We are now into the final week of the Edinburgh Festival 2017 and while creatives and performers are all continuing to work hard, play harder and form relationships that may lead to the next project somewhere down the line, may we ask ‘what’s the point in Edinburgh?’ ‘
A good question.
The Edinburgh Festival is incredible. So many wonderful people in one city who are all so passionate about making work, meeting people and exchanging ideas. Each time I’ve taken a show there I have learned a huge amount.
When Man to Man played at Wales Millennium Centre in March 2015 I believed the piece was the best work of my career thus far. The reviews were excellent in Cardiff, but I didn’t feel we were done with the show yet. The Centre’s artistic director Graeme Farrow agreed and gave the green light for us to take it to Edinburgh.
The play is an incredible odyssey through 20th century Germany from the point of view of a working class woman who is widowed at a young age when her husband dies of bone cancer. Rather than lose the income from his job and their apartment, she wraps a bandage around her head and goes into work dressed as him the day after he dies. He was a crane operator and didn’t mix with his colleague much at all. It’s based on a true story and covers a multitude of themes during the journey through Ella’s lifetime.
Margaret Ann Bain
We were a late entry at the festival with limited budget for advertising and PR. There were the usual challenges that come with sharing a venue. We were playing in a 200-seat venue for the whole month. Our first audience was 10 people. Our second was 12. Our press night had 75 people (with a few major critics in). For the next two performances there were 14 people and 1 person booked. It was looking bleak.
Reviews can truly make or break a show, particularly in Edinburgh. With more than six thousand shows every year, some help to separate the wheat from the chaff. Whether its reviews or the all important word of mouth, if you are a hit, everyone knows it pretty quickly.
What followed was something of an Edinburgh fairy tale – 5 star reviews from The Guardian, followed by five stars in The Times, The Stage, British Theatre Guide and the Arts Desk as well as many Four-star reviews from the likes of Time Out and The Herald. We went from almost no sales to sold out in 2 days.
Now in 2017 we are back in rehearsals for Man to Man. The production will play in London at Wilton’s Music Hall for two weeks and then go on a UK tour which includes Birmingham Rep, Liverpool Everyman, Newcastle Northern Stage and something of a Homecoming to the Traverse Theatre – 30 years after it premiered there with Tilda Swinton.
The final tour stop is the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the Next Wave Festival. As I write this, the run in New York has already sold out.
Dreams are worth pursuing. The Edinburgh Festival is a place where anything can happen as long as you are passionate about the project, have incredibly high standards in everything you do and never settle for anything less than what you know the best can be. Get the best out of those around you and if changes have to be made, make them. You regret the things you don’t do more than the things you did.
What are you waiting for?
Bruce Guthrie directs Man to Man by Manfred Karge – A new version with Alexandra Wood – for Wales Millennium Centre. Playing in Cardiff in the Richard Burton Theatre at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on the 8th and 9th of September 2017.