Latest news with #EdinburghFringe
Scotsman
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
When Tech Fails Drama Begins! New play to be debuted by Scottish writer at Edinburgh Fringe
Frustrated with an unfulfilling job, upcoming Scottish Writer, Director and Performer George Grant turned his negative situation into a positive and used his experience of modern online working to write his debut show, Operation Blank, which is to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Operation Blank follows the fall out of what happens after an atomic bomb is dropped on Copenhagen. With all-out war looming, an under qualified junior staffer in the British government must somehow get a response from his superiors. There is just one thing standing in his way: Microsoft Teams. With the show taking place over a surreal Teams call, Grant expertly blends stage and screen to create an immersive experience as the protagonist takes centre stage, alone, joined virtually by a colourful cast of characters projected behind him. Operation Blank is a biting critique of modern online working, that weaves laugh-out-loud humour to themes of unfulfillment and existential dread. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad From Aberdeen, before living and studying in Edinburgh, George was a bridge engineer before deciding to pursue his career as a writer and performer. Inspired to pen his new show during a low point at work, George now has the confidence to take Operation Blank to the stage and pursue his dreams. George Grant Talking about his first show, Grant explained, 'I started writing Operation Blank late one night during a low point at work. It was an honest, slightly jaded, reflection on how I felt my own life was turning out. After starting writing, it continued to grow, and it gave me the confidence to quit my job and pursue my dreams as a writer and performer. The show will be like nothing people have seen before, as although I am alone on stage, the audience will meet a number of characters from a very surreal Microsoft Teams call. 'For those who spend a lot of time at work on virtual calls, I hope they can really relate to some of the frustrations addressed in this show. I truly believe Operation Blank is just the start for me, and I can't wait to share it with everyone.' The show is taking place at Fleming Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall this Edinburgh Fringe. Operation Blank will be performed from August 1 – 9, 6:15pm. The 45-minute show is a culmination of Grant's own journey, representing his first writing credit since transitioning to the performing arts from his former career. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Following the Edinburgh Fringe run, Grant will be taking Operation Blank to the Camden Fringe, performing at the Hen & Chickens Theatre from August 12 – 15 and the Canal Café Theatre August 17 – 20.
Scotsman
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
When Tech Fails Drama Begins! New play to be debuted by Scottish writer at Edinburgh Fringe
Frustrated with an unfulfilling job, upcoming Scottish Writer, Director and Performer George Grant turned his negative situation into a positive and used his experience of modern online working to write his debut show, Operation Blank, which is to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Operation Blank follows the fall out of what happens after an atomic bomb is dropped on Copenhagen. With all-out war looming, an under qualified junior staffer in the British government must somehow get a response from his superiors. There is just one thing standing in his way: Microsoft Teams. With the show taking place over a surreal Teams call, Grant expertly blends stage and screen to create an immersive experience as the protagonist takes centre stage, alone, joined virtually by a colourful cast of characters projected behind him. Operation Blank is a biting critique of modern online working, that weaves laugh-out-loud humour to themes of unfulfillment and existential dread. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad From Aberdeen, before living and studying in Edinburgh, George was a bridge engineer before deciding to pursue his career as a writer and performer. Inspired to pen his new show during a low point at work, George now has the confidence to take Operation Blank to the stage and pursue his dreams. George Grant Talking about his first show, Grant explained, 'I started writing Operation Blank late one night during a low point at work. It was an honest, slightly jaded, reflection on how I felt my own life was turning out. After starting writing, it continued to grow, and it gave me the confidence to quit my job and pursue my dreams as a writer and performer. The show will be like nothing people have seen before, as although I am alone on stage, the audience will meet a number of characters from a very surreal Microsoft Teams call. 'For those who spend a lot of time at work on virtual calls, I hope they can really relate to some of the frustrations addressed in this show. I truly believe Operation Blank is just the start for me, and I can't wait to share it with everyone.' The show is taking place at Fleming Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall this Edinburgh Fringe. Operation Blank will be performed from August 1 – 9, 6:15pm. The 45-minute show is a culmination of Grant's own journey, representing his first writing credit since transitioning to the performing arts from his former career. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
Metro
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
'Ignore the luvvies - giving birth took me three days and it was hell'
'I've just had a baby!' blurted out comedian Lily Phillips – not to be confused with OnlyFans' Lily Phillips – during her first comedy set after giving birth. ITV's The Stand Up Sketch Show regular Lily was supposed to be making her usual smutty jokes about her dog's vagina. She was definitely not supposed to be doing a show about babies or motherhood at all. But she couldn't contain herself. It wasn't 'baby bubble' happiness Lily couldn't help but share: there were no birds, flowers and bees bursting out of the comedian's orifices like some Disney goddess. No: her life had changed, and she was in hell. She'd been in hell ever since the excruciating three-day labour began in hospital, where she was dehumanised, infantalised, and ignored until it was almost too late. 'I needed everyone to know what had just happened to me, because it was everything,' Lily tells Metro ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe show Crying, all about the trauma of hatching a baby (it's funny, too). 'I want to get to the bit people don't talk about,' she says, with a surprising sternness that cuts through her sweet exterior, which she admits often catches audiences off guard. (No one expected her to say the word c***, ha!) 'We paint this picture that [welcoming a baby] is magical, beautiful and life-changing, and it is those things. But we're afraid to go really into the horrible side of it, because it looks like we don't love our child and that we regret it,' Lily says. 'Those two things can exist at the same time, and one of them doesn't make the other untrue.' So this is Lily's story. Without all those flowery caveats. Lily was the first of her National Childbirth Trust (NCT) group to give birth, amid pings of girlboss memes: 'You've got this!' and 'You're a goddess!' and 'You're so strong!' 'Women are amazing that they achieve birth, but [this messaging] also gives you the idea that you can curate your own birth,' Lily says. 'Forced positivity can make you then feel like a failure if you don't have this perfect birth experience.' Then there's pain relief. If you don't have an epidural, apparently you're a badass? 'Because of all that f***ing nonsense in my head, I waited three days before I had an epidural. So I was in labor for three f***ing days,' she says. The hospital was reluctant to hand out pain relief, too. 'Where you're supposed to have the baby they don't offer you the thing that would help the well documented pain of childbirth,' Lily points out. 'Then you're like… 'No, I really, really want one.' They're like, 'Okay, well, you have to go up two floors in the hospital while you're naked and howling like a dog.'' Lily kept on telling doctors she thought her baby was stuck, as the pain was so intense, and it kept getting worse. She wasn't dilated and was three centimeters for three days. 'Obviously, I'd never had a baby before, but I was just trying to tell them what I was feeling, and they just kept saying, 'No, it's fine. The heart rate's fine,'' Lily remembers. To sum it up: 'Birth is just hours and hours of unimaginable pain, where every now and then someone comes along and fists you.' Lily's doctor kept talking about a natural birth. She was going to have a glorious, natural birth. Everything would be fine. 'It makes you feel like a child when all this stuff I'd read before was about you being so empowered,' Lily says. 'I just felt the opposite of that. I felt very vulnerable.' Lily asked for a C-section. 'Have you ever been in so much pain that you're begging someone to slice you open?' she jokes, adding: 'As though a C section is a nice thing to do. It's a mad place to be.' But no. 'Naturally,' they repeated. Of course when Lily started to push all hell broke loose, and her baby daughter's heart rate dropped. She was whisked off to theatre and handed a consent form on the way in case they had to do an emergency C-section. 'They don't listen to a word you say most of the time, and then suddenly you have to sign this legal document, and they're like, 'Oh, she's fine to sign this. We'll definitely take this… She's not high, she's not deranged,'' Lily says. They tried a ventouse suction cup – a little like a toilet plunger – which is placed on the baby's head to assist contractions. But that didn't work. Then came forceps, a spoon-like contraption which is also used around the baby's head. According to the Birth Trauma Association, who are holding Birth Trauma Awareness Week this week, 5% of women experience PTSD after birth. That's around 25,000 to 30,000 a year in the UK. Often women say neglect or poor communication from the health professionals looking after them contributed to their trauma. Thankfully at this point Lily was post-epidural, as she also had an episiotomy: when a doctor cuts the area between the vaginal opening and the anus. Lily's partner described the scene as a 'tug of war'. 'They realised the reason she wasn't coming was because she was back to back, which is the wrong position,' says Lily. 'That's why I had so much pain in my back, and the cord was wrapped around her body and her neck, so she was just stuck.' Eventually they did get her out. 'They put the baby on you for this moment that you're supposed to have, but you've just been through a massive trauma, and they're like, 'This is beautiful'. But I just feel broken.' While the world is so conscious about mental health, it seems to Lily this is lost to maternity wards. 'They seem to be going through some kind of checklist of how to give you postnatal depression,' Lily half-jokes. Every time Lily asked how to do something with her baby, she'd get judged: they would laugh at her, or roll their eyes. 'They just seem quite angry that you don't know how to look after a baby, even though we kept saying we haven't done this before,' Lily recalls. 'I just think it'd be weird if you were really good at breastfeeding before you'd ever breastfed anyone. Where are you learning that?' To add another smattering of humiliation to the whole experience, after her episiotomy Lily had to prove she could wee in a cardboard potty before they would let her go. 'They make you bring it to them at the nurses' station,' says Lily, incredulously. 'But you're just like an animal at that point. At the time, you don't think, 'This bit much – why couldn't they just come with me in the toilet? Why can't this be more private?'' 'But you're there just naked, you're leaking out of every orifice, you don't know night and day. You're just, like, inhuman, by this point.' According per the NHS: A ventouse (vacuum cup) is attached to the baby's head by suction. A soft or hard plastic or metal cup is attached by a tube to a suction device. The cup fits firmly on to your baby's head. During a contraction and with the help of your pushing, the obstetrician or midwife gently pulls to help deliver your baby. Forceps are smooth metal instruments that look like large spoons or tongs. They're curved to fit around the baby's head. The forceps are carefully positioned around your baby's head and joined together at the handles. With a contraction and your pushing, an obstetrician gently pulls to help deliver your baby. An episiotomy is when doctors cut between the vagina and the anus during childdbirth, making the opening of the vagina wider, allowing the baby to come through more easily. In England, episiotomies are not done routinely, but in circumstances where the baby is in distress and needs to be born quickly, if there is a need for forceps or vacuum delivery (ventouse), or if there is a risk of a tear to the anus. Lily's story is not a one-off. She realised this when creaking the doors open to friends' experiences years later, as each one slowly started being honest about their births, and comparing notes on their maternity ward experiences. They found disturbing similarities. 'At first I thought it was just me, and maybe I was annoying [the doctors] or I didn't know what to do, and all the other mothers did, and that was bad,' Lily says. At home, Lily's baby wouldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time; she suspects partly due to the traumatic birth. This left her feeling horrific for eight months until the sleep came, and her mood shifted. 'What I found so frustrating in those eight months was this feeling that it should be the most magical time of my life. But actually, I felt like I was in hell, but I couldn't tell anyone I was in hell,' she recalls. While there were celebratory cards all over her house saying kind words like, 'You're so lucky!' and 'What a joy!', Lily was making terrifying post-epistiotomy toilet trips in tears with her baby attached to her chest. 'This doesn't feel lucky?' she remembers thinking. After her birth, fellow NTC mums-to-be asked Lily how her experience was: 'Was it incredible ? Did you feel powerful ?' 'I was writing this pretty bleak message about what had happened, and then I got another message saying, 'No negative birth stories, please!'' says Lily. 'So I was like… Oh, am I not supposed to? What are the rules? And because you'd never done it before, you let the world tell you what they want to hear. You start censoring yourself.' That's why for her show Lily wants to paint a very clear picture of her experience. More Trending Lily worries people might think she regrets having her baby, which she doesn't. Or that it's all bad, which it isn't. But this one time, she'd like to leave the caveats at the door. 'Sometimes I get a little feeling of the audience being uncomfortable with me being that honest,' she says. 'But I think it's something I have to get over as well, because this is the show that I wish I could have seen.' Lily Phillips: Crying is on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 1 – 12 at 515 Monkey Barrel Comedy, Monkey Barrel 2. Tickets here. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: 'Nobody's got $4,500,000': The moment a Beatles legend saved Monty Python MORE: 'Epic' sci-fi series returns to streaming — and four more shows to binge this month MORE: Man arrested after 'disgusting' plot to blackmail beloved TV comedy star uncovered
Edinburgh Reporter
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Reporter
Fringe 2025 – emerging Edinburgh company make their debut
A happy couple on their anniversary. A knock at the door. An unwelcome visitor. A bombshell that changes everything. Emerging Edinburgh-based theatre company Locked In Thought Theatre make their debut at this year's Edinburgh Fringe with Intrusion, an original play by James Cumming, in which the consequences of the past spill into the present. Continue reading here. Like this: Like Related
Edinburgh Reporter
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Reporter
Fringe 2025 – Edinburgh actor returns home with solo show
Edinburgh-born actor and writer Kathryn Marper is returning to her hometown this August with her solo show 'SH*T SHOW!', which will run at PBH's Free Fringe from 2 to 24 August. The Carlisle-based performer, who graduated with First Class Honours in Acting (Creative Performance Practice) in 2023, aims to create bold, original work that tackles difficult subjects with both humour and heart. 'SH*T SHOW!' follows Jessica, a character who struggles with therapy and her own tendency to overshare with strangers. The production is described as 'a darkly comic exploration of what happens when you're forced to confront the worst thing that ever happened to you – and discover that the person you are afterwards might be someone worth fighting for.' Marper, who also studied HND in Musical Theatre at MGA Academy of Performing Arts, has built an impressive portfolio since graduating. She has toured the UK and internationally with Theatre in Education shows including 'Hope', 'How are You?' and 'During the War'. Her versatility as a performer has also been showcased through UK pantomime tours of 'Oliver', 'Cinderella' and 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. A work-in-progress version of the show debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, receiving positive feedback and encouraging Marper to further develop the show. Working alongside dramaturg and director Poppy Rowan, with sound by Tom Marper, Kathryn has created what she describes as 'an unflinching, funny, and ultimately hopeful look at survival, healing, and the messy business of being human – a story that every woman will recognise.' In June, SH*T SHOW! had a successful run at Fringe Theatrefest Barnstaple receiving glowing reviews from both critics and audiences. The Fringe Theatrefest Blog described it as 'a furious feminist tour de force,' while audience members have praised it as 'powerful, impactful, raw, entertaining' and 'heartbreakingly hilarious, genius and important.' The production comes with a content warning as it deals with serious issues including sexual assault, mental health and violence, but Marper's approach combines raw honesty with dark comedy to create a piece that audiences have found both moving and empowering. 'SH*T SHOW!' will be performed at Carbon (Room 3), 208 Cowgate, Edinburgh, daily at 7:55pm (except Mondays) from 2nd to 24th August as part of PBH's Free Fringe. The 55-minute show offers Edinburgh audiences the chance to see a powerful piece of theatre that addresses important contemporary issues while celebrating the resilience of the human spirit. For a local performer returning to her roots, bringing such a personal and impactful show to the Edinburgh Fringe represents both a homecoming and a bold artistic statement about the power of theatre to explore our most challenging experiences with courage and hope. Like this: Like Related
