In Horror We Trust

Oct 27 2017 | By More

Spookfest’s second scary sojourn

The Edinburgh Horror Festival returns from this Friday evening, 27 October, with a five night frenzy of foul deeds and frightening theatrics in the lead up to Halloween on Tuesday.

Edinburgh is notorious for its dark history. With its tales of murder, stories of spirits, bricked up and sealed underground cities it provides a perfect backdrop for theatrical tales of darkness so it is small wonder the festival is not merely back for more, but returns with increased venues and numbers of performances.

The Festival is staged in nine spaces over seven venues in 2017, with more than 200 performances of theatre, comedy, magic, film, gameshows and more. Most of the events use the “free-entry, donate on departure” model, so don’t require up-front ticket purchase, just a few handy fivers to drop in the bucket as you leave.

“With everything we have on, we’re confident that we will be able to provide something for everything,” says festival chair and co-founder Ash Pryce. “We’ve ensured the programme is as wide and varied as possible, and can’t wait to continue expanding the festival and its programme in the years to come.”

Hot amidst the comic capers and flashy magic, are a total of 14 different theatrical productions, ranging from a work-in-progess solo adaptation of H G Wells’ horrifying and increasingly relevant The Island of Dr Moreau from the ever inventive Michael Daviot, who is something of a specialist when it comes to the macabre, to a remount of Jonathan Whiteside’s Vault – in the Banshee Vaults, of course.

Out at Lauriston Castle there is a promenade production, Ghosts of the Castle, in which the audience walk round the supposedly empty building having intimate performance situations sprung and visited upon them…

Grimm

Local company Some Kind of Theatre is staging its own take on the Grimm brothers’ collection of fairytales Grandmothers Grimm, in which they look at the source material from which the collection was created, rather than the sanitised versions we know from childhood.

And in that ever-fertile strip of horror where sex rears its salacious head and leers knowingly out, there is Feel, from Copper Pipe Productions in which a morgue keeper begins to love her job of looking after the bodies just a little too much and “begins to do things to them that definitely should not be done”.

If Feel draws on true events for inspiration, in EH16 [Pyre] Nevermore Theatre turn to real life with true stories of three of Edinburgh’s persecuted women, past and present. Agnes is a mother accused of witchcraft; Jessi a young woman accused of murder; and Violet is killed for being herself.

Horror Festival Theatre Listings

All shows Free entry, donate on departure, unless otherwise indicated.

Feel
Banshee Labyrinth Chamber, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Sat 28/Sun 29 Oct 2017: 2.30pm (1 hour)
The Morgue keeper had one job: look after the bodies. She loves her job, loves looking after the bodies, but has begun to love them a bit too much. A play based on dark stories of true events. Those who are dead still feel very much alive through the events that unfold, there is no escape for them they ‘feel’ everything.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk
Facebook: /Copper-Pipe-Productions-1567407066896422/

Spiritual Skype
Banshee Labyrinth Cinema, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 5.15pm (50 mins).
Is there an afterlife? How do we find out what’s on the other side? Do they have a good WIFI connection? Character-based comedy by actress/comedian Heli Kostadinova and Ashley McLean.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk

The Grandmothers Grimm
Banshee Labyrinth Chamber, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 6.30pm (1 hour).
Cannibalism, torture, treachery, and murder. It’s 1811 and in a tidy study in Kassel, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are studying transcripts of folk tales told by country women, sanitising the stories’ harshness and horror in the hope of creating an anthology able to unite the differing voices of the German Confederation.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: /somekindoftheatre

Vaults by Jonathan Whiteside
Banshee Labyrinth Vault, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 7.15 (1 hour).
Imagine being trapped in a cold dark space overnight. Then imagine this space is haunted. Imagine it is the most haunted space in Edinburgh and you have agreed to spend the night, with three other people, conducting a paranormal investigation…
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/326001024524071

The Mechanics of Magick in an Hour… Or Your Money Back
Banshee Labyrinth Chamber, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Sat 28 Oct: 9.30pm (1 hour).
Banshee Labyrinth Cinema, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Sun 29 – Tue 31 Oct: 9pm (1 hr).
EHF’s own Warped Warlock Danov Valravn coinducts a foray into the forbidden arts. Ever wanted to know more about the mysterious traditions, the elaborate rituals, and the raw mechanics of magick? How about the dark wisdom of Aleister Crowley’s Curried Rice Recipe or the stimulating scoop on sex magick? Danov has the answers – even the ones nobody asked.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.

Dr. Moreau Explains
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Fri 27 – Mon 30 Oct: 8.30pm (1 hour):
Banshee Labyrinth Chamber, 29 – 35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG
Tue 31 Oct: 9.30pm (1 hr).
A work in progress solo show adaptation of H G Wells’s notorious tale of vivisection and colonial rule, built around the key chapter of the novel, in which Dr Moreau ‘justifies’ the agony inflicted by his vile experiments with living flesh. He seeks nothing less than to eradicate ‘the animal’.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/392157764520504/

The Red Death
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Fri 27 Oct: 9.45pm (1 hour).
£6/£5: www.eventbrite.co.uk
Sat 28 Oct: 3pm (1hr)
£6/£5: www.eventbrite.co.uk
Based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story, this new gothic play tells the tale of one eccentric Prince Prospero, who holds a masked party in his secluded abbey during the throngs of a deadly plague known as “The Red Death”. Set in seven colour coded rooms of an eccentric palace, this explores the concepts of disease and mortality, class division and the great fear that we all share: the fear of our own death.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: /thereddeathplay

Mystic Jee and Her Agents
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Fri 27 Oct: 6pm (1 hour).
Do you love mysticism, horror comedy, music and poetry? Mystic Jee spookily delivers her comedy tales of mystic madness in an action-packed night of talent including the haunting sounds of up and coming singer songwriter Leo Helm as well as the horror poetry of Anna Secret Poet, drag act supreme.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.

Hector Creeping’s Book of Despair
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Sat 28/Sun 29 Oct: 6pm (1 hour).
There is a man chained to a book. Or, perhaps, there is a book chained to a man. He is a person of shadows and secrets. It is a book of stories. Stories of misery and woe, of strange occurrences, many spiders, decapitated heads becoming uncapitated and of people who, despite all appearances were dead ALL ALONG. The man’s name is Hector Kreeping and this is his Book of Despair. Dare you hear what’s written within?
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: /HectorKreeping

Glass Slippers and Silver Bullets
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct:4.45pm (1 hour).
Mixing fairy tale and horror tropes as Cinderella’s big night gets a whole lot… hairier with a botched transformation, an obsessed gardener on the track of his missing veg and a prince who may be charming but may also be Transalvanian and undead. Can she find the love of her life? Or a crucifix? Does she know which one she really ought to be looking for? Suitable for children 8 and above.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/134746597167301

Cabinet: A Victorian Seance
CC Blooms, 23-24 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 7.10pm (1 hour).
A theatrical seance based on the work of the Davenport brothers. Professor Novak and the gifted medium Elizabeth take you back to the Victorian England of the 1850’s. Professor Novak plans to undertake a number of experiments in the new spiritual science, to prove that man survives death and that loved ones never truly leave us. The professor insures that every precaution will be taken to insure the safety of all present. Not suitable for children, or the nervous.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.

EH16 [Pyre]
The Tron, 9 Hunter Square, EH1 1QW
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 9.45pm (1 hour).
Edinburgh is filled with horror, but not where you’d expect. The story of three different woman who experienced persecution from their communities in and around Scotland’s capital city. Agnes, a mother accused of witchcraft; Jessie, a young woman accused of murder; and Violet, killed for being herself. Nevermore Theatre is committed to producing works of postmodern horror, and using humour as a coping mechanism.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: /NevermoreTheatre

The Other Way to Die on Stage
Monkey Barrel, 9 -11 Blair Street, EH1 1QR
Fri 27 – Tue 31 Oct: 10.15pm (1 hour).
When a stage-manager needs to put a show on, nothing can get in their way. Even a venue with a sinister history, no health and safety and a series of acts ranging from the disgusting to the incompetent, from the crazy to the downright macabre. And then there’s the knife-wielding, drunk ex-boyfriend. What could possibly go wrong?
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.

Ghosts of the Castle
Lauriston Castle, 2 Cramond Road S, Edinburgh, EH4 6AD
Sat 28/Sun 29 Oct: 6.30-7.30pm; 8pm – 9pm.
Tickets: £6.00 http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2896220
Lauriston Castle Housekeeper Mrs Gifford invites you to take a tour of the historic building while the master is away and learn its secrets and history. But beware: just because nobody lives there doesn’t mean it is empty… A promenade theatre piece.
Details: www.edhorrorfest.co.uk.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/120083708621631

ENDS

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