Wednesday, August 06, 2008

"The Factory" (sort of) - Edinburgh Fringe 2008

Are you allowed to look forward to a play about the horrors of the Nazi death camps? If you are, then I was. Unfortunately I was disappointed - no, not in "The Factory" - I don't know if it's any good, ask me again in a week. Blame The Traverse - even if it's on at Pleasance Courtyard. Confused - you will be.

First day proper of the Fringe was of course going to be busy day. Shows are just starting so delays are almost inevitable as sets have to be constructed and struck under pressure for the first time. Technical gremlins are bound to strike. This was one of the reasons The Traverse featured heavily in our first day plans (3 out of the 5 shows), well that and taking advantage of the 2 for 1 early bird discount. It's a year round theatre so should have a huge head start over a lot of other places for ensuring that things go smoothly.

So our tightest turnaround that day was between Fall (The Traverse) and Factory (Pleasance Courtyard) - 45 minutes to make a 25 minute brisk walk. Worst case scenario: we'd parked 5 minutes from The Traverse so could have jumped in the car and made it in 15 minutes.

This went out the window when Fall started 35 minutes late.

Obviously the 4 previews weren't enough to stop Mr Murphy LLB come knocking on the first day. The set apparently was proving more troublesome than expected. The Traverse certainly did its best front of house - at least 4 tannoy announcements and helpful staff keeping us stocked up with glasses of water as we waited in a very good humoured, if slightly warm, queue.

However we weren't the only people to be faced with the dilemma of possibly having to abandon Fall either at the start or interval to ensure that subsequent plans weren't disrupted. I do know that some people definitely didn't return after the interval.

Fortunately "Factory" has a long run - so a midweek trip next week will mean we won't miss it. But that 35 minutes cost us £19 pounds in rebooked tickets, another trip to Edinburgh that we didn't intend - and the set wasn't even that good.