Theatre goes Underground at Buxton Fringe

PRESS RELEASE: For immediate release May 18th 2017

After the uncertainty following the loss of their original Fringe venues, it’s great to see Underground back in Buxton, this time at the Old Clubhouse as well as the Arts Centre Studio.

The people behind Underground are busy as Yaz Al-Shaater directs his co-founder Tom Crawshaw’s Nonsense & Sensibility, last year’s sell-out Austen-themed farce. This is a co-production with Anonymous is a Woman who also appear in another Yaz-directed play, Throbbing Member, a sing-a-long political memoir that's more Fifty Shades than West Wing. Yaz’s third directorial contribution is Monster, a new performance about violence and toxic masculinity by Joe Sellman-Leava, who also brings us Labels, a timely human story from multicultural Britain, recommended by both Emma Thompson and the Guardian’s Lyn Gardner.

Underground always find room for youth theatre and this year Buxton’s REC bring two shows. The Senior company present an adaptation of the classic Lord of the Flies, while you are reminded not to switch off your phones for the Junior company’s The Mobile Phone Show, a fully charged chorus of chaos in text, tweet and gabble. Regular visitors Shadow Syndicate return with tense thriller, We Lost Elijah; did Elijah get caught up in rioting or was there another reason for his disappearance?

Old friends are returning with new work this year. Sudden Impulse are back with John Godber’s Bouncers, one night out at a northern nightclub as told by the doormen, plus Vincent River, a searing drama tackling hate crime. Winner of a Fringe Award last year, Helen Rutter returns with The Ladder; the Guardian said: 'Awed, hushed silences followed by a killer punchline', Cameryn Moore (of Phone Whore and slut (r)evolution fame) performs The Pretty One (and Other Things that need to be said), and Sir Michael Caine Award-winning writer and Buxton Fringe Comedy winner Nathan Cassidy performs Watch This. Love Me. It’s Deep - a perfect love story in a swimming pool.

There is plenty of drama based on real life. And the Rope Still Tugging her Feet is inspired by 1984's Kerry Babies scandal offering a darkly comic take on a time in Ireland when Bishop Joseph Cassidy said 'the most dangerous place to be... is in the mother's womb', while Beerey is an honest and raw verbatim play telling the true story of one family's fight for justice. Also using witness testimony, Bethnal Green explores the 1943 collapse of an air raid shelter killing 173 people - news suppressed until the end of the war. Taking a more offbeat approach, Edison shows two scientists in a new light: Tesla, a troubled genius whose inventions were stolen, and Edison, infamous crook who still gets all the credit.

Stories from the past inspire Indiscretion, set during the Blitz in 1942. Maggie has an illicit date interrupted by suspicious friend Roger, but when he confronts her the bombs really start falling. Going further back to 1823, in Dark Satanic, Tom has left to work in a Manchester factory, while Helen manages the farm alone; as winter bites she realises it isn't only the world that's changing, it's her.

For those who like music with their drama, Angel to Vampire is an engaging cabaret about Gabriel quitting his job in Heaven to play jazz in New Orleans, while a vampire eyes the audience for his next snack. The Marriage of Kim K is a satirical adaptation of Mozart's opera The Marriage Of Figaro, blending the timeless story with modern pop, electronica and Kim Kardashian. Another twisted classic sees Ibsen’s Peer Gynt in an electric new version featuring puppetry, music and movement. In heart-warming musical comedy Play Time, Elton and his strange new friend get mixed up in an incident that leaves a boy in hospital.

Dystopian worlds are always fertile ground. Stuck is a comedic journey to the black heart of the earth’s ecological crisis featuring uncanny landscapes, Norman cows, and three post-human women. Which is worse, the threat of OFSTED or zombie invasion? Can anyone tell the difference? Find out more with A Teacher’s Guide to Surviving Zombie Armageddon, and in a world where emotion is wasteful, two people must escape to be together: Tomorrow Is Your Hope is packed with movement, Eighties' influenced animation and an electro score.

Finally, two sell-outs from 2016 are back. Hats Off to Laurel and Hardy follows the best-loved comedy duo of all time, while Mrs Oscar Wilde tells of the often overlooked feminist, writer and mother, Constance Lloyd.

Bookings for all Underground shows can be made via www.undergroundvenues.co.uk

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

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