Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Waves

The Attic @The Counting House, 38 West Nicholson Street (Fringe Venue 170) DATES: Preview Aug 2-4 Shows: Aug 6-11, 13-18, 20-23 TIME: 11.30am (45 minutes)

‘Must See’ Australian theatre maker swims into Fringe with a brand new tale

Long before David Attenborough showed us The Blue Planet, we went in search of Nemo’s home or sang along to Disney’s Little Mermaid about ‘life under da’ sea’…. a real life Ariel was swimming around a remote Australian island.

From Alice Mary Cooper, the creator of the 2012 ‘Must See’ (The Stage) sell-out show When Alice (Cooper) met (Prince) Harry, comes Waves; a brand new solo performance at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This new fictional work, written and performed by Ms Cooper, is both fairy tale and super hero journey. It explores the occasional advantage of being an outsider, where having no one to follow you must create your own path. Combining new writing, highly expressive storytelling together with delicate movement and humour, the work promises to delight audiences young and old.

Set on a small Australian island in the 1930’s, the story recounts the journey of young girl, Liz, who, after seeing her brother drown teaches herself to swim in the sea. However with no one else to teach her, she employs sea creatures as her guides and in so doing, develops a new stroke- ‘the Dolphin’. Her innovative and unorthodox style makes her quickly the fastest swimmer in Australia. However ‘The Dolphin’ is deemed ‘un-lady-like’ and meets strong opposition from the authorities. However some former Olympians in the form of Fanny Durack and Annette Kellerman come to her rescue allowing her to go on and win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

At the heart of the piece is the theme of innovation and creating an alternative history to things we take for granted- in this case, the butterfly stroke. It is a story about the courage of having an idea and the drive and desire to follow through with it.

‘The play started as a short story for a French magazine JeanMarie’ Alice explains. ‘The theme for the edition of the magazine was ‘Islands’ and so I began researching, finally choosing Gabo Island as my setting. The play grew from there. While the character is fictional, the story is influenced by my own love of swimming and perhaps moreover, by doing laps in a pool called the Fanny Durack in my hometown of Sydney.’

Follow the show’s journey to Edinburgh on Twitter @alicemarycooper, @freefringefest, atalicemarycooper.com and at the ‘Waves at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’ event page on Facebook. You can read the original short story here: http://tinyurl.com/qzra7uq  Alice Mary Cooper’s previous Edinburgh Fringe work When Alice (Cooper) met (Prince) Harry was given Five stars by Broadway Baby and a ‘Must See’ by The Stage.