Fringe 2024

Cast: Milly Astbury, Chloe Beynon, Alex Bonsall, Lucia Lee, Tilly Measures, Alex Morgan, Louisa Roberts

Creatives: Georgie Dettmer (writer), Tim Coker (Director), Ellen Finlay (Movement Director), Kyle Arrowsmith (Technician)

This year’s Fringe experience has once again been a huge success. We have performed to sell-out audiences (a huge achievement, competing as we are with thousands of other shows) throughout the run, attracted great publicity and received positive audience and professional reviews.

The show itself went fantastically well once again and the company can be really proud of what they achieved. The process began in October in workshop with Georgie Dettmer, our commissioned young writer this year. Further workshops and R&D took place over the next few months and the final script went into rehearsal from Feb, performing previews in Rugby in June and July, before its 10 day run at Fringe. We will end the process with a performance in London in October as part of the Bloomsbury Festival who co-commissioned the play with us.

Our reputation on Fringe, along with strong marketing, recognisable imagery and smart copy means that we attract attention from press as well as punters. And this year we enjoyed pre-Fringe publicity as ‘One of the 12 best shows at Fringe’ and ‘Top 10 best titles at Fringe’ from What’s On Stage and The Handbook. One of many remarkable achievements for us as a Youth Company commissioning unknown emerging writers to create new work for us.

At Fringe, one of the most exciting parts of the experience for the students is flyering on The Royal Mile. The cast perform, chat and market the show to the thousands of tourists, performers and others in this iconic whirlwind of colour and creativity. We get a lot of attention flyering – we always have a distinctive ensemble costume, and for the last 2 shows we have the addition of ‘Bari’ the baritone saxophone played by Louisa Roberts. This year the press loved taking photos once again and Louisa featured on the cover of The New York Times with the feature ‘Out and About at the Edinburgh Fringe’.

The group also see dozens of shows every day between them, from the bizarre to the beautiful, ranging from dance to puppetry. As a cultural experience, this is second to none and the whole group will have had mind-expanding experiences this last 12 days.

We stayed in University Halls and the group took it in turns to cook for each other, choosing recipes from a selection we provided for the trip, working out quantities, buying the ingredients, prepping, cooking and serving the food, hosting the group and then washing up and clearing away afterwards. This was a really positive experience and helped the group to bond as well as giving them a taste of University life.

Whilst we didn’t reach dizzying heights of last year’s 5* review and Offie Nomination, I am really proud of the way that the group approached this project from start to finish. They have been supportive of one another, professional in all aspects of the show, great fun to spend time with and fantastic ambassadors for the work we do in the Performing Arts at Rugby.

One clear testament to the impact this trip has is that our ‘alumni’ have returned year-on-year as performers, writers, directors and audiences. This year the following Rugbeian ‘graduates’ from this trip are in Edinburgh with their own work:

• Freddie Walker (performed in our 2018 show 1 Singular Sensation). Here as writer and performer at Pleasance.
• Kat Johns (performed in our 2018 show 1 Singular Sensation). Here as performer at Pleasance.
• Stella Cohen (performed in our 2019 show 21 Futures). Here as performer at C Venues.
• Emily Browning (performed in our 2020 show which was cancelled due to covid, but became a radio play). Here as director at Riddles Yard.
• Oliver Butler (performed in our 2022 show 7 Seventeen Year Olds in a Screwed up World). Here as performer at Riddles Yard.

It is also really pleasing to see that three of our young writers, whose early careers we supported through this commission, are here again with new shows this year:

• Nick Cassenbaum (writer for us 2018 – 1 Singular Sensation). Here with new show Revenge: After the Lavoyah
• Olly Hawes (writer for us 2019 – 21 Futures). Here with new show F***ing Legend
• Vyte Garriga (writer for us 2023 – 2nd Picture of Dorian Gray). Here with new show Paper Swans

Professional Reviews

3 Couples, 2 Breakups, 1 Barbie and The Berlin Wall

C venues | C aquila (Venue 21), until 10 August

★★★

There’s a bracing discipline to this absurdist play by Georgie Dettmer that examines love and all its aspects. It’s necessary too as seven teenagers (and a Barbie doll) approach the subject at hand in a sideways manner with nicely choreographed vignettes that in less capable hands could amount to little more than a hill of beans. This formalism imparted by director Tim Coker helps assure the audience that this is, indeed, a carefully structured piece rather than a series of acting exercises.

It’s rigorously performed by the Rugby-based Macready Theatre Young Actors Company as the boiler-suit clad performers quickly win over your confidence mixing reminiscences of breakups and heartache with the studied air of popular science lecturers. This ultimately leads to employing two unsuspecting audience members as actors in a very funny scripted first date scenario.

However, there’s also a curiously moving passage relating to Eija-Riitta, the Swedish woman who fell in love with and married the Berlin Wall. Mapping the cartography of the human heart often means that this necessarily offers more questions than answers but it does manage to successfully convey a quiet sense of wonder.

Audience Reviews

Jennifer Garner

Thanks Louisa for handing us the flyer to your fabulous show! We thoroughly enjoyed all the layers of the story – and your Bari-Sax was tops! Everyone should go!

Marissa Landy

This show takes you on a journey! The performers are all fantastic and create a brilliant ensemble. I felt like I was really learning something while watching as well!

Detlef Struve

I really enjoyed the show and will come to see it again. The seven young actors delivered a stunning performance. Wonderful facial expressions, precise articulation and body language brought the wonderful script to life. How wonderful it was to watch to Berlin Wall in its different aspects (do barbed wire, do more concrete, …) being impersonated by the actors – under instructions given in German (with subtitles). The different aspects of love, including tragic loss and falling in love with objects were discussed and one did wonder how so much content could be included in such a compact play. There was moderate audience participation and everything was bound together by some very nice saxophone licks. It was a pleasure to watch and listen!

Andy Walker

This show is put on by a highly talented group of young people. It is humorous but at the same time thought provoking. I would recommend this show to any who wants to be moved and entertained.

Manthie Good

A brilliant show that was both funny and moving with a great story line carried beautifully by a fabulously talented young cast. Very much a must see show!

Lach

An exploration into the definition of love. Funny and thought provoking, while encouraging me to dance along to the live saxophone player. A show I would recommend to anyone… and I’d probably go and see again myself too.

Hans Rinderknecht

Standout writing and deeply enrapturing performances, let alone for such a young company! Definitely a show to see.

James A

Didn’t know what to expect, but we were blown away by this amazing group of performers. A brilliantly written story of love expertly portrayed by a group of truly dynamic and multi-talented artists. By far my favourite show of the Fringe!!

Simon James

A totally immersive physical theatre show by 7 young actors, sharing stories of love, heartbreak and reflection. Brilliantly done with humour and emotion. A must see.

Sharon

Wonderful exploration into different aspects of love from the expected to the unexpected! Fresh and joyful with earnest expression and joy . Hope as many people can enjoy this great show .

Anonymous

Absolutely great would definitely recommend to all people. Themes about absurd love. Don’t miss!!

Ghost of the Fringe

Follow @FringeRank for 3 sentence reviews https://x.com/fringerank/status/1819032398413144218?s=46&t=Bqx9iUGvQijYLQdzs-X9Q

James Gordon

A thoughtful, inventive ‘anatomy of love’ in various forms (gay, straight, lasting, transient, for people, dolls and even concrete objects), presented with verve and self-deprecating humour by 7 young actors, one of whom is as fluent delivering lines in German as in English (translation is provided). A shame the excellent saxophonist didn’t get more chance to shine. Quirky, zany, and ultimately with a simple message at heart.