#edfringe2014

The Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the world. The population of Edinburgh doubles during the month of August as it welcomes performers and art lovers from all corners of the globe. 

This month, we're conducting reconnaissance work to see how the worlds of art and commerce creatively collide on the city streets of Scotland's capital. 

Throughout the month at Fringe, roughly 50,000 shows are performed, so choosing what to see has been a challenge.

However, we've not been let down by Minneapolis' own Rhythmic Circus and their show Feet Don't Fail Me Now. There was no way to stop from dancing during the show and, fortunately, the performers highly encouraged people to get on their feet and shake what the good Lord gave 'em. 

London-based ensemble Action to the World delivers an electric rendition of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Modern pop hits are seamlessly performed by the actors themselves as they move from dialogue to song within physical theater that is absolutely breath-taking. We're going to see it again. It's that good. 

We are beyond proud to see Fargo's own Experience Blur collective perform Gatsby here at the Fringe. Their transition from the Fargo Theatre to Ecce Gallery to the Assembly Roxy Venue here in Edinburgh has revealed their professionalism in adapting to whatever the environment throws at them. The show has retained an intimate quality, extending an invitation for the audience to experience the drama surrounding Jay Gatsby's complicated revelries.

Now, the city has much more to show us, so we must be off, but you can keep up with more Fringe-related updates on our Instagram and Twitter profiles. 

And, if you're here, shout out and let's go drink some whisky!

★★★★☆

  Breakups and breakdowns with comforting wit and loveable charm.

  Genre: Stand-up

Venue: Pleasance Courtyard: Upstairs

Time: 19:15

Price: £7.50-10

It’s a sad time for us all; it’s time for the seventh, and final, Psychosocial Newsletter. It’s been almost two months since we started off these weekly updates, and even longer since we embarked upon this project.

We say goodbye to The Psychosocial Gathering, Edfringe 2014!

We raised an incredible amount through fundraising, late nights were shared in the creation of the final script, emails a-plenty have been sent, discussing publicity, finance and accommodation, all the posters and fliers have been used, our mile t-shirts have been packed away and the sofa returned. We’ve all had an incredible time working on Minotaur Theatre Company’s 2014 Edinburgh show, The Psychosocial Gathering; it’s been one hell of a party – or was it a gathering?

As promised, here is our final video blog from director Martha Geelan. We think it sums up our time working on this project really well: http://youtu.be/DGL8TWCIM4w

The show was very well received up on Edinburgh – we sold 70% of all available tickets, which is amazing for a student-run Fringe show. To give you an idea: most theatre companies in our position sell between 6-10 tickets a day… we averaged 38. Loved by audiences and reviewers alike, here are a couple of quotes:

David Harris, Edfringe Review …delivered in brilliantly straight-faced style...

Charlotte Orr, audience member A truly fabulous and entertaining performance

If you’ve seen any of our social media pages recently, you’ll also see that we’ve been long listed for the National Student’s Drama Festival’s Edinburgh Festival Award this year. It’s a great step in the right direction to having our efforts recognised by the artistic community.

Now we’re drawing to a close, we want to take this opportunity to, once again, personally thank all of our sponsors, and to anyone who helped raise money towards The Psychosocial Gathering. We hope you enjoyed the performance if you had chance to see it. Please keep an eye out for any future Edinburgh shows from UEA and look out on the website for any and all of our upcoming shows during the autumn semester – who knows, you may even see a one-night Psycho revival… so until then...

Shooting Comics In Edinburgh

This is one of the comics that I had the opportunity to photograph last week. They are all appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the article about them and the rest of the photos appeared today on the Comedy Guide – which is the most-visited comedy reference site by some margin.

The focus of the article is the way that comics keep their notes hidden from the audience – written on their…

★★★★☆

  Modern morpheme maestros muster magical moments memorialising mortal masters.

  Genre: Spoken Word: Poetry/Rap

Venue: Banshee Labyrinth

Time: 20:40

Price: £free

★★★☆☆

  Entertaining, bittersweet tale of two... one with a tail.

  Genre: Stand-Up

Venue: Underbelly, Bristo Square: Wee Coo

Time: 16:10

Price: £7.50-10