Dachau Guide Wants You To Hear This

Here's a Fringe tip for you for an as yet undiscovered (free) show with potential.

"Dachau Guide" is a spoken word performance by Robert Johnson, an arts journalist for The Munich Times (a weekly English newspaper and news website), who moonlights as a tour guide at the notorious Dachau concentration camp, the prototype nazi concentration camp, located near Munich.

The one-hour show is about his experience over the course of five years working as a guide and lecturer at Dachau.

"Very few people aim for such a job directly. It is a winding and strange road that leads most guides there. In my case, I actively avoided it, fought it, and then eventually gave in to circumstance," explains Johnson.

"It is a bittersweet show without a happy ending," he adds.

So far this Fringe, Johnson has had disappointing houses. He puts the low attendance down to the Olympics. The fact that the show is not listed on the Edinburgh Fringe web site doesn't help (you can find a short listing on the PBH Free Fringe web site).

Dachau Guide takes place every day from now until the 25th of August at 2.45pm at the Fiddlers Elbow. The show is free and, points out Johnson, there is no bucket pass at the end as with some free shows.

"I really don't want people's money for this, I just want them to listen," he says.

Read Kenneth Scott's review of Dachau Guide