Prolific playwright and librettist Hilary Bell brings her trio of comedies about clinging and letting go, Summer of Harold, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, after a rapturous premiere in Sydney. Restaged for the festival by multi-award winning director Damien Ryan, founder of the highly-regarded repertory theatre company, Sport for Jove.
Dates: Aug 1-26 (no show Wednesdays)
Time: 13.50 (90mins)
Tell us about Summer of Harold
SOH is a wonderful, playful, funny, and moving triptych of short plays by one of Australia’s most revered and original writers, Hilary Bell. I’ve really loved working on it. Two exceptional monologues and a two-hander that take us into three distinctly different lives and experiences, linked thematically by their study of what it is to hang on to things too tightly or to learn to let them go. They are deep and beautiful human portraits.
Who are the main character(s) in the show and what are they like?
The first short play tells the story of a young Australian backpacker who spent a fraught and thrilling summer in the home of Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser, learning a lesson of transience and surrender from one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century; the second monologue is a buoyant and vengeful outburst of schadenfreude from an artist, a one-time enfant terrible whose failed career has always been eclipsed by that of his boyhood rival, until today when he finally gets a win, but perhaps winning is not all it’s cracked up to be. And the third piece brings these two terrific actors together in a duologue set on an atmospheric clifftop lookout in Australia’s Blue Mountains as a beautiful, difficult lifelong relationship reaches its surprising and deeply affecting resolution.
How does it feel to be bringing Summer of Harold to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
It is extraordinarily exciting for us, we are all first time Edinburgh Fest theatre makers and it has always been something we’ve longed to be part of. To bring such a wonderful Australian story full of evocative character study and language to Scotland is a real thrill for us. We think it is a perfect Fringe show, simple, theatrical and actor-centric, celebrating storytelling at its purest.
Have you done the Fringe before? What are the key pieces of advice you have been given or would give to new groups or people performing at the Fringe?
No, we have not yet been involved so we are looking forward to the advice of those on the ground who know the joy and chaos of it – -we can’t wait. We’ve been warned to expect to be “overwhelmed” and “under-slept”!
What do you hope that audiences will take away from Summer of Harold?
A look inward! These vignettes of human experience are about all us learning to surrender a little to the things we think define us – fears, resentments, anxieties, even people at times. It is a joyful, easy to watch and listen to, journey into private human spaces and back out again, hopefully a little transformed.
What is your favourite thing about Edinburgh during August or what are you most looking forward to?
I’ve only been to Scotland in the winter so for me personally, it is the thrill of seeing this great city at its most electric and alive! And of course, seeing some brilliant theatre.