August is our busiest and best time of year here at Storytelling PR. Just before Scotland’s (often very rainy) summer begins its slow wind-down into autumn, we have the world’s most exciting culture and performance festival left to enjoy: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, right here on the doorstep of our city.
Having worked with artists performing at the Fringe since 2013, the Festival is particularly special for us. Over the years, we’ve seen friends and family perform their work, we’ve met countless brilliant emerging artists, we’ve seen and supported hundreds of shows; and we’ve forged a name for ourselves as distinctly artist-led in everything Festival-based that we do.
And this year is no different. Back and bigger than ever, the Storytelling team has been working flat-out since the start of 2023 to support 50+ artists with their upcoming shows – including 22 performances at Summerhall, running Summerhall’s bustling Press Office, and 3 performances at the Royal Lyceum Theatre (Nova; An Oak Tree; FORGE), in addition to supporting shows across Assembly, Dance Base, Greenside, Scottish Storytelling Centre, ZOO, Monkey Barrel, Gilded Balloon, Traverse, and Pleasance.
With a list spanning the Festival’s most iconic places to be, Storytelling PR is proud to support an eclectic mix of Festival legends, returners, debut performers, international artists, groups, and solo acts this year.
Our bread and butter is theatre and performance – and this year’s selection is gripping, entertaining, and fresh. From experimental and emerging to large-scale productions, small casts to big, we’re working with the likes of Tim Crouch (An Oak Tree), Tortoise in a Nutshell (Concerned Others), Jade Anouka’s raw and honest exploration of love, loss, and self-discovery (HEART), Fishamble (Heaven), Elle Dillon-Reams (MEAT, HoneyBEE), Obehi Janice’s new theatre-storytelling show on her romantic-sexual entanglements and Casanova (NOVA), Ben Noble (Member), Raymond Wilson’s comedic storytelling work on masculinity and nature (I Hope Your Flowers Bloom), Guido Garcia Lueches (Playing Latinx), DARKFIELD’s gripping shipping-container experiences, Adam Scott-Rowley (YOU ARE GOING TO DIE) and more.
In cabaret and comedy shows, we have the pleasure of supporting the brilliant Gail Porter on her stand-up show and Festival Fringe debut (Gail Porter: Hung, Drawn, and Portered), Reuben Kaye’s double-show return as a Festival favourite (The Butch is Back!, The Kaye Hole), Nabil Abdulrashid’s comedy show about trying to be a good person while staying a badman (The Purple Pill), Stuart Goldsmith’s climate-crisis stand up (Spoilers), and others.
For dance and movement-based work, we’re so excited to support Solène Weinachter’s comedic dance-storytelling work on death rites and family funerals (After All), Foster Group Dance (Double Goer), Jian Yi and Journey to the East (Weathervanes), Max Percy’s powerful butoh dance, performance art and circus rope show (BAKLÂ) Thaddeus McWhinnie Phillips (Lost Soles), Gözde Atalay (NOMAD), Katie Armstrong’s new double-bill on movement, music, turntablism, and multimedia (SKETCHES/GLISK), and more.
We’ll be working at full-speed until the end of August, but we always have time for a chat and a coffee with artists and friends. You can find our Fringe-time press office team inside Summerhall (just opposite the Gallery Bar & Cafe), or head through the Summerhall courtyard to the Cairns Lecture Theatres for our year-round office team – we look forward to saying hi!
After years of lockdown and post-Covid anxiety, ongoing international disputes and war, the climate crisis, and the general instability of the international stage, we hope for this Fringe to be one punctuated by hope, compassion, bravery, pride, strength, and unbridled creativity. To use art to look to the future is a gift – and we couldn’t be happier to carve out positive, meaningful forward-looking paths with some of the best artists around.
From all of us at Storytelling: enjoy the Festival, and see you after!
