ON TOP OF THE WORLD

When we first arrived- We went to the top of Arthers Seat an amazing meandering hill walk where you can see the entire city- at the time Juan kept saying- We are on top of the world! I think the rest of the company has finally caught up with him after the success of the last week  ¶ 2:20 PM 0 comments

  Look at the window!
So what did Split Knuckle do before the 5 star review to get people in?? Well they spent two days a week in the window of John Lewis- a Department store here- enacting the play out for passers by- after the review they decided the fun had to stop and cancelled their window gig!  ¶ 2:16 PM 0 comments

  A Lovely Sight   ¶ 12:57 PM 0 comments

  The Price of a Complimentary Ticket
So you want to visit, do you? Get to work! These flyers won't label themselves.  ¶ 12:56 PM 0 comments

  Fog Blog


Here's a selection of views from last Friday, when the great fog descended on the city. It's midday in August! I can't imagine what it's like here in winter.  ¶ 12:53 PM 0 comments

  Four Sell Out Shows
Split Knuckle has sold out the last four shows. In a festival where the average audience is said to be six people I think that is amazing. The word is spreading and the reviews have been very helpful. We are also on the recommended list for the Scotsman which appears every couple of days. I am determined to sell out the rest of the week. I am just about to head out to do more flyering. Pack em in baby! Wish us luck.  ¶ 11:37 AM 0 comments

  Scotsman Review on line Thanks to that lovely review, we sold out both shows over the weekend and we've gotten a good head start on the week. If you'd like to read it, it's online now.

Here as well is a link to our reviews page at edfringe, where you can read audience reviews from people who have seen the show. Word-of-mouth is helping us a lot.  ¶ 12:27 PM 0 comments

  Split Knuckle sells out Amazing what the Scotsman will do for you; we sold out yesterday's show (including about 10 folding chairs added to the normal seats) and are well on our way to selling out today, too. We'll be doing all we can to keep the momentum going for the rest of the week. Keep spreading the word!

Also, Seth has posted the review at the website, so you can go there and check it out if you haven't yet been able to.  ¶ 10:42 AM 0 comments

  5 STARS WELL DESERVED So the show received a five star review from The Scotsman news today with a photo of the show- this is HUGE- it is a prestigious paper and they rarely give out five stars- this means that the show is in the running for the Festivals Fringe First award- needless to say all of us involved with the show are absolutely giddy today. It is so cool to see all the hard work of the past months come to fruition.
last evening we had a lovely gathering of folks to eat and discuss the Fringe and the future and life in general. We were saying hello to Christina who is here to do a street show with Seth and we celebrated the fact that Tomoko got her visa extended and gets to stay in the country yahoo! the following are photos of various in depth theatre chats





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  ***** 5 STARS FROM THE SCOTSMAN! Today's Scotsman has their review of the Pearl, and it's a doozy--5 stars and a great picture of the show. Here are some good quotes:

"The five performers work in impeccable harmony, bringing every moment of the story into perfect focus."

"This resourceful and intelligent production transforms Steinbeck's tale into an elegant, humorous and tremendously moving drama."

Have had some trouble finding the whole review on line, but as soon as we've got it, we'll get it up here.

Spread the word!  ¶ 10:54 AM 0 comments

  A Rainy Day in Edinburgh Most days here are a mix of gray and dark gray, but there's usually at least a peek of sun, and once in a while a whole day's worth of it. Yesterday we only got a peek. Here's a glimpse of Michael hard at work putting labels (which read, "***** UNMISSABLE Edinburgh Guide") on flyers.

Here's a glimpse of Andrew hard at work sitting at a Starbucks.














As for the flyers, here's a little look at what happens when they go bad--mismatched colors, odd shapes and miscuttings. Still good coasters, though, or in Scot-speak, "beer mats."



Below are some photos of the gang relxaing after our show for the monster crowd. Note the relief in our eyes that they didn't turn violent. Fortunately we lulled them into a satisfied stupor with our drama.   ¶ 10:25 AM 0 comments

  What a crowd! Who knows where they all came from, but somehow we packed the place today with over 50 people! Amazing, right? There were very few empty seats and a very appreciative bunch. We're hoping this is a harbinger of good things to come. Fortunately friends of Michael's from Shakespeare & Co. are bringing a good bunch tomorrow, so we should get another lot for Friday. Spread the word!  ¶ 6:20 PM 0 comments

  This RD Laing character Is it a defect in my education or cultural awareness that before the Festival I had no idea who R.D. Laing is? For those similarly ignorant, he is a psychoanalyst who has inspired no less than 3 Fringe productions. I'm not sure if there's a particular vogue for his work, or if more performers are having psychoanalysis, but I consider it a slightly weird coincidence that so many shows feature either his work or his theories. The only one that I've seen is an Irish dance-theatre piece called "Knots," and if it's anything to judge by, I'm not interested in what he has to say. Maybe it just doesn't translate well, but the play's attitude toward relations between the sexes (which is the general subject of "Knots," as in tying them) is pretty superficial.

But maybe this is just like what happens in Hollywood, when suddenly there are three WW2 movies in one year, or thirteen films about Steve Prefontaine--suddenly an enthusiasm becomes contagious and inescapable. If you're a Laing fan, this is your year.  ¶ 5:28 PM 0 comments

  Some thoughts about Now and the Future The show is going well, with the house numbers growing everyday. It's lovely to be able to talk to people after the shows and have a drink and hear their thoughts about the Pearl. Today we got our first comparison to Complicity which is a theatre that I have a lot of respect for and started in a very similar way as Split Knuckle. The original members all trained together at a physical theatre school in Paris and then decided to take their show to the Edinburgough Fringe. Some of the comments, particularly from theatre people, make me belive that Split Knuckle is in a world that is new and surprising to people. Something that people have not seen yet but have a deep intrest in how it turns out. One actor from Beligium called the show a pray. I have never been a show described that way. Our goal as a company is to bring the world of physical theatre/storytelling and classical theatre training and texts together to tell beautiful stories. I belive this will take our whole careers to achieve but this moment, here, now, this project, this group of people is an amazing begining. Sorry about the spelling I'm Dyslexic and the spell check is broken.  ¶ 6:15 PM 0 comments

  I saw a hedgehog! Not exactly Split Knuckle-related, but last night as I was standing in a phone booth I looked out and saw a wee hedgehog poking around. Really very cute creatures are hedgehogs. It was an exciting moment. I thought about taking a picture, but I was in the phone booth and couldn't get a good shot, plus I was on the phone. Maybe I can track the little varmint down later.  ¶ 12:19 PM 0 comments

  what does flyering mean??
Well for those who have never crossed over to the Fringe side- there is a street named the Royal Mile where everyday of the festival you will find any number of strange creatures trying to get folks into their shows, generally this consists of costumed people running at you- Below you can see some examples of the blatant assault on theatre goers- masked inmates,choruses of dancing umbrella folks, odd banners on the backs of performers and of course period costumes. Split Knuckle is above all this of course- note the fine Irish lad who just happens to strike up conversations with people trying to decide what show to see- We have discovered Greg is a genius when it comes to Irish and American tourists- also note the spiffy Split Knuckle shirts that we all sport thanks to Seth.





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  Pressing on Well, we're almost halfway , unbelievably enough. This Wednesday, the 16th, marks the official midpoint of our run at Hill Street Theatre. It's also our day off, which we're all looking forward to. Not that our schedule is especially grueling, but it'll be nice not to have to do the show for one day, and it also means that we can see one of the several shows that we want to see and that occupy the same time slot. It's really unfortunate how many there are at 4:00 that we want to see. I think Seth and I are going to try to see Derevo, the crazy Russian theatre monks playing at Aurora Nova. I saw them a couple of years ago in London and they do very wondrous, beautiful, and mystifying things.

As for us, we're averaging 20-25 people per show, which is pretty good, although not quite as good as we'd like it to be. Our Edinburgh Guide review is definitely helping, and the Scotsman was in to see us on Sunday. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that they print a good review, and that they do it soon. That'll mean a big difference in getting more folks in.

More pictures to come soon. Thanks for reading!  ¶ 12:49 PM 0 comments

  Edinburgh Guide rates us "Unmissable"! Follow this link and scroll down the page just a bit to see Edinburghguide.com's review of the Pearl. According to their odd rating scheme, the fewer drams you need to get through a show, the better it is, and with none at all, we are officially unmissable. That means you are not allowed to miss the show. So you'd better get over here and see it, unless you want to be labeled a rule-breaker, and no one wants that.  ¶ 12:00 PM 1 comments

  House Enormous God knows where they all came from, but we had our biggest house yet for yesterday's show! To keep things in perspective, we should note that our biggest house yet consists of 33 people. But in a small theater at the Fringe, competing with 1800 other shows (and not having any reviews yet), that's really good. Given that the Hill Street Studio only seats about 65 or so, it was great to look out and see most of the seats taken. There was also another press person there today, and it's always better to have more people when press is there.

On the subject of press and reviews, we're a little frustrated. They've come, in at least one case they've said they liked it explicitly, and yet we're still waiting to see anything in print. To be fair, it's tough--the papers are sending reviewers to tons of shows, and doubtless there are reviews written that take days or weeks to make it into print. But they make such a huge difference (provided they're good, of course, which we are by no means taking for granted; but if they're not good, we'll move on and pretend they never happened) that we're antsy to have something to put on our flyers and posters, something with a lot of stars maybe. We'll let you know if and when we get 'em.  ¶ 11:03 AM 0 comments

  What we do in our free time We cook sand. In the course of each show, we end up dumping a lot of sand and very small rocks into big buckets of water. We don't have enough sand to get rid of it after every show, so we have to save the wet stuff and dry it (it doesn't work to use wet sand for what we do with it). Thus, we cook it. Presumably there's a better way to do it, but this has the virtue of being fast. And does it ever smell delicious. Declan, if you happen to come across this, please know that we will replace your wok. Anyone reading this at home, be forewarned--sand and very small rocks do not get along with Teflon.  ¶ 10:59 AM 0 comments

  Seeing Shows Two shows I've seen that I've liked have been Happy Hour - It Takes 3 and Spymonkey - Cooped. Both are basically clown shows, the first American and the second English. I mean clown in a pretty broad sense--no red noses or mime or tumbling, but plenty of slapstick and stupid, stupid behavior. Happy Hour are 3 guys who trained at Ringling Bros. clown college (according to Seth). The story of their show, such as it is, has them driving to California to become a boyband, but it's really just an excuse for them to do loads of little skits & gags with the audience. Plus there's a great encore performance with bathrobes. Spymonkey's story, or what counts as their story, is about a secretary going to work at an English manor where a suspicious death has just taken place. Again, that's just a reason for endless amounts of amusing stupidity. It took a while for me to get into their show; for a while I was thinking, "Oh, that's funny," without actually laughing. Then the bishop came onstage. There's a bit involving his ring that had me gasping for air I was laughing so hard. It's a very simple gag, but executed with such amazing craft that it absolutely kills. From then on, I was hooked and often found myself hooting in delight. The list of things I have yet to see is very long--at least a dozen--and it's growing, but fortunately there's time yet.  ¶ 11:06 AM 0 comments

  Getting People into the House This is a shot of one of the display windows of the John Lewis store on Leith Walk. They've been doing a promotion called Windows on the Fringe, which started on Monday with a preview performance of...The Pearl! We were in the window for 30 minutes performing selections from the show--the pearl-diving sequence, one of the beggars' scenes, Kino's visions of the Pearl, and a couple pieces of chorus text. They've got a speaker set-up just to the right of what's in the picture, so we could use music as well as text (there's a microphone stand in the left of the photo). Pedestrian traffic wasn't huge when we were there (11:00--11:30), but there were a bunch of people who wandered by, and Teresa was diligently flyering them all. Surprisingly, it worked--we got four people in the house just from that half an hour. Proof that when people see what we're doing, they like it.

Yesterday we did something similar on one of two small Fringe stages that are set up on the Royal Mile. That's the part of High Street that holds most of the show-promoting. It was a bit more daunting in that respect--very poor amplification (no big amps allowed) and lots of competition for people's attention, but nonetheless we managed to hold a crowd for the 20 minutes we were performing. That's good news. We'll be doing that again tomorrow, and the John Lewis window again on Friday.

Our crowds have been good so far, if not spectacular. What with these promo opportunities and a lot of diligent flyer-pushing, we've been getting people in. We've also had one producer and two reviewers in the house, with another reviewer coming today. As of yet, no published reviews, which is annoying, but we expect at least one in the next day or two. We'll post details as soon as we get them (if not sooner, pacinosomo). Thanks for reading!  ¶ 11:07 AM 1 comments

  Explosive! Powerful! Jaw-Dropping! Shattering! Brilliant! -- We Open! Technically we open today, actually, as the first two shows were previews, but for our purposes things actually got going on Friday.

The show went fabulously well, and we had a great house for a first preview. The staff at Hill Street have been fantastic, and it's a great, warm and welcoming place to do a show. We've been out flyering like mad since we got here, and it's starting to pay off with people in the house. We've also got three reviewers coming in the next four days, so hopefully we'll have some thrilling pull quotes for you soon, and we can plaster this space with stars.

Here at left is the gang as we got ready to go in for tech. Below that is the official introduction party where we got to talk to all the other folks performing at Hill Street. I've been able to sample our Polish bartender's drinks, and I can tell you that the Russian Tank and the Apple Pie are both fantastic.

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  Today we begin! Keep us in your thoughts today, as we open The Pearl at Hill Street Theatre at 4:00pm this afternoon.

We had a great opening meeting at the theatre this morning--Tomek and Laura, the husband and wife team who run the theatre, gave us an inspiring and exciting talk, and we also got to hear about the other shows running at Hill St, as well as meet the Polish bartender Edward, whose fame has spread far and wide. He will be keeping us in Polish vodka throughout the month.

Photos to come probably tomorrow--until then, here's hoping we break a leg, and we'll let you know how it goes!  ¶ 1:18 PM 1 comments

  Tech'd & Loaded The adventure continued as we got to Hill Street Theatre for our technical load-in and rehearsal, only to find that the power had gone out for the whole street. This is apparently par for the course, so we're hoping we've gotten our gremlins out of the way. It ended up being only a minor inconvenience--we got into and out of the space an hour late, and in the intervening four hours managed to put up the sets, build the light cues, do the cue-to-cue and get in a run. We love the space, the folks at Hill Street and very friendly, and what's more the bar promises a variety of interesting drinks. We're pretty well provided-for. Tomorrow, the opening!  ¶ 5:14 PM 0 comments

  THE BLACK PEARL Well the trip up North began calmly with the folks from Split Knuckle cramming their life and set into two cars. A lovely drive began..an hour and a half into the trip black smoke poured from one of the cars! the clutch was shot- Greg & Teresa had an adventure being towed to Birmingham airport- about 40 minutes away- note the life and set of Split Knuckle in the airport drive- but we were soon sorted with a larger car! Away we went- and got to Edinburgh in good time- we were greeted with a double rainbow- a positive sign





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  Journey to Edinburgh, or Disaster! on the Highway We had a lovely final day of rehearsal in the NY Pilates space in London. As a culmination to our whirlwind remounting, we had an open dress run of the show in the space. There was a great and enthusiastic crowd--here's a shot from house left:













Note the infectious glee that is a hallmark of our fans everywhere.

Afterwards we repaired to Pizza Teca to celebrate and to plan for the trip ahead:














Here Michael and Greg discuss the finer points of ripping a human heart still beating from your victim's chest.

Bright and early the next morning we began our journey to Edinburgh, fitting 7 people, all their baggage and all of our sets, costumes and props into two fine Peugeots (or at least, fine-seeming) Peugeots. Here's a look at the cars as we were about to embark. Just out of frame to the left Juan's foot emerges from the trunk. He's very bendy, fortunately for us all. Somehow we all made it into the cars, even that gray bag up top, and began our trek up the A1 toward Scotland. When we'd gotten an hour or so out of London, we stopped at a Roadchef to get some snacks. As we pulled back onto the highway, tragedy struck. The lead Peugeot, driven by the fearless Greg Webster, suddenly began to belch clouds of black smoke from under the hood. He and Teresa pulled over, while the rest of us waited to find out what was happening. In brief, the car was dead, thanks to a burnt-out clutch.

The unfortunate vehicle:

Below, Rogue Leader Greg Webster deals with the catastrophe:

While the rest of us continued on to Edinburgh, Greg and Teresa waited for the tow truck, which took them to the Avis station at Birmingham Airport, about an hour's drive north. Before long, they were in a new station wagon and back on the road. In the end, Greg and Teresa pulled into Edinburgh only a couple of hours after us, and not too terribly late at night.

After a day and a half in Edinburgh, we load in and tech tonight. More pictures to come after that. To finish, here's a picture of Gormley's Angel of the North, which we passed as we drove along the M1:  ¶ 1:32 PM 0 comments

  2 Very Busy Days In the last two days we've performed to an adoring crowd of flexible people in the Pilates studio, traveled 400-odd miles in three cars, one of which burst into flames on the highway, moved our set into and out of three different buildings, moved ourselves out of and into 6 or so buildings, ran into a former classmate walking a strange dog through the cobblestone streets of a strange city, had more coffee than was strictly necessary and discovered that our show is listed as playing at two different times. All of which has been a bit overwhelming. And yet somehow, courageous folk that we are, we've soldiered on. And we remain dedicated to bringing our experience to you, the great crowd of our supporters, or at least my mother and girlfriend who are reading this. But for pics and more details, you'll have to wait a few hours at least. You will doubtless quiver with anticipation until then, and rightly so, for we are Split Knuckle, and we thrust our strength against the mountain, and plunge our strength against the sea. Thank you for your attention.  ¶ 2:12 PM 0 comments