(From the Lilypad) Showing @ Main House, Edinburgh, Wed 3 – Sun 28 Aug @ 9am
(Winners Wear Crowns) Showing @ Studio, Edinburgh, Sun 14 – Sun 28 Aug @ 5:15pm
“Edinburgh’s Fringe theatre isn’t just for August!” proclaims Edinburgh-based Tightlaced Theatre Company, but not this year it seems. Not content with quenching our all year round fringe thirst for the other eleven months of the year, with their 2010 show The Dress Affair, various rehearsed readings, and not forgetting the launch of their new HQ and workshop space; Tightlaced are now showcasing two brand new plays this August.
The first is Robert Howat’s From the Lilypad, the third instalment in his Feline Fables series. Ariane Oiticia of Tightlaced recaps on the series, “The Feline Fables started as a series about the adventures of a cat and its master, a little girl called Peaches. In the last two instalments however, there have been a few characters that have cultivated the audience’s hearts, including Tony the Frog (not a toad!) so Robert decided to give Tony a full show and that’s From the Lilypad”!
While From the Lilypad is set to captivate the imaginations of children and adults alike in its fairytale kingdom, Tightlaced’s other show this Fringe, Winners Wear Crowns, attempts to explore our contemporary need to beautify and commodify everything, including our children. A comic monologue, written by Tightlaced’s Artistic Director Jennifer McGregor, Winners follows pageant mum Pat as she attempts to make her daughter succeed. But, whose dream is she pursuing? And to what end? With so many unrealistic images of adult culture piercing the realm of childhood it’s unsurprising that Ariane proclaims this show’s striking relevance: “it reflects the reality of so many little girls – ‘groomed’ through their mothers’ dreams of fame and beauty, wearing lipstick and tight-fitting clothes too early. The show reflects the damages of the pageant culture both in mums and on the children.”