Theatrical productions at Buxton Fringe 2015 promise to “take audiences into another world, whether through the story itself, the unique location in which it is performed or the sheer quality of the performance”.
Among the attractions will be Butterfly’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, set in Poole’s Cavern where there will be a live acoustic band as the audience moves through the atmospheric caves.
The enchantment should continue with The Ash Girl, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s retelling of Cinderella performed by the REC Youth Theatre Company, and Uproot Theatre Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by two actors.
The Shakespeare connection continues with inamoment theatre company presenting King Lear (Alone), a “thought-provoking” reworking of the original, while Fringe Award winners Smooth Faced Gentlemen will take to Buxton a new, all-female production of Othello and a “stripped-down, ramped-up” version of Titus Andronicus.
Steve Larkin adapts a classic with Tes, a re-imagining of Tess of the D’urbervilles, with Thomas Hardy’s heroine reinvented as a teenaged boy from a Newcastle council estate.
A more spooky atmosphere can be found in Alexander Arts’s The Rats in the Walls, which takes audiences to sinister Exham Priory, and Polis Loizou’s Peaceful from The Off-Off-Off-Broadway Company, focusing on a woman hiding from ghosts in her labyrinthine mansion. Both shows will be performed in Underground Venues which also hosts Henry James’s gothic horror story The Turn of the Screw, adapted by Martin Prest and performed by That’s My Cue Productions.
Audiences are invited to go ghost-hunting with The Ghosthunters’ Club, presented by Cul-de-sac theatre over the five creaky floors of Scrivener’s Books.
Lady M Youth Theatre will perform a comic-gothic-horror portrayal of Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven while another young company, Dilate Theatre, serves up a gruesome mystery in Murder Weapon.
Curious Grin Productions will offer an “energetic and exciting” production of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days and Rhema Theatre Company will tell true stories from the world of human trafficking in The ‘It’s Not Fair!’.
Seriously Funny by Dreamshed Theatre portrays Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams both on and off stage while Sudden Impulse Theatre Company will bring to life Two by Jim Cartwright.
Musical theatre is well represented in Buxton Fringe 2015. Far West Theatre will present Jacques Brel: Une Vie a Mille Temps, a new musical piece based on the life and works of the Belgian composer, while Departure Lounge, a musical by Sudden Impulse Theatre Company, tells the story of four British boys returning home from a lads’ holiday in the sun.
The Fringe takes place from 8 until 26 July and the full programme is available at the Buxton Fringe web site.