You can’t keep actors down. Close the theatres and they just switch their webcams on! Coronavirus Theatre Club is bringing socially distanced new writing via Twitter every Sunday evening at 7pm. Brian shares the story of how it all started with a tweet… and before they knew it he and Sam Neale were running a […]
Kate Saffin
Writer and theatre maker Kate Saffin is a stalwart reviewer for FringeReview and an expert in solo theatre making. She lives on a canal boat.
Described as ‘Shocking stories (and wild speculations) about the lives and deaths of homeless people’ Bystanders weaves the stories of a Windrush generation boxer, a Polish migrant marked with a tattoo and a man with a bottle of gin and a television in his shopping trolley into a powerful piece of theatre that asks: […]
Zero Waste Fringe: BoxedIn get creative at the Greenhouse
A rather casual conversation at last year’s Edfringe about all the waste it creates led to the question ‘could we do it differently?’ and it turns out we can. Or, at least, BoxedIn Theatre can. They have created a zero waste venue, The Greenhouse, and an eco themed programme. It was a bit of a […]
There is always a goodly sprinkle of shows at the Fringe with a focus on war. These are three that I found around World War II that intrigued me, as telling an unknown story or taking a look behind the scenes of an iconic generation defining moment […]
Following the international success of Testosterone, exploring the culturally and socially different world a transperson has to learn to navigate, Kit talks about his new play, Passengers, described as: ‘A dark comedy about the epic battles and alliances within the psyche and the beautiful power of the mind to protect itself from pain. Max wants […]
The Female Role Model Project: Kate Saffin talks to the creator, Tjasa Ferme
Tjasa Ferme talks about this ground breaking mix of theatre and multi-media exploring the science of the brain. She describes how the idea emerged and developed into an interactive experience as much as a ‘show’ using live neuroscientific monitoring and recording which the audience see and hear as video and soundscape. And volunteers from the […]
Sometimes things just run in families and it was quite by chance that I learned that Joan Lawrence who sang with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1956 to 1962, would be watching her grandson, Christian Gittins, perform in Coily Dart’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s Improbable New Musical: Less Miserable The Spaces. Here they talk about […]
Adverse affects of medication: Kate Saffin talks to Millie Kieve about Cruise to Hell
Millie talks about how she has created a spoken word show to share how her family coped when her 20 yr old daughter, Karen, went missing on a family cruise holiday. And how it led her to start investigating the ways that medicines and anaesthetics can adversely affect our mental health. That led her […]
Best of the fest from Oxfordshire theatre makers
Some best of the fest shows coming from the lively, innovative and dynamic theatre making going on in, and around, Oxford. Selected by Kate Saffin, Fringe Reviewer reviewer. If you’re looking for: Work by an all female company (with a mouse who is A therapist-cum-confidant-cum-philosopher) Beyond: Sugar Mice at Paradise Green 15.20 to the […]
Kate Saffin talks to Jeremy Nicholas about… talking (in public)
Jeremy describes himself as the 11th most famous Jeremy at the BBC and has many years experience as a broadcaster and as an international speaker. Last year he shared some of his most colourful moments at the BBC. This year it’s stories of public speaking. He describes the show as for anyone who ever listens […]
Described as a ‘savagely playful subversion of identity’ talk about the stereotypes of princesses that all little girls face and their different experience of growing up with those stereotypes. They discuss how the work developed as they explored whether you can kill the princess or whether she will always reappear in a slightly different guise. […]
It isn’t always easy becoming a Fringe institution. Claira and Billy reveal some of the work behind creating and growing such a rare and valuable plant (with a total of 15 short plays across a rotating programme of three menus I reckon I can mix a few metaphors). This year sees the company take a […]