Fringe benefits: Edinburgh 2011

This year’s Edinburgh Fringe programme has been the biggest to date, with over 2,500 shows from around the world, and it has its usual crop of disabled performers. We asked Lucy Howard to run down what’s been on offer

This year, as usual, comedy has been centre stage.

Laurence Clark’s show Health Hazard! is a one-man mission to help Obama sell the benefits of free healthcare to the people of America, referencing the ongoing controversy over health reforms across the pond and the differences between American and English healthcare systems- via Stephen Hawking, the Queen and global Armageddon- with predictably hilarious results.

“I hope that, as well as making audiences laugh, my show has also made them realise what they may have previously taken for granted. And if nothing else, it illustrates the dangers for disabled people in the UK of the current plans to introduce more competition into the NHS,” says Laurence, who’s been followed around in Edinburgh by a camera crew for a BBC documentary.

Back after a break Steve Day brought a brand new show Run, Deaf Boy, Run! or “the loneliness of the long-distance deaf comedian,” chronicling his participation in the 2011 London Marathon, which he ran in aid of the charity Hearing Link. “The experience was so overwhelming I thought an Edinburgh show was the only place I could adequately explain how I felt,” he says. “I thought the race would just get me fit, but it changed my life. I hope that a human story emerges.”

Francesca Martinez’s show What the **** is Normal? also tells a very human story, where she explores our perceptions of what “normal” actually means.

“Whatever body you’re born into, it seems that most people share the universal desire to be ‘normal’, says Francesca. “But the truth is I’ve never met a ‘normal’person. Have you?

“Growing up feeling ‘normal’ in a world that said I wasn’t presented me with a stark choice – would I define myself by society’s values or by my own? It took years of high school hell, a part on Grange Hill, meeting David Bowie and a love affair – with an arsehole – to finally make my mind up.

“This is definitely my most personal show yet as my life story is at the heart of it. I really want my audience to feel that they are getting to know me rather than watching a ‘show’!”

More self-exploration came from caustic comic Chris McCausland with solo show Big Time.

Meanwhile Australia’s Prospect Productions presented Alzheimer’s the Musical: A Night to Remember!, a riotous peek into Jurassic Park Retirement Home, where ageing gracefully is compulsory.

Also exploring loss of memory, State of Flux’s multi-layered production Forgetting Natasha, was billed as featuring dance, poetry and digital media.

The multi-award winning Chickenshed Theatre Company presented Slender Threads, chronicling the effect of a cancer diagnosis on a family through theatre, dance, music and multimedia.

True to its roots,the Fringe did not shy away from controversy and thorny issues. Blacklight Theatre’s show In Confidence featured a woman who is pregnant with a disabled child and is struggling with pre-natal depression. The drama claimed it highlighted the many ethical and moral issues raised by such a situation.

Z Theatre Company’s show State of Mind looked at definitions of insanity, and adding to the new cabaret section, Jo Loth’s Mind Games said it brought an irreverent take on mental health where “mania meets maracas”.

For children there was Chickenshed’s interactive show Tales from the Shed, with a colourful cornucopia of puppets, music and “things that go bleughhhhh.”

As well as its usual mix of eclectic and wide-ranging shows, the Fringe has said it is now more accessible too, for both participants and audiences, including an accessible ticket collection point, a dedicated accessible ticket booking line and BSL-trained staff members, as well as improvements to programmes and venues.

Festival Fringe Society chief executive Kath M Mainland says: “The accessibility information in our programme has been much clearer for 2011 and our box office staff have had detailed information about the facilities, including changes to access from previous years, at each performance space.”

The Fringe Society has been working with various arts organisations to implement these changes, including Scottish theatre company Birds of Paradise, which works with casts of disabled and non-disabled actors. During the Fringe it also held an event titled Changing Perceptions, a discussion on inclusive theatre.

If you took the Edinburgh Fringe plunge this year we’d be interested in hearing from you about your experience. Which shows you liked, which you didn’t and which you couldn’t get in to.