tedious).
in addition to the people with whom we made improv funnies, there are numerous people doing shows who are also in some way connected. up first, it's super sub dreadful: the magnificent
pegabovine. my pegabovine cherry was popped way back at
NSDF 2003. the show was
the freudian slip and the company presents
a one-man show this year. it will be fab. incidentally, the show i was in at NSDF03 was
like skinnydipping featuring the aforementioned andy field. next in line is
watson and oliver; and here the strands intertwine. for lorna, the former, used to be an improvert and ingrid oliver has latterly appearead as alexandra faversham in our radio show.
(weird).
of course there is the other show of our puppet director jeremy bidgood,
the last yak, that you simply must see, darling. his show from 2007,
haozkla, was beautiful, inventive and gloriously silly. and you should probably go out of your way to get to
thought art, a performance piece presented by two absent artists and co-ordinated by our production's second-in-command,
dr steve. one of the absent artists was also the director who enabled me to stop doing comedy for a while as she cast me as christ and then as centenarian clown. and... dr steve was also an improvert. and
idil. and
neil.
lastly, but by all means leastly, i'm doing
another show. i'm still not one hundred percent certain what i'll be doing, but it will probably be a play. if, at the end of that, i've got time i might tell some jokes.
well. that's that i suppose. do let me know if that has far too long for a blogging or, indeed, i have forgotten about your show and totally shouldn't have done.
yours e-mmediately,
thom tuck, esq
Labels: 2008, aeneas, aeneasfaversham, comedy, dreadfuls, edinburgh, faversham, festival, fringe, penny, pennydreadfuls, theatre
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