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Dateline: 8th June, 2003 EdFringe 2003 Preview (4) Fringe 2003 - the Statistics There will be 21,549 performances of 1,541 shows by 668 companies in 207 venues (70 of them new) and a total of 12,940 performers will take part. In spite of the disastrous fire which destroyed the Gilded Balloon and other smaller venues at the end of last year, there are, in fact, more venues this year than every before. As always, there are more theatre shows than any other. 557 shows - that's 37% - are theatre. Add to that the 4% of the total represented by musicals and opera and a percentage of the dance and physical theatre shows (also 4% of the total) and the children's shows (4% too) and it is clear that more than two fifths of all the shows on the fringe are theatre or theatre-related. Tickets for all Fringe shows go on sale on 16th June and can be booked on the website or by phone on 0131 226 0000. Copies of the programme - which runs to 208 pages, plus a two page fold out map at the end - can be ordered by phone on 0907 159 2003 (premium line: the phone charge pays the postage) or can be picked up from the Fringe Office at 180 High Street, Edinburgh, from VisitScotland in Cockspur Street in London, or from many tourist information offices throughout the country. The Gospel of St Matthew 'Angel'-winner, George Dillon (one of the BTG's favourite Fringe performers), returns with his sixth solo show, an explosive delivery of the first Gospel in his own translation, backed by original music and computerised video. The earliest account of the life of Jesus is vivid and shocking. Scournful to Gentiles, damning to Jews, Matthew's portrait of a complex Messiah is angry, funny and always human. Aimed at audiences of all beliefs, this production has strong images and is NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. Dillon will be apearing at C Venue in Chambers Street from 30th July to 24th August at 6.20 (but not on 12th August). Seabright and Sutherland Make Festival Highlights Martin Sutherland and James Seabright have brought fifty shows to Edinburgh over the past five years and are collaborating for the first time, to help artists and audiences get the most out of Edinburgh’s summer festival season. Both Martin and James have received the prestigious Theatre Investment Fund New Producers Bursary in support of their career development. They will continue to independently pursue their own producing projects whilst collaborating on their Edinburgh Fringe programme – for example Martin’s biggest Edinburgh hit of last year, The Bomb-itty of Errors, continues to run in London’s West End. From a pool of forty submissions from companies and artists around the world, the Festival Highlights programme has taken shape over the past six months to bring these productions to Edinburgh. They will play from midday to midnight at three key fringe venues – Pleasance, Assembly, and the Traverse. Their theatre shows are:
Can Machines Think? It's 1770 and Wolfgang von Kempelen is about to change the course of history. At the court of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria-Hungary, the young inventor wheels out a box, behind which sits a wooden man dressed in Turkish robes. On top of the box, a chessboard. A challenger steps forward. He inspects the box. No hidden wires, no hidden player. Nothing more than meets the eye. Kempelen winds up his strange creation, and an assembly of cogs, wheels and levers judders to life. The Turk - as the automaton is dubbed - proceeds to claim his first of many victims on the battlefield of the human mind. Inspired by the bestselling book and BBC Radio Four series The Mechanical Turk (by Telegraph and Spectator writer Tom Standage), Fringe First nominees Activated Image bring an extraordinary true story to the stage. This vivid, physically-charged ensemble performance charts the Turk's colourful journey across Europe - the legendary men and women whose lives it touched, the loneliness and isolation it forced on its creator, and the mind-shattering new thinking about the relationship between man and machine it left in its wake. Activated Image's previous productions include the revival of Stephen Fry's Latin! which played Edinburgh's Gilded Balloon, transferring to the New End Theatre and, earlier this year, the King's Head Theatre. The company has produced two acclaimed new dramas at the Fringe, 2002's The Straight Man which transfers to the King's Head next year, and the Fringe First-nominated Amy Evans' Strike ("One of the gems of 2001" - The List). Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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