Aurora Nova and Pleasance
Aurora Nova makes a long-awaited return with 7 shows across 7 venues with its trademark emphasis on physical theatre and dance. Fringe First Award winner Leo is an anti-gravity show that’s had a multi-continent tour. Arches Brick Award winner White Rabbit Red Rabbit is a provocative play by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and is well worth seeing.
The Pleasance has such a huge variety of performance taking place in its many venues. The atmosphere in the Courtyard is magical with its many bars and there is always a buzz. It has opened two new spaces at the Pleasance Up The Hill, presenting site-specific work, and The Bunker, designed in 1940s-style.
I’m looking forward to seeing Pants on Fire’s Pinocchio at The Pleasance Dome, following its 2010 Carol Tambor’s Best of Edinburgh award for Ovid’s Metamorphosis. It has set the play in the world of 1950s sci-fi horror B-movies with a dubset soundtrack and use puppetry, physical theatre and live film; this promises to be exciting devised theatre.
Over the years, the Young Pleasance has produced some outstanding theatre and has always been on my must-see list. This year it brings Rites: a Children’s Tragedy that unleashes the existential and sexual anguish of Wedekind’s Spring Awakening in what it describes as a “scalding new production.” I can’t wait to see it.
Having already seen Gecko’s Missing in Southampton, I really must highly recommend it. It’s a visually stunning, visceral production with striking imagery and beautiful music from this critically-acclaimed dance theatre company.
After a three month UK tour, Les Enfants Terribles brings back its phenomenally successful The Trench. This moving and visually evocative story of a miner enlisted to tunnel under enemy trenches during World War I is simply stunning.