fbpx

Storytelling PR

Eleanor Bally

Summerhall Cinema – the only cinema on the Southside of Edinburgh – opens with brand-new film programme this October

by

Image Credit Peter Dibdin

This October, Summerhall turns the Red Lecture Theatre into Summerhall Cinema – the only cinema on the Southside of Edinburgh – with a brand-new cinema programme. Tickets for Summerhall Cinema – opening on Friday 1 October – go on sale today, Wednesday 15 September. 

Cosy up this Autumn with all your favourite new movies, cutting-edge cinema technology and a warming drink from Summerhall’s Gallery Bar. Creating a top-of-the-line movie going experience, The Red Lecture Theatre has been upgraded with Dolby 5.1 surround sound and cinema-grade DCP projection, creating an immersive, intimate cinema experience for film fans throughout Edinburgh to enjoy. These upgrades have been made possible thanks to Screen Scotland’s Cinema Equipment Fund. 

The Red Lecture Theatre has previously been used as a cinema by many of our favourite film organisations including Edinburgh Short Film Festival, Cinefile, French Film Festival and Cinematic, as well as Summerhall’s own seasonal programmes. Now, Summerhall makes its cinema a weekly feature with film programmes including CineHall and Screen Horizons, as well as one-off and guest screenings. The brand-new programme will feature a mix of new releases, independent studio titles, modern horror, retrospectives and world cinema gems. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, audiences can choose from six diverse and exciting titles – or settle in for a movie marathon – from across the full spectrum of cinema. 

Audiences at the Summerhall Cinema’s opening weekend, from Friday 1 October will enjoy: First Cow, a perceptive, slow-burn Western set in the 19th Century Pacific Northwest from director Kelly Reichardt; a raucous day out in the streets of Edinburgh with director Michael Caton Jones’ Our Ladies, adapted from Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos; genre-director favourite Edgar Wright’s first documentary, a musical odyssey through five decades, The Sparks Brothers; and the British debut from Edinburgh-based director Ben Sharrock – Limbo – a deadpan comedy drama following a Syrian refugee who finds himself in a refugee centre on a remote Scottish island – the first feature-length film to be shot on Uist. 

On Sundays, Screen Horizons will screen a series of international titles, programmed by the French Film Festival. The first offerings on Sunday 3 October will include The Swallows of Kabul (Les Hirondelles de Kaboul), an animated drama by Zabou Breitman and Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec which portrays life under Taliban control and The Lady in the Portrait (Le Portrait Interdict), a sumptuous costume epic in Mandarin and French which evokes the unique rapport between a French missionary and the Manchurian empress, directed by Charles de Meaux.  

Summerhall Cinema will also play host to one-off screenings and events, including a cinema takeover from Edinburgh’s newest poetry festival Push The Boat Out, screening a series of specially-selected feature length movies, short documentaries, diverse animations and more from 15 – 17 October. A one-off screening from the Taiwan Film Festival on Wednesday 27 October will be accompanied by a live film score. 

Tom Forster, Summerhall Programme coordinator, commented: “As Summerhall’s first new artistic offering since Nothing Ever Happens Here in 2015, we are buzzing to welcome new release cinema to the ranks with the same vibrancy championed in our contemporary theatre, music, dance, physical theatre and circus, and visual art strands.”

For tickets, further information and regular updates on Summerhall please sign up for the mailer on the Summerhall website: www.summerhall.co.uk/ 

ENDS

Boys Cry

by

A world premiere confronting the constraints of modern masculinity from writer and performer, Christian Graham

Omnibus Theatre 30 August – 09 September
Press night Wednesday 1 September

Riverside Studios 14 September – 26 September
Press night Thursday 16 September

“How do I begin? 
I’ll try my best to be clear. 
To make sense of things….”

Theatre maker Christian Graham presents Boys Cry for the first time. A play in monologue form, it straddles the line between traditional theatre and spoken word. This one-person tour-de-force performance opens at Clapham’s Omnibus Theatre on 30 August 2021 for two weeks, before starting a further two week run at Riverside Studios on 14 September 2021. 

When Mark is mugged on the way to college, his reality is shattered. This life-changing event forces him to confront some of his deepest issues and to begin to interrogate his connection to masculinity. For Mark, being a boy has always meant closing up and shying away from complex emotions. His typically masculine dad is looking for a quick solution, his mum there to be a shoulder to cry on when he is ready to release. As he begins to reassemble himself, he develops a sharper image of the person he wants to be. 

Bringing us back to the first decade of the 21st Century – the early 2000s – Boys Cry explores self-image, maturity, life after trauma and definitions of manhood. It fights to overcome toxic aspects of masculinity and interrogate the norms we have come to accept about gender. Boys Cry is contemporary storytelling, opening new dialogues that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre. 

Helping to explore these dialogues, there will be a post-show discussion at Omnibus Theatre on Friday 3 September, including director Ebenezer Bamgboye alongside Christian Graham. Christian began acting through Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation and realised quickly theatre making was what he wanted to do. He has worked with The Soho Theatre Writers Labs, Hightide Academy and Orange Tree Theatre Writers Collective. Ebenezer is Carne Deputy Director of Jermyn Street Theatre 2021/22 and resident director of Almeida Theatre. 

Christian Graham, writer and performer of Boys Cry, said:  “I wrote boys cry to talk about how vulnerability is a strength rather than a weakness but I hope that audiences also walk away with an awareness of how to question some of the false narratives about masculinity we have grown up with. It’s especially important for young men to be able to free themselves from these misconceptions.”

Marie McCarthy, Omnibus Theatre Artistic Director, said: “Developed in Engine Room, our monthly scratch night, Christian Graham’s Boys Cry is a powerful, inspiring and insightful piece exploring the impact of trauma and sits proudly in our Autumn Season.”

Rachel Tackley, Creative Director of Riverside Theatre, said: “I am really looking forward to sharing this intensely personal, moving piece with audiences at Riverside. I am sure it will captivate audiences and inspire debate, which we look forward to being part of.”


ENDS

Giant upcycled piano sculptures in the heart of Leeds

by

Part of The 20th Leeds International Piano Competition’s Piano Trail this September

4 – 19 September 2021 – FREE
pianodrome.org
leedspiano.com

Ten new public sculptures made entirely from discarded pianos, including a six-metre-tall tripod of giant elephant  tusks, will celebrate the piano’s pivotal role in our musical heritage for a free public event as part of the Leeds International Piano Competition this September.

Edinburgh’s Pianodrome are delighted to present ten new sculptures in public spaces across Leeds city centre, for this year’s two-week festival run by Leeds International Piano Competition. Animating the streets in prominent locations, the interactive sculptures, all created – down to the flathead screws – entirely from upcycled pianos, will be on display from the 4 to 19 September. 

Each Piano Trail sculpture will tell its own unique story celebrating the craftsmanship, musicianship and long lasting impact that the world’s most famous instrument plays in our daily lives. Among them, ‘Half of a Piano Cube’; is a precarious pyramid of three playable pianos in Leeds Central Station conjuring up new ways of thinking about collaborative music playing, and the six-metre-high ‘Elephant in the Room’ is an enormous tripod of elephant’s tusks topped with ‘ivories’ on Cookridge Street just outside the Henry Moore Institute celebrating the life cycle of a piano and its often forgotten value. 

In addition, responding to the ten original Pianodrome sculptures, five artists and five community groups all local to Leeds will each transform a playable piano manifesting a parallel piano trail in musical and thematic dialogue with the sculptures made in Scotland.
Central to the Piano Trail’s  core theme of ‘Growing Stronger Together’ they will explore topics from mental health and wellbeing to sustainability, with more details announced at the end of August. 

Pianodrome Community Interest Company is an Edinburgh based organisation set up in 2017 by bandmates Tim Vincent-Smith and Matthew Wright to build the world’s first amphitheatre made entirely from upcycled pianos. As seen on BBC Online, The Scotsman, The Guardian, BBC Radio 2, Al Jazeera the Pianodrome amphitheatre launched in 2018 premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the Royal Botanic Gardens with more than 18,000 visitors, attracting critical acclaim and international recognition. 

On creating The Leeds Piano Trail, Pianodrome Directors, Tim Vincent-Smith and Matthew Wright commented: 

“We never dreamed that so soon after completing our first up-cycled piano amphitheatre we would be working with such a prestigious organisation as The Leeds International Piano Competition to create a series of public sculptures. 

“This is a wonderful commission and a wonderful opportunity for us to work with local artists and community groups, to explore new ideas and create new work in celebration of the role the piano has played in our lives for over 300 years. We offer this gift to the people of Leeds in the hope that it will bring joy.”

Pianodrome now work from their warehouse in Granton, Edinburgh, on projects including live shows, online ‘Pianodrome Sessions’, sculpture design and build and support for teams building their own Pianodrome amphitheatres across the globe, most recently in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

The Leeds International Piano Competition devised the Piano Trail to bring its passion for great music making out of the concert hall and onto the city streets for everyone to enjoy and explore through a diverse programme of live performances and immersive events over the two weeks of the Competition.

Adam Gatehouse, Artistic Director Leeds International Piano Competition commented:
“When we started planning the Piano Trail for the 2021 Leeds International Piano Competition I immediately thought of Pianodrome, whose amazing work with recycled pianos had already intrigued me. We struck on the idea of commissioning from Pianodrome 10 sculptures made of recycled pianos to stand alongside the 10 pianos spread across the city, in such a way that they would interact with each other. What they have come up with is nothing short of inspirational, and will I am sure be a hugely striking and exciting landmark across the city during the Piano Trail and even beyond.” 

The trail is free and designed to take approximately one hour to walk. More specifics on exactly where to take in each sculpture and the complete programme will be announced at the end of August. 

The Leeds Piano Trail 
4 – 19 September 2021
leedspiano.com
Pianodrome.org
#LeedsPianoTrail2021 

ENDS. 

The Saviour

by

LANDMARK PRODUCTIONS present the UK PREMIERE of 

The Saviour

by DEIRDRE KINAHAN

Directed by LOUISE LOWE
Starring MARIE MULLEN and BRIAN GLEESON

Streaming 6-30 August 2021
Assembly Festival

Following its digital presentation in Ireland, Deirdre Kinahan’s new play, The Saviour, joins the line-up for part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Starring Tony Award-winning Marie Mullen and Frank of Ireland’s’ Brian Gleeson.

Fringe First winner (Halcyon Days) Deirdre Kinahan’s The Saviour features ‘blazing performances’ (Irish Times) from two of Ireland’s best-known stage actors. The play charts an extraordinary shift in Ireland’s social, political and religious life, asking questions about responsibility, how we respond to trauma, and the tricky question of forgiveness.

Landmark Productions has presented four previous productions at the Edinburgh Fringe, all of them at Assembly: The Approach (2018), Howie the Rookie (2013), Underneath the Lintel (2010) and Deirdre Kinahan’s Fringe First award-winning Halcyon Days (2013), starring Stephen Brennan and the late Anita Reeves. The company is delighted to be returning to the festival with The Saviour, directed by the multi award-winning Louise Lowe.

There’s a new man in Máire’s life. But some people aren’t happy.

On the morning of her 67th birthday, Máire sits up in bed enjoying a cigarette.  There is a man downstairs. She is blooming.

Deirdre Kinahan’s play asks searching questions about faith, about the weight of history, and whether some crimes can ever be forgiven.

Deirdre Kinahan says:
‘So excited to be back at Assembly with Landmark, thanks to the support of Culture Ireland eight years after the extraordinary success of Halcyon Days. So wish I was there in the flesh, but it is a real privilege to take part in this new way at the legendary Fringe with a new play The Saviour, featuring another duo of Ireland’s finest acting talent.’

Producer Anne Clarke said:
‘The showcase that is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is hugely important at any time, and now more than ever as the theatrical world begins to emerge from Covid-19. The platform and connections it offers are priceless. The Saviour is the fifth production that Landmark has presented at Assembly. Previous shows – including Deirdre Kinahan’s Halcyon Days and Mark O’Rowe’s Howie the Rookie and The Approach – have won numerous awards and have been seen in leading theatres – including the Barbican in London and Irish Arts Center, BAM and St Ann’s Warehouse in New York – thanks to the support and investment of Culture Ireland. We are very grateful.’ 

This production is supported by the Arts Council through an Arts Grant Funding award, and its presentation at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is supported by Culture Ireland. The Saviour will be available to watch on demand as part of Assembly’s digital season, Assembly Showcatcher.

ENDS.

some thank yous from miriam a

by

I started Storytelling PR in 2013. I only know this as 2012 was the last year I didn’t really *do* fringe just supported my friends at Tortoise in a Nutshell with Grit at Bedlam – the summer of the heady joy of the 2012 Olympic Games in LDN. 

Over the years since I’ve ticked off a big long list of personal stuff – from ending relationships, ill-advised affairs with decidedly odd people, brilliant adventures with people in Adelaide, Melbourne, Glasgow, London, Edinburgh – I have been so extremely lucky to be able to transfer my skills and personal joi de vie into this mad stupid industry. I have watched proudly as journalists we first knew from blogs grew into trend-setters at big papers and I’ve never failed to be slightly awkward around those writers I really respect – until I realise they are humans too. 

I have also sat on the steps outside theatres at midnight with dear friends in theatre companies and heard about assaults they have survived, I have walked to interviews and heard about racism and a underlying fear of it happening each time an artist meets the media, I have sat for a wine with performers who have needed to share the homophobic abuse they received that day. I see deep cracks and deeper flaws in the theatre and live industry. I have become close friends with many of the artists and producers I work with. It has been an extraordinary journey and though I know I haven’t always got it right I have done my best to listen and challenge from the position I have clawed myself up to. And for me, Storytelling ceases to be when that fight and attention to our colleagues and artists isn’t at the centre, and aye, I’ll get it wrong many times more but I know I’ll do right many many times more still.  

Storytelling is called Storytelling cos the work we do is bigger than ‘Miriam Atwood’ – Storytelling provides vocation and opportunity for not only our amazing team of PR and Marketing professionals – to every single paid intern, press assistant, thank you for learning with us.

To the current Storytelling team, Emma, Emma (always a double at Storytelling) Eleanor, Erin and Sal – enjoy the lack of me randomly pulling ideas and projects out of nowhere at inconvenient time – you’re just gonna love it. To our two staff now off pursuing new things, Mim and Harry, we’ll always have the broom cupboard Storytelling was first based in. 

I mostly wanted to write this as this summer Mim Black has left Storytelling PR for pastures new in Environmental / Climate awareness PR (and mushrooms). Storytelling would not exist without them. Their born-with wisdom, their tenacity and their crazy skills smashing through a to do list – have allowed me to take the risks I wanted to – and at every step pushed me to be more dismissive of system or ideas that could have bound us as ‘just another PR company.’ Mim Black is an extraordinary human and it is entirely my privilege that we spent such insane times together fucking shit up, blagging our way through and crying a lot of tears of happiness and exhaustion. I won’t say I’ll miss her at Storytelling – what I have gained in a sister I will ALWAYS have – and I can’t wait to watch and support her as she makes real change in her new career. 

And now, I’m signing off for the first time in 8 years, to start a F*CKING FAMILY – but tbh – my family has always been everyone I sit on the back steps with, those I travel on days off on adventures with, the womxn who have taught me everything I know, those who have sat with me and offered me friendship over and above our working lives, those who have guided me and myself, the journey of learning to listen, authentically, and turn what I experience and what is shared with me, into action. The team who looked to me for guidance and somehow, most of the time, I helped them find the answers. The queer people who from my early 20s saw me as one of them, a lost, camp, pop loving drama queen, the drag artists who knew I was desperately in love with their art and their beauty, the circus performers who tip themselves upside-down 8 times a week and think nothing of it while I gaze open-mouthed, the theatre makers who leave it all out there on stage and then accept my sweaty hug at the end, the journalists who respected me before I respected myself, and the journalists who showed me I didn’t need to be scared of journalists HA (I still am though tbh). I also cannae wait to share this all with my child – and welcome them into this mad world with my beautiful husband and continue to fight for the change I want to see. 

Cos change is a coming, in many more ways than one. See you in 2022 fam.
X