Lion in Edinburgh

Following on from a very successful year for LTC, we continued our record as one of the foremost theatre companies in Durham by sending a play to the Edinburgh Fringe. This play is called ‘Some Thing New’, and was written by two Hatfielders, Alissa Cooper and Anna Jeary, now in their final year. The play follows 5 artists as they explore the meaning behind art with audience, and as the play commences the characters’ frictional personalities clash, leading to the eventual breakdown of the process.

With the play having been written by the start of the Easter term, and the performance space in Edinburgh confirmed, rehearsals after the exam period were intense but successful. We performed three times on the 13th June to Durham audiences in the Horstfall Room in St Chad’s College. Responses were overall positive, as many people found the material of the script very relatable. However, some, including a judge from the National Student Drama Festival, were critical of the interaction with the audience, as it didn’t seem to fit into the script naturally.

With this reception in mind, when we all returned to Durham in late July in order to rehearse for the Fringe run itself, the directors (Anna and Alissa) were quick to adapt the play in order to make the audience interaction (a vital part of the play) more credible. After an exhausting week of rehearsing, the cast and crew made their way up to Edinburgh. We were performing in an intimate room with only 20 seats, arranged in a semicircle pattern. The venue was C Nova, just off the Royal Mile, the main thoroughfare during the festival. C Nova was also host of other Durham shows, including another student written play, Swing By Around 8.

The run started on the 5th of August, and despite audience numbers being fairly small during the first week, we started to see more and more people getting interested. We also had plenty of time to perfect our flyering technique on the mile, which always garnered attention. In keeping with the play’s theme of creativity, many cast members braved the Scottish weather to be body painted, which in the end produced some stunning effects.

Towards the end of the run we were averaging about 10 people per show, which was actually the perfect amount of audience members for such an intimate show. Financially we were pleased with how much we took in the box office; with the generous grant from The Hatfield Trust covering the cost of the venue, Lion Theatre Company was responsible for the rest of the budget, and although the expenses are still being sorted out we are confident that we have at least broken even on the money that LTC invested in the show, if not made a small profit, which will be reused to fund our shows in the upcoming year.

We received good reviews; on the whole, because student productions are being measured up against professional shows at the fringe, one would expect to struggle, especially in immersive theatre, which is not always to peoples’ taste! However, this reviewer from Three Weeks seemed to enjoy the topics talked about in the play and took the interaction as a positive experience:

Intentionally blurring the lines between art, artist and audience, this show will leave you thinking about the big artistic debates of the day. You may come with the expectation of sitting back watching passively, but Lion Theatre Company has different intentions. You’ll be participating in a staged “creative workshop”, led by the actors who each play a different type of artist, all hoping to become successful. The continual squabbling of these “artists” seems to suggest that truly original or objectively inspiring art cannot be produced in the modern age, due to the splintered nature of the collective consciousness.

This very positive review from A Younger Theatre highlighted the excellent characterization and interplay between the characters:

There are moments of brilliance, like when one exercise grinds to a halt because of differing opinions about art (what else?!) and snide personal comments begin to creep in.  These are the best bits, when the focus is on their tenuous relationships, and the veneer of earnest, arty, ‘studentness’ starts to crack as they begin passive aggressively tearing chunks out of each other.

So, to summarise, without the grant from The Hatfield Trust, Lion Theatre Company would have never had the funds to take this show to Edinburgh. Speaking personally as Lion Theatre Company President, and producer of Some Thing New, it was so exciting to see Anna and Alissa take their show to the Fringe and also to be a part of that process. Getting exposure for shows as someone interested in drama is difficult in Durham, but the Edinburgh Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world; what better stage on which to present a stimulating new piece of writing? 



Hatfield College
North Bailey
Durham
DH1 3RQ

0191 334 2633