Fringe is finally over for me. I know it finished a few weeks ago, but I have finally got over fringe flu. That bug that plagues us all, derived from too much drink, not enough sleep, the Scottish weather and running about a beautiful city for a month seeing shows all over. This year I was involved in three shows, all of which were successes with happy producers and directors.
The first I shall talk about was a new musical, ‘Departures: A song cycle’. Set at a train station with the 1542 delayed 8 strangers open up and talk. All the stories come from interviews about the challenges facing modern Britons. This show was a huge amount of fun to work on with an ambitious (for the fringe) set and a huge number of lighting cues, both of which worked to set the show in a place and allow it to drift into an alternate reality for certain points.
I designed lights for a physical theatre adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde for local physical theatre company Headlock. Using up and back lights I moved shadows around, lighting people from unusual places heightening the sense of danger and Hyde took control and they ultimately destroy each other.
Finally I worked on a fantastically poignant piece of verbatim theatre about the Bradford City football stadium fire. The 56 was taken from testimonies of survivors FYSA Theatre produced three interwoven monologues that told the story of that awful event in which 56 people lost their lives. It had the simplest of designs, silhouetting the actors at the top and tale and simply letting the words have all the impact they needed.
I also saw a huge amount of theatre and, this year, especially solo performers. Almost all of whom were fantastic. If I was forced to pick though Pains Plough’s ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ stood out as it tackled depression head on, with a human touch that made you think, but left you up lifted. Its touring and I throughly recommend it. Its also beautifully staged in their new touring venue, The Roundabout, which is a piece of art on its own.
Looking to the future now I have some lighting designs on the way for Trainspotting and The Great Gatsby, two that will be very different. The brief for one being ‘make it grim’ and the other being ‘PARTY’. Ill let you work out which is which.