Media United Kingdom

2pm, Saturday 28th August

The Mound

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The changing face of Britain takes centre stage in an exhilarating new interactive theatrical installation at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

This living fairy-tale, directed by Hannah Eidinow, will take its audience through the twentieth-century right up to the present day, as seen through the eyes of several generations.

Staged one afternoon at The Mound, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Great British Weekend…“Are We Nearly There Yet?”, a commission for the Vauxhall Collective, is bound to be one of the hottest street theatre performances of the year. This performance event is created and directed by Fringe First winning director Hannah Eidinow (Gone, What I Heard About Iraq) and enjoys the notion that you might never really 'get away from it all,' even when you attempt to have the perfect great British weekend.

It's 28th August 2010, a beautiful summer’s weekend, and Philip Wilson MP wants to take his family far away from the big smoke and perhaps take a trip to the beach...But his wife wants to go to the countryside. And his daughter? Well, she wants to go where the boys are. Not to mention his son's opinions.  A typical family wanting some stress free quality time together- is that too much to ask?  Probably.

Meet the Wilson family as they desperately try to escape it all: one car, two parents, two teenagers and a lot of luggage. Followers and the public will witness the Wilson family as they quarrel and dispute along their journey. As the family stops in different locations, it will also travel in time, impersonating the traditional nuclear family in all its different guises through the decades. The audience is taken from the 1940s to the present day, through very different social and political times - each scene plays out the culture, politics and environment, as well as telling a personal story about the Wilsons’ own lives.

This theatrical interpretation of what the typical British family does on a weekend away discovers the truth about British habits, traditions and families. In sharing and exploring their own changing circumstances, the Wilson family invites the audience to question their own lives, and to think about the past and future. Imagine Britain as it once was, and perhaps wonder whether the British family’s dreams have ever truly changed.

Hannah Eidinow’s production was selected by a notable panel of industry experts: Anthony Alderson, artistic director at the Pleasance, Nina Steiger, Writers’ Centre Director at the Soho Theatre, Duncan Speakman, winner of the Vauxhall Collective theatre category in 2009, and Kate Hargreaves of Gideon Reeling, another Vauxhall Collective alumnus. Born out of this year’s chosen theme for the collective, the Great British Weekend, the new and original theatrical piece has been developed over recent months to explore how the typical British family attempts to have a Great British Weekend.

Hannah Eidinow is joined in the Vauxhall Collective 2010 by sculptor Maurizio Anzeri, designer Gareth Neal and photographer Matt Stuart. Her performance will be launching on the 28th August at The Mound, during the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. 

Address:

The Mound
(next to the National Gallery of Scotland)
Edinburgh
EH2 2EL

Date, time and ticket information:

2pm

Saturday 28th August 2010

This is an unticketed event

The Vauxhall Style Council, Theatre Category:

Anthony Alderson, Artistic Director, Pleasance Theatre

Nina Steiger, Writers’ Centre Director, Soho Theatre

Duncan Speakman, winner of Vauxhall Collective theatre category 2009

Kate Hargreaves, Gideon Reeling, winner of Vauxhall Collective theatre category 2008

Hannah Eidinow

As a director, Hannah’s productions are extremely eclectic.  She explores different ways of storytelling in the theatre, from cabaret to plays to musicals, and often works in non-traditional or informal contexts.  She also works with a great number of playwrights on new plays.  In 2005, she scripted and directed 5 Minutes To Midnight, Damon Albarn's fifty-person choral meditation against renewing Trident and against Britain’s possessing nuclear weapons, with visuals from Rob del Naja and contributions from Brian Eno.  This was performed on a Greenpeace ship in the middle of the River Thames.

Amongst her other productions, Hannah Eidinow has taken a number of successful shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including two award-winners.  In 2004 Gone, a new adaptation of Antigone, was the winner of the Scotsman Fringe First Award and Best Play in the Guardian Fringe Awards.  In 2006, What I Heard About Iraq won a Scotsman Fringe First Award and then toured regionally.  Both plays transferred to London's West End. In 2009, she took A British Subject by Nichola McAuliffe, which transferred to the New York ‘Brits Off-Broadway’ season. 

Hannah trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.  She is an Associate Director of The Miniaturists, a monthly festival of new, short plays.

Vauxhall Motors

With an ongoing commitment to championing style and design in the UK, British car marquee Vauxhall is a keen supporter of creativity through initiatives such as the Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair 2010, the Vauxhall Fashion Scout and the Vauxhall Collective.

Latest models include New Astra, a car that shares the same design language as Insignia and that has been built in Ellesmere Port, Liverpool,  and New Meriva, with its unique in-class FlexDoors

Vauxhall is reinventing the car as we know it with Ampera, Vauxhall's first electric car. The wheels are turned electronically at all times and speeds and can be plugged into any household 240v outlet for charging.

Vauxhall Collective

The Vauxhall Collective is one of the most ambitious commercially-funded creative support schemes in the UK.

Members of the Vauxhall Collective are supported financially to carry out projects, consequently raising their profile in the industry and in the media, and giving them the resources to fulfil their creative potential.

In previous years Vauxhall successfully ran the VX Collective based on collaboration between members. Previous members have included Giles Deacon and Christopher Kane.

Vauxhall Collective 2008:

Jonathan Kelsey, Simon Hasan, Ben Rivers, Gayle Chong Kwan, Matthew Darbyshire and Gideon Reeling

Vauxhall Collective 2009:

Katie Paterson, Duncan Speakman, Seba Kurtis and Studio Glithero

For further information / Use of pictures / Interviews

Idea Generation: +44(0)20 7749 6850

Marta Bogna: marta@ideageneration.co.uk

Natasha Hoare: natasha@ideageneration.co.uk