2010 Fringe First award winners RashDash Productions return to the Bedlam Theatre this summer with a new show, Scary Gorgeous. The show was co-commissioned by The Development Lab and Hull Truck Theatre, and was deemed good enough to win additional funding from arts charity Ideas Tap as we reported in May.
Artistic directors Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen have put together a show they describe as being about “being young, female and living in a world saturated with ‘raunch’ culture and pornography, where our sexual proclivities and relationships are dictated by the images that surround us.”
Greenland and Goalen worked on Scary Gorgeous in collaboration with Brighton based psychedelic pop band Not Now Bernard, explaining:
“They were a three piece band with seven instruments between them – we couldn’t resist! But because the budget was tight the three boys had to live with us for the six weeks we developed the show, in our little two up two down terraced house in Leeds. So it was cozy, and we had to get on… But we knew we could.”
As a result of this close working relationship, performances of the show include singing and dancing sound tracked by a live band. You’ll have to get in quickly though – Scary Gorgeous is only in Edinburgh for two weeks because its stars start work on a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona at the end of August.
And why should you see it?
“Because it’s alive. It’s messy and funny, and troubling and all embracing. It’s full of difficult thoughts and ideas, scary images, gorgeous images. It’s full of very noisy, very exciting music. We hurl ourselves around, we dance. It’s about now – it’s about raunch and porn. It’s about sex and love and the difference. But it’s not for people under 16 and it’s not for people who don’t like loud noise. We don’t want people to hate it for the wrong reasons.”
Venue: Bedlam Theatre (Venue 49)
Date: Previews 5 & 6 August, then 8– 20 August (not Sundays)
Time: 9pm (1hr 30mins)
Ticket Price: £10 (£8 concessions)
Box Office: 0131 2259893
www.bedlamfringe.co.uk
Suitability: 16+
