Darkness flows to the Fringe (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Darkness flows to the Fringe

11:02am Monday 26th July 2010 in

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MACABRE puppetry, dark folk storytelling and live music, Hampshire’s The River People are attracting plenty of attention ahead of their appearances at the major Edinburgh festivals next month.

The theatre company, winners of Best Emerging Company at the Total Theatre Awards, Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize and Time Out’s Critic’s Choice Prize last year, are spreading their wings and taking their performance work in progress Little Matter to the Edinburgh International Festival.

That’s as well as hitting the Edinburgh Fringe with The Terrible Tales Of The Midnight Chorus, a collection of dark stories.

Ed Wren and Claire Harvey are associate artists at The Point in Eastleigh and met while he was playing her incestuous father in a student play at Winchester University five years ago. So, River People, were born in fairly bizarre circumstances – Ed asked Claire to read one of his scripts while rehearsing a sex scene.

But the duo have gone from strength to strength, earning the kind of praise and accolades Festival veterans of many years aspire to.

Their run of Terrible Tales, which they describe as Tim Burton-esque, at The Bedlam Theatre is set to be one of the most popular shows of the summer.

Telling Scene South about their Fringe success, Claire said: “The awards are a wonderful validation and encourage you to keep going.

“It’s hard work in the run up to it, but Edinburgh is like a huge boost each year when we can get away from the day to day toil of running our own company and get down to the real reasons why we make theatre. Performing to people is a real joy.”

River People’s previous hits have included The Ordinaries, a dark comedy about child abuse, and Lilly Through The Dark, a macabre fairytale about a little girl scouring the underworld for her lost father.