Awards season round-up
The Fringe has a number of awards honouring productions brought to Edinburgh. The Scotsman gives their Fringe First awards to pieces premiering at the Festival. In 2010, over 500 shows saw their premiere on a Fringe stage. Over three weeks, eighteen were chosen as recipients of the longest established award at the Festival Fringe: Speechless, Beautiful Burnout, Bare, White, Real Babies Don’t Cry, and My Romantic History made up the first batch of winners.
The six pieces are a wonderful variety of what the festival has to offer - Bare is the story of a bare-knuckle fighter with an emphasis on physical theatre, and White delights young children with its exploration of what would happen if a world of white was invaded by colour. Speechless chronicles a unique but destructive sister relationship. Another piece of physical theatre, Beautiful Burnout, throws audiences into the midst of the boxing world. Two comedies round out the group: Real Babies Don’t Cry is a psychological thriller about a woman who nurtures a baby doll and My Romantic History explores love in the workplace.
Seven more winners were announced August 20, including the quirky storytelling piece on camping by Laura Mugridge, titled Running On Air. Bound, a piece of physical theatre, tells the story of a mismatched fishing crew competing against nature and themselves. Daniel Kitson’s It’s Always Right Now, Until It’s Later promises to be about everyone and our eternal moments - and over by lunchtime. A familiar story gets a new interpretation with Penelope at the Traverse Theatre, the story of Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey. Three pieces inspired by true stories won as well: the title of Do We Look Like Refugees?! came from interviews Alecky Blythe conducted in a refugee settlement in Georgia. Roadkill explores sex-trafficking through the eyes of a young girl from Benin. Finally, there is Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, which tells the story of Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity through one of the victim’s fathers.
The third and final week honoured Primadoona, a one-woman show about three dark years, and Another Someone, a piece that melds dance, physical theatre, music, and the imagination. Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl explored what would happen if a group of co-workers re-arranged the food chain, Lidless followed a former Guantanamo Bay interrogator’s attempt to forget her past, and the final winner Bunny is a hard-hitting monologue about race and class tensions from the eyes of a white teenage girl.
.jpg)
Several of these shows collected other awards. Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression Award, for outstanding Fringe play with a human rights message, went to Roadkill. Along with Bound, it also won a Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Award and Holden Street Theatre Award.
The comedy awards circuit broke new ground this year, nominating a free show in the Foster’s Comedy Award. Ultimately, Imran Yusuf did not win the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer - that went to Roisin Conaty for her show Hero, Warrior, Fireman, Liar. Russell Kane took the main award, and Bo Burnham won the Panel Prize Award.
Several shows will now have the opportunity to take their work abroad, thanks to accolades earned here in Edinburgh. The Made in Scotland programme at the Fringe won a total of eleven awards, and companies have been invited to tour in Australia, the USA, and the Netherlands.
