Awards Coverage
Angels fly off with awards
Keith Bruce [Saturday, August 15, 2009]
Over the past year it is not just the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that has undergone upheaval. The Herald has had its own share of sea change and no-one needs reminding of the recent drama in the Scottish banking sector. So it is with the sense of welcoming an old friend we are particularly happy to see again that the first recipients of Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Awards are revealed this morning.
The award winners are chosen by The Herald's critical team each week as recognition of excellence wherever they find it in Festival Edinburgh. Not unusually in the first week of the Fringe, they have seen it in the Traverse programme. However, of the three Traverse Angels this week, only one roosts in the building. Grid Iron Theatre Company, specialists in site-specific theatre and previous winners of an Archangel for their sustained success with productions in Edinburgh, are performing Barflies, an adaptation of the writing of Charles Bukowski, in the Barony Bar in Broughton Street. With fine performances from Keith Fleming, Gail Watson and musician David Paul Jones, it is another triumph by director Ben Harrison and the company.
Ontroerend Goed from Ghent are also previous winners, with last year's Once And For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen at the Traverse. This year they are off-site at the Mercure Point Hotel, with a very intimate piece of experimental performance in which five actors challenge an audience of five by trying to build a relationship with their partner in just 25 minutes. It has been the main talking point of week one among everyone who has seen it.
In the Traverse itself, Dennis Kelly, whose last work in Scotland was a children's show for the National Theatre of Scotland, has written Orphans, a grown-up drama for a co-production with Birmingham Rep and Paines Plough. The playwright plunges a happy couple into an extreme dilemma and asks profound questions about what it means to "do the right thing".
Glasgow-based performer Nic Green has already presented the individual parts of her Trilogy, but they have been radically reworked for the show that is the lynchpin of the Arches programme at St Stephens in Stockbridge. Green and her cohorts re-examine the building blocks of 1970s feminism from a contemporary perspective in a show that now famously includes an invitation to get naked. Everyone who sees the work finds it extraordinarily uplifting, clothed or not.
DOT 504, meanwhile, are very much the sort of company who used to feature in the Aurora Nova programmes at St Stephens. Their elemental dance theatre impressed last year with Holdin' Fast and they have returned to Zoo Southside this year with 100 Wounded Tears, a brave and physical piece which is as moving as it is amusing.
As the Fringe began, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival was winding up, and one of the final concerts was by Jack Bruce, Scotland's contribution to the 1960s supergroup Cream. In the company of guitarist Robin Trower and drummer Gary Husband, the Cambuslang musician showed his playing and singing are still of the finest in a concert at the Queen's Hall which covered his glorious musical history in the best of company.
This week's Archangel winner is an organisation with a Fringe history that now stretches back over 20 years. Universal Arts is directed by Tomek Borkowy and managed by Laura Mackenzie Stuart, and has been a crucial part of the fabric of the Fringe, bringing performances of music and theatre, dance and work for children from all over the world to a succession of venues. They have included St Brides in Gorgie, the Gateway Theatre on Leith Walk and the tiny Hill Street Theatre, which was once run by Judith Docherty, founder and producer of Grid Iron. This year, as last, Universal Arts is operating from the Freemason's Hall in George Street (styled the New Town Theatre), St George's West and the Edinburgh International Conference Centre with another vibrant and colourful programme.
The Little Devil this week, awarded for overcoming the inevitable hurdles which life throws in the way of many a performance, goes to another Traverse show. Dancer David Hughes worked in collaboration with Al Seed, an Angel-winner last year, on The Red Room, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Mask of the Red Death.
On the eve of its opening, the show lost not one but two members of its small cast, due to sudden personal tragedies.
With the company's dance apprentice Kirsty Pollock stepping into one role, it was left to Seed to don female attire and bring his own unique skills to other one. That the show is still a success says much for the creative skills of all involved.
Sounds of Cuba make a great finale
Keith Bruce [Monday, August 17th, 2009]
THE Creole Choir of Cuba brought Saturday's Bank of Scotland Herald Angels awards ceremony to a glorious conclusion on Saturday morning with their acappella singing. The choir were brought along to the event by producer Toby Gough, himself a former Archangel winner for his consistent contributions to the Fringe, from the St George's West church venue where they are performing every day at 6pm.
Gough's World festival is sharing the venue with Universal Arts, the production company directed by Tomek Borkowy and managed by Laura Mackenzie Stuart, which this year is celebrating its 20th anniversary at the Fringe.
The couple were presented with the first of this year's Archangel awards by Susan Rice, managing director of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland, the new owner of the Bank of Scotland.
Launching this year's awards, Rice said: "Edinburgh truly becomes the centre of the cultural world during August, and The Bank of Scotland Herald Angels recognise the very best contributors. All the winners should be proud of their achievement."
Universal Arts has a programme drawn from all over the world, which can also be seen at the New Town Theatre (the Freemason's Hall on George Street and at Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Morrison Street, including performers from Spain, Singapore, Venezuela, France and Canada.
Borkowy is also a passionate advocate of the Fringe and has sponsored a debate on its future which takes place today.
The first week's Little Devil award, presented by Rice to David Hughes Dance Productions, was in recognition that company's outstanding commitment to its work in the face of adversity, and was one of four awards to shows in the Traverse programme.
Hughes and Al Seed's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe, The Red Room, was hit be the departure of two crucial cast members on the eve of its opening, but has gone ahead with company apprentice Kirsty Pollock and Seed himself stepping in to the two (women's) roles.
Playwright Dennis Kelly was awarded an Angel for his play Orphans, currently playing at the Traverse, and collected on his behalf by the theatre's Mike Griffiths.
Two other shows to receive Angels are happening outside the theatre building. Grid Iron Theatre Company's producer Judith Docherty collected the Angel for Barflies, the company's adaptation of the writings of Charles Bukowski, being performed in the Barony Bar in Broughton Street by Keith Fleming, Gail Watson, and David Paul Jones.
The entire performing company from Ontroerend Goed of Ghent in Belgium took the stage to receive their Angel for Internal. Being performed at the Mercure Point Hotel, this one-on-one experience for an audience of just five at a time has been one of the main talking points of this year's Fringe.
Another has undoubtedly been Nic Green's Trilogy at St Stephens in Stockbridge under the auspices of the Arches. Most of Green's company colleagues accompanied her to receive the award for a show for which she has recruited a large number of extra performers willing to strip off an sing women's liberation anthem Jerusalem.
Green's performance investigation into the ideals of the movement in the 1970s (before she was born) has been described as one of the most moving experiences on this year's Fringe.
Just as visceral is the dance theatre of DOT 504 who received a Herald Angel just hours before the final performance of 100 Wounded Tears at Zoo Southside. However the company hope to be touring the work in the UK later in the year.
The Angels also remembered the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, which was coming to an end just as the Fringe began.
One of its final concerts was by Jack Bruce, once the bassist and singer with Cream and then finishing a tour in the company of guitarist Robin Trower and drummer Gary Husband.
One of Scotland's most successful musical exports, Bruce proved at the concert that has still has one of the finest rock blues voices in the business with a set that visited much of his musical history.
The Angel was collected on his behalf by his nephew Ian Bruce, also a bassist and currently playing in Universal Arts' New Town Theatre with Movin' Melvin in the show Me, Ray Charles and Sammy Davis Jnr, at 8.15pm each evening.
