BLAM!

What do you get when you cross The Office with The Matrix? Or Wall-E? Or Scarface, Wolverine, Die Hard? BLAM! Four bored office workers share a fantasy world of pop-culture theatrics and over-the-top action. BLAM is by turns wryly amusing and totally stunning, with a jaw-dropping mixture of clowning, parkour and acrobatics. A water cooler becomes a robot love interest, an embarrassed boss is reborn as Rambo, and cubicles become the set of your wildest daydreams. Exhilarating, liberating, astonishing - you’ll never look at your workplace the same way again.  

19^th – 26^th Aug (not 20^th), 5.55pm, Pleasance Courtyard 

Red Bastard

From the moment when the sinister, bulbous form of Red Bastard oozes onstage clad in a crimson bodystocking, this show never stops being weird or fascinating. A sadistic, hilarious, eye-opening performance that will make you genuinely relish audience participation- or face ejection. There is no fourth wall in this show, and you are performing just as much as the Bastard. You’ll be recruited as the “Fringe Police”, threatening unenthusiastic audience members with a wet finger in the ear. You’ll be ordered to sing at the top of your lungs - then to sing directly into the Bastard’s mouth - then to “sing with your tongue”. You’ll be insulted, molested, exhilarated, forced to reveal your secret desires and inspired to seek them out.

19^th – 26^th August, 4.40pm, Assembly George Square

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning

Did you know that Bradley Manning, the US Army soldier imprisoned for passing vast quantities of classified data to Wikileaks, went to school in Haverfordwest? This fascinating production traces Manning’s life and beliefs from Welsh classroom to naked solitary confinement in a Marine corps brig. The six-strong cast move between time, space, and characters with dizzying speed and brilliant skill. This isn’t naturalistic theatre, but a thrilling emotional journey set to a soundtrack of military drill, Lady Gaga, and exploding hellfire missiles. This play makes the personal political, it will engage and enrage you.

19^th – 25^th Aug (not 21^st), 7.30pm, 2.30pm Sat & Sun. Pleasance at St Thomas of Aquin’s High School (allow 20 mins from Pleasance Dome)

Highly Recommended:

Nirbhaya - Compelling, brutally honest accounts of sexual violence against Indian women, told by those who survived and overcame it. Alternately devastating and inspiring.

20^th – 26^th Aug, 4.00pm, Assembly Hall

Circa: Wunderkammer - Circus stripped to its rawest essentials- breathtaking acrobatics and seductive physicality. The performers seem able to disregard the limits of the human body or the law of gravity.

21^st, 23^rd - 26^th Aug, 5.00pm, Underbelly Bristo Square