Edinburgh "Festival Fringe" to Feature Hannah Eidinow's New Street Theatre

Written by Marvin Franklin Wednesday, 11 August 2010 20:46

EDINBURGH.- The changing face of Britain takes centre stage in an exhilarating new interactive theatrical installation at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This living fairy-tale, directed by Hannah Eidinow, will take its audience through the twentieth-century right up to the present day, as seen through the eyes of several generations. Staged one afternoon at The Mound, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Great British Weekend…“Are We Nearly There Yet?”, a commission for the Vauxhall Collective, is bound to be one of the hottest street theatre performances of the year. This performance event is created and directed by Fringe First winning director Hannah Eidinow (Gone, What I Heard About Iraq) and enjoys the notion that you might never really 'get away from it all,' even when you attempt to have the perfect great British weekend.

It's 28th August 2010, a beautiful summer’s weekend, and Philip Wilson MP wants to take his family far away from the big smoke and perhaps take a trip to the beach...But his wife wants to go to the countryside. And his daughter? Well, she wants to go where the boys are. Not to mention his son's opinions. A typical family wanting some stress free quality time together- is that too much to ask? Probably.

Meet the Wilson family as they desperately try to escape it all: one car, two parents, two teenagers and a lot of luggage. Followers and the public will witness the Wilson family as they quarrel and dispute along their journey. As the family stops in different locations, it will also travel in time, impersonating the traditional nuclear family in all its different guises through the decades. The audience is taken from the 1940s to the present day, through very different social and political times - each scene plays out the culture, politics and environment, as well as telling a personal story about the Wilsons’ own lives.

This theatrical interpretation of what the typical British family does on a weekend away discovers the truth about British habits, traditions and families. In sharing and exploring their own changing circumstances, the Wilson family invites the audience to question their own lives, and to think about the past and future. Imagine Britain as it once was, and perhaps wonder whether the British family’s dreams have ever truly changed.

Hannah Eidinow’s production was selected by a notable panel of industry experts: Anthony Alderson, artistic director at the Pleasance, Nina Steiger, Writers’ Centre Director at the Soho Theatre, Duncan Speakman, winner of the Vauxhall Collective theatre category in 2009, and Kate Hargreaves of Gideon Reeling, another Vauxhall Collective alumnus. Born out of this year’s chosen theme for the collective, the Great British Weekend, the new and original theatrical piece has been developed over recent months to explore how the typical British family attempts to have a Great British Weekend.

Hannah Eidinow is joined in the Vauxhall Collective 2010 by sculptor Maurizio Anzeri, designer Gareth Neal and photographer Matt Stuart. Her performance will be launching on the 28th August at The Mound, during the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival.

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