Tag: fringe

Interview: Hannah McClean, Ladykiller

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The Thelmas are an all-female theatre company founded by Madelaine Moore in response to a growing need for the support and development of new female writers. Most recently seen in London with the Offie-nominated Coconut, the company will next be making their Edinburgh debut with Ladykiller by Madeline Gould, which opens at The Pleasance on 1st August.

“Ladykiller is set in a hotel room, in the aftermath of a murder,” explains actor Hannah McClean. “When we meet HER, a hotel maid, she’s covered in blood and distressed – but it’s not what it looks like; she can explain… 

“It’s clear who committed the crime, so the play is more of a Whydunit, than a Whodunit. It’s a very dark comedy with a few twists and turns along the way, which will leave you second guessing our protagonist.”

Ladykiller by Madeleine Gould
Photo credit: Greg Veit Photography

Madeline Gould wrote the play to explore women’s capacity for violence and criminality, after noticing a lack of complexity in the portrayal of female killers. “I’ve never read a script which focuses on female criminality and psychopathy,” says Hannah. “Characters like this are more often than not, written for men. I have read all too many scripts or watched shows where the female characters are portrayed as less complex than their male counterparts. Women are just as capable of the good, the bad and the ugly and this script explores that beautifully.  

“My character is intelligent, charismatic and at times brutally honest, yet you never know where you stand with her. She is not someone you can root for, but she makes it hard for you not to. I can quite honestly say, I’ve never had the opportunity to play anyone quite like HER, nor have I read a script with a character like HER in it. We feel that our show depicts a female character in a way that hasn’t been seen before – truly, she breaks the mould. She is dark, she is dangerous and she is covered in blood.

“When I read the original script, when it debuted as a 15-minute piece in 2015, I was blown away by the writing, its twists and turns and its unapologetically dark humour. It’s now even bigger and better – and also really funny btw – and I’m absolutely thrilled I still get to don my blood soaked apron. At a time when we as a society are examining our gender roles more so than any other, the show taps into this conversation in a most unexpected way. I hope it gets people talking and debating …and laughing.”

Hannah McClean headshot
Photo credit: Chris Mann Portraits

As well as The Thelmas’ Edinburgh debut, Ladykiller also marks Hannah’s first time performing at the Fringe: “I have always wanted to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe and for a long time I have wanted to perform in a one woman show; so to get the opportunity to tick both those boxes at once is so incredibly exciting. And terrifying! But mostly exciting,” she says. “I begged Maddie Gould to write the full length show after performing the original short in 2015, so now I just need to concentrate on making sure it was worth her while (please God!).”

When she’s not murdering people in hotel rooms, Hannah will be busy checking out some of the other shows heading to the Fringe this year. “So far, the shows that have caught my eye are – F**k You Pay Me at The Assembly Room – I saw this at The Vaults this year and loved it, so I can’t wait to see how it’s developed; The Half at The Pleasance (might have to catch that on my day off) looks great; and East Belfast Boy by Prime Cut Productions (have to support the home grown stuff and also, they’re great), to name a few. The exciting thing is discovering new stuff though, so I’ll be soaking up as much as I can.”

Interview: The Lampoons, House on Haunted Hill

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If you think that four “professional idiots” (their words, not mine), a haunted house, lots of ping pong balls and a jar of pickles sounds like a recipe for chaos… well, you’d be right, actually.

Meet The Lampoons – also known as Tina Baston, Adam Elliott, Josh Harvey and Oliver Malam – who’ve spent the last two years sharing their own unique brand of B-movie mayhem with London audiences. Now they’re preparing to unleash the madness on Edinburgh for the very first time with House on Haunted Hill, a hilarious and utterly bonkers remake of the 1959 horror starring Vincent Price.

“We’ve only gone and brought you a debut!” says Josh. “We have lots of friends in London from our Halloween shows each year, but this will be a newborn baby idiot for us to all deliver. It could well be the most ridiculously bizarre late-night show on the fringe – a thumpingly hilarious non-stop comedy-horror the likes of which have never been seen.

“Everything you see in that very sweaty hour is completely devised from Rob White and William Castle’s original black and white 1959 screenplay. Then imagine we threw that classic screenplay into a large blender with some Mighty Boosh, Monty Python, Garth Marenghi and a heavy seasoning of surreal clowning!“

House on Haunted Hill is The Lampoons’ second full-length show, following the success in 2016 of their debut – another B-movie remake, Attack of the Giant Leeches, at Camden’s Etcetera Theatre. Adam explains, “We’d been friends for a long time, and big admirers of each other’s work, but had been looking for the right project to come along. At the outset of The Lampoons we really didn’t know what we were going to end up with, but we knew we wanted to explore something beyond the more commonplace comedy styles. Turns out we like the irreverent and the ridiculous!

“As for the horror spoofs: well for one, you have to love the titles! Attack of the Giant Leeches, House on Haunted Hill, who doesn’t want to see those! But also, the simple plots of that genre really allow us to pull the stories and characters every which ridiculous way whilst still maintaining some semblance of story structure. Really, we make the most faithful unfaithful adaptations you’ll ever see.”

Faithful they may be, but The Lampoons’ shows could never be accused of being predictable – a lot can, and does, happen in those 60 minutes, from dodgy fake moustaches to the weirdest ballet recital you’ll ever see. “It’s always most fun to be at the start,” says Ollie. “Coming up with the ridiculous ideas list then going through the process of learning how to implement them. One day maybe we will see Josh as a grandfather clock.”

Now they’re looking forward to bringing the show to Edinburgh, where it’ll run from 1st to 26th August at the Pleasance Dome. “I think I’m most excited about being at the centre of a wonderful casserole of creativity,” says Tina. “I think seeing other shows and meeting other creatives every day will give us so much inspiration and motivation to make people chuckle every night. Also, I’ve heard Edinburgh has great beer…”

They’re also hoping to check out a few other shows while they’re in town: “3 Years, 1 Week and a Lemon Drizzle, Will Seaward’s Ghost Stories and Stevenson Experience – they’re twins AND comedians!”

And with plenty of classics still out there waiting to be reimagined, what does the future hold for The Lampoons? “After this debut fringe festival we will likely want to reach more regional areas with our clowns,” says Josh. “And also to continue re-imagining a wonderfully awful B-movie every Halloween in London.”

Review: The Monologues of a Tired Nurse at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre

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Stephanie Silver’s aim when she wrote The Monologues of a Tired Nurse was to give audiences “a brutally honest account of how it feels to work within the NHS in a understaffed, underpaid and emotionally draining time”. As a nurse herself, it’s a feeling she knows all too well, and though her characters are fictional, it’s clear throughout that the play is coming from a very personal place.

Brutal is an accurate word to sum up the show, which sees newly qualified nurse Emily grow gradually more and more dishevelled and distressed (not to mention covered in various unmentionable body fluids) as she realises actually being a nurse is considerably tougher than she expected. Her mentor, the older, wiser and much more experienced Sally, tries to toughen her up, not because she enjoys being mean, but because when you’re working in acute medicine, there’s no time to stop, worry, think (or eat, sleep, breathe…) – you just have to get on with it and hope for the best.

The play, directed by Simon Nader, makes a political statement about the increasingly limited resources available to the NHS, placing ever more pressure on the already stretched staff and putting patients’ lives at risk as a result. Stephanie Silver’s Sally has grown used to working under this pressure, but that doesn’t mean she’s okay with it – her monologues reveal a bitterness and world-weary honesty; if she could go back, she tells us frankly, she’d choose a different career. She’s done her fair share of crying over the years, but these days she just smokes and drinks, puts the tough days behind her and moves on, because she has no choice – if she breaks down, the patients will still be there needing help, and if she’s not there to offer it, then who will?

Makenna Guyler’s Emily, on the other hand, is young and idealistic, and hers is a personal rather than political viewpoint. She went into nursing for a very specific reason, inspired by a traumatic family history and lingering sense of guilt, but her fear of cracking under the pressure means she repeatedly does just that. Despite her brave attempts to claim that getting a thank you from a patient makes the long hours and emotional turmoil all worthwhile, her bright smile begins to crack more and more frequently. The harsh fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, wanting to help – however desperately – may not be enough.

Despite, or perhaps because of, these difficult truths, it’s impossible to leave the theatre without a new respect and admiration for anyone in the nursing profession. Put aside any misguided beliefs that nurses are just there to hold hands and empty bedpans; they have to make life or death decisions every single day, and that responsibility alone – even with limitless resources at their disposal – would be enough to break a lot of people.

The growing crisis in the NHS is well documented, and we’ve heard a lot in recent months about the struggles of junior doctors to keep up with ever-increasing workloads – but nurses never seem to make the headlines, despite being an equally essential part of the health service so many of us take for granted. The Monologues of a Tired Nurse aims to remedy this, and does so with unflinching honesty. It’s not pretty… but it certainly packs a punch.


Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉

Interview: Juan Echenique, Red Button

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“It’s out of this world!” says actor and writer Juan Echenique. “I’ve seen nothing close to what we are doing. We have so many elements, working together in harmony: drama, social commentary, live music, physical comedy, dark humour, sharp wit, science fiction, cloned kittens, pansexual au pairs, radio dramas, and… well… the red button that destroys the world. It’s a 60-minute adrenaline ride, where there’s little time to breathe or blink. Daring, out there, and incredibly energetic.”

He’s talking about Horatio Theatre’s play Red Button, a science fiction comedy about love and the end of the world: “It’s about a young couple, who are mostly bored with their lives. They decide to apply to a charity programme, thinking they will be given the task of taking care of adorable kittens and puppies, but instead they receive the red button that destroys the world. All of this is framed within a futuristic world, where TV and films are forbidden, and the only radio station blasts news, commercials, and propaganda everywhere, and at every minute.

“It’s a story about love and rebellion, about people who make the strangest decisions based on the ones they love, and their desire to be free. Love involves compromise, as well as struggle, sacrifice, altruism and egotism. It could be argued that the red button – that terrifying object that would end it all – represents parenthood, as it can be seen as the end of childhood. The fun fact here is that the play was originally written as a gift; born out of love, all about love, full of dark humour. The peak of cheesiness for the lactose intolerant.”

Juan co-founded Horatio Theatre with director and producer Fumi Gomez, with whom he’s worked since 2009. Their goal is to produce new writing and original storytelling, with a particular focus on using the language of science fiction to discuss social issues.  “Science fiction has often been regarded as a genre made for film and literature,” he says. “The preeminence of movies where special effects are the real protagonists gives us a somehow misleading picture of what this genre can achieve. However, when talking about science fiction, you are talking about imaginary worlds, about a future that could be, and about how history is doomed to repeat itself. Talking about the world around us from the perspective of an imaginary future, gives us the chance of tackling social issues that would be incredibly dry and off putting if discussed in a different way. In other words, science fiction allows us to make some sharp social commentary, while still making unique and entertaining shows.”

Red Button, which opens on 14th August at Edinburgh’s theSpace on North Bridge, has been going through various stages of development since 2014: “The play was originally written as a three hander; two leads and another actor playing several roles. It evolved into a much more complex and layered story, for a cast of seven, when it was ‘scratched’ at the Cockpit Theatre. Its next incarnation was last year in a much more compact and concise format: six actors, 90 minutes. It was performed at the Lion and Unicorn as part of the Camden Fringe.

“The version we are taking to Edinburgh is a huge leap forward from that point. The cast has been reduced to four, and it’s only 60 minutes now. It is a nice compromise between the original script and all the new material, keeping the best and getting rid of all the superfluous passages.”

Juan and the team are excited to share this new version of the show with Edinburgh audiences: “Being a part of the Fringe is a fantastic reward in itself. We really want to share what we are doing with as many people as possible. So far, all audiences have been amazed, and we believe we have something worth showing.

“On top of that, we really want to enjoy the whole festival vibe. So many incredibly talented artists, gathered in the same city for a month… so many amazing shows to watch, and fascinating people to meet… It’s the true fantasy of any self respecting theatre maker. The show SCI-FI? by Sleeping Trees sounds like something we are going to enjoy a lot. It’s very hard to choose. There are so many things going on at the same time… We are just over the moon with anticipation!”

And as for the future? “Red Button is moving forward and up. After the Fringe we’ll move towards doing a full run in London and, potentially, touring. As the cast and the story is quite international, we are already trying to find ways of showcasing it overseas. Performing Red Button in international festivals would be a dream come true.”

Red Button is at theSpace on North Bridge (Venue 36) from 14th-19th August.

Interview: Josie Underwood, Follow Suit

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Silent Faces was founded at Goldsmiths in 2015 by Josie Underwood, Cordelia Stevenson and Jay Wakely, with the aim of making brave, ridiculous, unique and challenging theatre. Their show Follow Suit was nominated for the Brighton Fringe Award for Best Young Production in 2016, and now heads north to Edinburgh’s Pleasance Courtyard.

“People should see Follow Suit because it’s ridiculous and funny, with a bit of liberal rage thrown in,” says co-founder Josie. “It’s a darkly comic take on the morally neglectful world of high finance, four clowns in an office distracting themselves in the most ridiculous ways possible from the skeletons in their stationery cupboard.

“We wanted to make a show that tackled a big issue like corporate responsibility, through clown and comedy. It seems a bizarre idea to smash together clowning with corporations, but it was a challenge we were excited to undertake! We love clown and physical theatre, but also want to make work that challenges, all the while entertaining its audience.”

With just a few days to go until their Edinburgh debut, Silent Faces are looking forward to the experience, and particularly seeing audiences’ reactions to the show. “We’ve worked on this production for so long, and we are incredibly excited to share it with the wonderful audiences that flock to Edinburgh Fringe,” says Josie. 

“And there are so many other shows that we’re excited to see this year: Superbolt’s two shows, Mental by Kane Power Theatre, Gecko, Different Party and Trygve vs a Baby, and so much more. We’re also gutted that we won’t be able to see Not I by Touretteshero – which looks right up our street and we will definitely be encouraging everyone to see!”

Silent Faces aim to make their work accessible to as many people as possible, and Follow Suit was recently included in a round-up of Disability Arts International’s picks of the Fringe 2017. It does come with a bit of a health warning for younger audience members, though: “It’s not for kids, because it does get a bit gruesome, but we think anyone would enjoy Follow Suit,” says Josie. “As an integrated company of disabled and non-disabled artists, we were really keen to make work that is accessible to all adult audiences – and as a show that relies mainly on comedy and physicality, Follow Suit is accessible to an international audience.

“Above all else, we hope audiences will be entertained. While the content is in essence political, we don’t want to stand on a soap box and shove our views down our audiences’ throats. Instead we want them to enjoy the comedy, the silliness and the journey that our clowns go on.”

Follow Suit is at Pleasance Courtyard (venue 33) from 2nd-28th August (not 9th, 14th, 15th, 21st) at 12.45pm.