There are some very, very exciting things going on at Remarkable Arts.
Although its two venues (Hill Street Theatre and St. George’s West) are hardly the most centrally located, the buzz already surrounding its programme should drive the madding crowds north of the bridge (for once!). Along with The Stand (which we previewed yesterday), Remarkable Arts is doing its best to redraw the Fringe map by hosting some massive names. Take that, Traverse!
David Leddy and Citizens Theatre Glasgow triumphed across the board at last year’s Fringe with the sinister Sub Rosa, and both find a home at Remarkable Arts this year – Leddy will transport audiences across time and space to Venice in Untitled Love Story, and the Citizens’ adaptation of treasured newspaper column One Million Tiny Plays About Britain looks fantastic.
Other big hitters include the still-unpronounceable, still-seminal Ontroerend Goed, who are up with new show Audience; pioneers of interactive theatre Blast Theory invite you to rob a bank in A Machine To See With, and Sherman Cymru / Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru transfer the much-touted Welsh play Llwyth (Tribe) before it begins touring nationally. The last two are also part of the British Council’s Edinburgh Showcase, which we’ll be previewing in more depth next week.
The Tramway’s youth supergroup, Junction 25, will perform their universally lauded I Hope My Heart Goes First – tickets for this one are likely to vanish quicker than cookies from the cookie jar (pesky kids). On a similarly cardiac theme, Francesca Millican-Slater follows up her charming 2010 show Instructions For Heartbreak with the intriguing Me, Myself and Miss Gibbs, which follows her attempts to uncover the story behind one very spooky postcard...
Fish and Game’s Alma Mater is a sweet-looking piece for one audience member told entirely through an iPad, The Oh F*** Moment is another Escalator show and sounds terrific, and the magical Ray Lee displays his incredible harmonic gadgets in the Ethometric Museum.
If all this weren’t enough (and it bloody well should be!), Remarkable Arts have an enviable menu of experimental and traditional cabaret, two masters of the one-man show (Pip Utton and Jack Klaff), and the pink wafer himself, Scott Free, in The Return of the Pink Sinatra.
Remarkable? It’s ridiculous.
