Thirty-three ticketed performances later, my 2005 London Fringe Festival experience is over. In roughly chronological order, some memories, notes and impressions:
- Meeting a couple of regular guys, Jorn-Bjorn Fuller-Gee and Iain Ormsby-Knox, at the Peanut Butter Picnic and learning they were staging a performance of The Strange History of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, before they became the stars of the festival.
- Starting the festival by seeing You Kiss By the Book, and subsequently praising it to a woman who then informed me that she was the director.
- Kathy Navackas, Alison Challis,
the young woman originally from Winnipeg whose name I never did getJacqui Vandale, Susan Smith-Goddard, and the rest of the Fringe troupers. - The Body.
- Lydia Zadel, the gifted and gorgeous star of The Body.
- Andrew Zadel, the masterful playwright of The Body.
- Rosalind and Geneviève; Lil; Leah and Marcey; Jen; Heather, Jonathan, Diana and John; Anne and Peter; Tarah, Jason, Stefania and Caralin; Joshua, Amber and Jeff; Fenulla and Dawn; Colette.
- Talking to Trevor Thompson, a nice guy from Ottawa whose first play is anything but disappointing.
- The Body.
- Being petrified by Tippi Seagram despite being in the very back row at The Arts Project.
- The Body.
- Aerial Angels’ Naughty No-No Show, late and way over time but impressively done; and coming to the realization that the seven pieces of clothing I was wearing weren’t nearly enough.
- Quick-marching home and back between Saturday-evening shows to create and print my own promotional posters for The Body.
- The Body with Amber.
- Andrew’s parody at the Fringe Fried party.
