SUNDAY 9 AUGUST 2015

DOUG SEGAL: BACK READING MINDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE
ThreeWeeks Editors' Award winner Doug Segal - the comedian who reads your mind - wasn't at the Fringe last year. Well, not with his own show. He did end up flying in for eight days to do a guest spot at pretty much every guest-spot-show available. But this year's he's back proper, with a fetching new beard, more mind-bending tricks and the show he performed the year we gave him that award. We sat down with Doug to get updated.

ThreeWeeks' Chris Cooke chats to Doug about his show here
THREEWEEKS PREVIEW EDITION IS OUT NOW!
You can still pick up a copy of our 2015 preview edition at venues across Edinburgh.

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, as the Festival gets properly up and running again, ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Chris Cooke chats to Harry Deansway about his 'Audience With' show, and Lucy Danser and Dan Simpson about 'Stand Up & Slam'. Plus hear show snippets from Laughing Stock, Tom Allen and Grey & Green Theatre.

Listen and subscribe to the TW Podcast here
WEEK ONE MAGAZINE PHOTO SHOOTS
We are busy putting together the Week One edition of the ThreeWeeks magazine, and our photo team have been out and about shooting some of the performers who feature in it.

Check some of the photos that have already come in to ThreeWeeks HQ
THREEWEEKS DAILY ADS
Promote your show online through an advert in the ThreeWeeks Daily email bulletin - essential reading for Festival-goers - daily rates are £25+VAT with hefty discounts for block bookings.

THREEWEEKS WEBSITE ADS
Advertise online on the ThreeWeeks website - either through a 300x250 box or 300x125 banner.

We are offering the 300x250 pixel banners on a daily tenancy - 25% share of the spot starts from £10+VAT each day. 300x125 banners on a daily tenancy with 50% of the spot starts from £15+VAT per day.

Again - we offer keen discounts on longer bookings with these adverts, so please email TW.advertising@unlimitemedia.co.uk to discuss your booking.
BRYONY KIMMINGS SPEAKS TO AND FOR PERFORMERS WITH FRINGE CENTRAL ADDRESS
ThreeWeeks Editors' Award winner and all-round Fringe star Bryony Kimmings delivered the official welcome address to performers at Fringe Central on Friday, the third such person to deliver this now annual speech designed to formally get Fringe proceedings going.

And, she noted, just her own experiences in the previous 24 hours demonstrated that it was well and truly Edinburgh Fringe time once more. "My name is Bryony Kimmings" she declared. "I am a slightly pregnant, loud mouth feminist performance artist slash comedian slash theatre maker from London. I think that just about covers it. Even I'm not sure what box to put myself in nowadays. Having previewed yesterday and spent the rest of the evening eating ice cream and crying about the dodgy mics I bought off eBay, and the distinct lack of funniness to my jokes about depression, I can tell you that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has officially begun".

Describing the love hate relationship pretty much all performers have with the world's biggest arts festival, Kimmings mused of the Fringe: "It is a beast and it is rare to tame it, and in some ways you have to ride it for three and half weeks, being careful not to fall off or crack your head open or drown in its drool, and then jump off it and then ask the question 'what just happened'. So I have had fun trying to remember my favourite festival moment and my worst to share with you today".

Starting with a favourite moment, she went on: "My first ever proper Edinburgh with my first full length solo show 'Sex Idiot' was 2010. I was in the wonderful Zoo venues. I can't ever thank them enough for taking me on, I must have sounded like a nutter on the phone to James with my risk assessment of scissors and bourbon and other flammable goods. My venue was 30 seats in what used to be Zoo Roxy. In the basement. We had six lights and some playback. I think now it is a store room. I tried to get in there last year to peak and the whole stairwell was covered in boxes and cobwebs which made my heartache a bit".

"It was tiny" she continued. "Two rows, three sides, 50 minutes of me screaming at you about ex-boyfriends and demanding your pubes from you at the end... everything about that should have spelt out disaster. But for whatever reason: stars aligning, trends being set by other like-minded artists, a new found penchant for brash female comics ... that show was a hit. Out of nowhere. Good reviews from big papers, lots of invites to do slots, a gig at Soho Theatre before I left the Festival and a Total Theatre Award right at the end. I remember that summer as bouquets from a fan, skipping from party to party, laughing hard with my producer and best friends, being out our minds with excitement. I picture sunshine and taxis and prosecco".

"Flash forward a year" she went on, switching to the worst Fringe moment. "I find myself standing in the rain outside a flat just that little bit too far from the centre of town. I have an unfinished script in my bag, a very worried tech beside me and a completely different feeling in my gut. The show was '7 Day Drunk'. My difficult second album".

She expanded: "I had spent July slogging my guts out at Jacksons Lane studio space trying to wrestle any kind of show out of a bunch of terrible material made during a madcap scheme to spend a week with some scientists getting progressively more drunk to prove to a friend that alcohol had no effect on creativity".

"That year no awards, two to three star reviews, audible whispers of 'yeah she made 'Sex Idiot' but...' I picture hangovers, leaky shoes, bad ecstasy tablets, a throat infection and the worst feeling of not understanding how to make art, or what an audience wanted, as I buried my head in the sand and spent hours on the phone to my mum".

The message of these two opposite Fringe experiences just one year apart? "Those two polar extremes sum up how this Festival can go for all of us. And help us keep our feet on the ground as we begin our journeys this year. It could be great, it could be a disaster... and the truth is you have no idea at this stage which it will end up being".

"I think that might be part of this Festival's constant seduction for artists... the whiff of a hit. And I think that we have the best jobs in the world and are so lucky to be here. But believe me, we've all played to two people, we've all hit bums notes when the man from Public Reviews has his notebook out in the front row, and we've all cried as soon as we've stepped off stage.

Addressing the participants in the room, she concluded: "I hope that for you, this year is more like my 'Sex Idiot' experience than my '7 Day Drunk', but if it's not... know that next year is another year and tomorrow we are all fish and chip shop paper".

Kimmings wide-ranging speech also contained plenty of advice for performers, from herself and others, on creativity, the creative business, and the tricky business of dealing with the pesky press. And in amongst all that, there was a five point plan: "Eat healthily. Get out of the city on your day off. Use the facilities and services of the Fringe Society. Don't sweat the bad stuff. And make lots of friends".

Fine words from a fine performer, who is hopefully now in the midsts of creating another fine Fringe memory performing 'Fake It Til You Make It' at the Traverse.
THREE TO SEE: POLITICS FESTIVAL
In her final batch of pre-Festival Three To See tips, ThreeWeeks Co-Editor Caro Moses looks ahead to this month's Festival Of Politics.

Defining The Scottish Referendum On Television
I suspect that most of you will remember that there was this little old thing called the referendum in Scotland recently, and as someone with a long relationship with Scotland, and friends with a lot of people who live in Scotland, I was extremely interested in it, but slightly afraid to have an opinion on it... I was also intrigued by the way it was covered by the media, which is why this event caught my eye; Dr Marina Dekevalla discusses her study looking at how television news explained this political event, with input from the likes of Bernard Ponsonby, political editor at STV, and Daniel Maxwell, executive editor at BBC Scotland.
Scottish Parliament, 16 Aug

Who Will Win America
Here's another topical one for you, and this time looking to future events which may be of interest to you if you are even vaguely interested in, well, the world, really, given the impact that US culture and government policy has the potential to have on everyone else. America will elect a new president in 2016, and in this discussion, pollster/political strategists Jason Boxt and Robert Moran, plus White House correspondent Glenn Thrush discuss the likely outcome of the long and drawn out political campaign.
Scottish Parliament, 15 Aug

Scotland And Slavery (pictured)
Talking of the US, I suspect it's one place that people tend to think of when we talk about slavery. We can't blame it all on America, of course, and this discussion shines a pertinent light on that fact. Scotland took an active role in abolitionism, but Scots were also involved in the early slave trade, and Tom Devine will give a lecture on the topic, based on his book 'Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection'. There's also a screening of '12 Years A Slave' on as part of the festival, and there's a discount available if you attend both events.
Scottish Parliament, 14 Aug
 
THREE TO SEE: A BONUS SET FROM MEET THE MEDIA
Caro's pre-Festival Three To See tips - as featured in our preview edition - are now all online. But before we get into review mode, here is a bonus Three To See, with a tip apiece from Chris, Gemma and Suzy all based on the Fringe Society's big Meet The Media event yesterday. Having left Fringe Central with a large box full of show bumf, picking just three shows to recommend was very tricky indeed. But these are three shows we really liked the sound of...

Marc Jennings: Disconnected (pictured)
Marc Jennings decided to cut himself off from the internet entirely at the start of this year, deactivating his Facebook account and selling his smartphone, with the intent of going six months without ever connecting to the net and the flood of messages, notifications, email and porn it delivers. And in his Free Fringe show 'Disconnected' he'll tell you how those six months offline went. As an online publisher, normally we wouldn't approve of such projects, but in August we're in print, so disconnect away!
Cowgatehead, until 29 Aug

According To Arthur
If this children's show from PaddleBoat Theatre is just half as enchanting as the people behind it made it sound in their 90 seconds at the front of the ThreeWeeks queue yesterday, then it's a must-see for younger festival-goers. We were already pretty curious about this one based on the clip of the show that featured in the first edition of the TW Podcast this Festival. Add in their Meet The Media pitch and we're sold.
Greenside @ Infirmary Street, until 28 Aug

Wasted
After being pitched Kat Woods' play 'Belfast Boy' at Meet The Media last Fringe, we sent a reviewer along who was blown away by the piece (which is back at Spotlites this year, by the way). This time the pitch was for Woods' new play 'Wasted', what sounds like a fascinating exploration of the issue of consent, in a dark drama based on true events considering what happens when two people have different yet equally blurred recollections of the night before. We're told the conclusions of this piece very much depend on each audience member's preconceptions. Definitely worth checking out.
Gilded Balloon, until 31 Aug
 
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