SATURDAY 1 AUGUST 2015

LINDA CATTANEO: CRANKING UP THE DISCOTEQUE MACHINE
At Discoteque Machine, rhythm hungry festival-goers can take to the stage themselves, interacting with the mysterious Morphs, under the watchful eye of the even more mysterious Voice. Confused? Intrigued? Entranced? The brain child of Italian performers Alice Mangione and Gianmarco Pozzoli, Discoteque Machine has all the ingredients to become an Edinburgh Fringe institution, as it premieres at Zoo Southside this Festival. We spoke to Linda Cattaneo, one of the team behind the Machine, to find out more.

ThreeWeeks' Chris Cooke chats to Linda about the show here
THREEWEEKS PREVIEW EDITION IS OUT NOW!
Look out for the preview edition of ThreeWeeks arriving through the letterboxes of Edinburgh, and at all key Festival venues, over the next few days.

Inside: Stuart Bowden, Maddy Anholt, Linda Cattaneo, Karen Koren, Penny Ashton, Shelley Mitchell, The Dead Secrets, House Of Blakewell, LetLuce, Will Pickvance, Matthew Harvey, Jennie Benton Smith, Stewart Francis, Yianni, Andrew Ryan, Máire Clerkin, Chris Martin and 81 show recommendations.

Check out the online version or download a PDF copy here
 
TUNE IN TO THE LATEST TW PODCAST
It's the TW Podcast at the Edinburgh Festival. This week, with Festival 2015 kicking off next week, ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Chris Cooke chats to MJ Hibbett and Tez Ilyas about their brand new shows, plus enjoy a snippet of children's theatre production 'According To Arthur' and music from Simon Thacker.

Listen and subscribe to the TW Podcast here
LLOYD GRIFFITH: I LOVE CATHEDRALS
Lloyd Griffith wants you to know he's performing every single night of the Fringe this year at the Pleasance Courtyard. But even more importantly than that, he wants you to know how great cathedrals are. Now, if you have seen Lloyd's list of TV and radio credits – which include 'Songs Of Praise' and Radio 3's 'Choral Evensong' amongst the comedy staples – this might not come as a surprise. But, as Lloyd will tell you, you don't have to be in a choir to enjoy the great cathedrals of Britain.

Check out Lloyd's ThreeWeeks column here
ART FESTIVAL TO VISUALISE 'THE IMPROBABLE CITY'
Certain artistic forms tend to dominate at the Edinburgh Festival – theatre, comedy, classical music – but pretty much every genre is on show, and some in a much more prolific way than you might first think. There was always a truly impressive array of visual art at the Festival, though it was when the Edinburgh Art Festival was launched just over a decade ago that that fact became particularly apparent. And the latest edition of this particular Edinburgh festival kicked off on Thursday.

"Edinburgh Art Festival is a unique celebration of the visual arts at the heart of Edinburgh's summer festival programme" says the festival's director Sorcha Carey. "Founded in 2004, we are the youngest of the summer festivals, but we have already grown to become the largest annual festival of visual art in the UK".

The festival was originally a partnership between many of Edinburgh's year round galleries, and an opportunity for those institutions to better communicate everything that was on offer during the city's festival month. And those galleries, and their exhibitions, remain the core of the Edinburgh Art Festival. But these are complemented by a series of original commissions too.

"Edinburgh is a city that has always felt at home in the world of fiction", Carey says, talking about this year's commissions. "There is something about the combination of fairytale architecture and topography that lends it a distinctly fictional quality. It provides the inspiration for this year's programme of commissions, which explores the work of artists who conjure alternative worlds in their work".

She goes on: "Titled 'The Improbable City', this programme brings together new work by seven artists each of whom offer an encounter with worlds or spaces at the limits of the probable. It includes an anarchic celebration of pagan ritual by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, a strange tree from a fictional island by Charles Avery, as well as Hanna Tuulikki's special duet composed for the closes situated off the Royal Mile".

In addition to 'The Improbable City', the Edinburgh Art Festival also presents a series of 'Festival Detours'. "These are intimate performances in some of our partner venues by artists from other disciplines" Carey explains, "including musicians, comedians, poets, playwrights. One of the things which marks us out from other visual art festivals is the fact that we take place alongside the world's largest performing arts festival – we are very interested in building conversations across the artforms, and inviting different perspectives on and new audiences into the gallery".

All of which makes for a significant programme just within this one of Edinburgh's summer festivals. Carey's tips for navigating what's on offer? "Our kiosk on Blair Street is definitely the best place to start. You can get full information about the programme, read up on artists and exhibitions in the reading area, and we run free tours from there every day, which offer short introductions to the festival programme. I'd also recommend comfortable shoes – our venues are spread across the length and breadth of our beautiful city, and walking is definitely the best way to experience the programme and Edinburgh to the full".

LINKS: edinburghartfestival.com
THREE TO SEE: SOMETHING A BIT CLASSICAL
The Edinburgh Festival's music programme is a whole lot bigger than you possibly realise. ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Caro Moses tips something a bit classical.

Rudolf Buchbinder: Beethoven Sonatas (pictured)
At this year's Edinburgh International Festival, celebrated Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder appears at not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, not eight, but nine concerts, playing not one, not five, not ten, not fifteen, not twenty, not twenty-five, not thirty, but thirty two Beethoven piano sonatas. So, all of them, in fact. That's dedication for you. I love that dedication, and I love Beethoven. I just hope there are some tickets left.
Playfair Library Hall, 8 Aug

Guitar Multiverse
This one caught my eye because I remembered that one of our team saw Declan Zapala's show at last year's Festival and pronounced it "breathtaking" in her extremely complimentary 5/5 write-up. Given his brilliant guitar technique, and his winning relationship with audiences, I think there's only one thing to do, and that's give you the same advice that our reviewer gave you all last year: "Go see this man while he's still playing smaller venues, he's brilliant!"
C venues – C too, from 6 until 31 Aug

Worbey & Farrell's House Party
Yay for Worbey & Farrell, and their unique and fun approach to piano music; their trademark mixture of classical and contemporary performance punctuated with witty asides and terrible jokes has delighted a host of our writing team in recent years. As ever, they are here with "spectacular arrangements" of work by a huge range of creators, from Bach to Lily Allen, from reggae to Rachmaninov. They have a tendency to sell out, so I'd get your skates on if you fancy it.
The Assembly Rooms, from 7 until 30 Aug
 
THREE TO SEE: OPERA
From both the Fringe and the International Festival, ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Caro Moses tips something a little operatic.

The Last Hotel
A lot of people find opera to be a bit of an inaccessible beast, and I sometimes wonder if for many, that's because the narratives are often (though by no means always) set in the past. Here's one with distinctly modern themes from a contemporary, award winning Irish team. Playwright Enda Walsh and composer Donnacha Denehy have joined forces to create 'The Last Hotel', a chamber opera about life, death, duty and guilt, and I think it sounds amazing.
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, from 8 until 12 Aug

Orpheus and Eurydice (pictured)
The company behind this, About Turn, brought a very well received production of 'Dido And Aeneas' to the Fringe last year, so I don't think it's wrong of me to assume that their latest foray into classic opera is likely to be a safe bet, if that's the kind of show you are looking for. This is a contemporary take on Gluck's much-loved masterpiece, performed in English and accompanied by a chamber orchestra.
theSpace @ Venue45, from 15 until 29 Aug

Tutte Contro Verdi

I am a bit intrigued by this show, an operatic performance created from an original idea by feminist soprano Miren de Miguel. The show focuses on three operas based on Shakespeare plays, exploring the presence of misogyny and sexism, and the fact that the fate of female characters in opera usually involves great suffering. I suspect she will make some very interesting points with this unusual piece.
New Town Theatre, from 6 until 17 Aug
 
© ThreeWeeks is published by UnLimited Media

ThreeWeeks, UnLimited Media, Kemp House, 152 City Road, London EC1V 2NX.
t: 0131 516 8842

publishing@unlimitedmedia.co.uk | complaints@unlimitedmedia.co.uk