Assembly announces record breaking audiences in its 30th anniversary year at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Assembly is delighted to announce a record breaking 30th anniversary year at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Over 26 days there were performances at Assembly George Street, Assembly Hall and the new venue for this year, Assembly at PrincesStGardens. We have sold 290,000 tickets for 139 shows and sales are up 15.8% on last year. Bringing the best in live music, theatre, cabaret, comedy and family shows to audiences of all ages, Assembly Festival’s 2010 anniversary programme has won critical acclaim and celebrated its illustrious 30-year history in style.
A great year for comedy, Assembly welcomed back Festival favourites Adam Hills, Jason Byrne, Mark Watson, Sean Lock, Richard Herring and Kevin Bridges. Also, a great year for new faces at the Fringe, including US actresses Charlyne Yi and Jennifer Coolidge earning their Edinburgh stand-up stripes, alongside antipodeans Carl Barron, Tripod, Adam Vincent and Hannah Gadsby.
Critically acclaimed theatre included Nilaja Sun’s award-winning No Child, Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo’s enchanting Farm Boy, star of stage and screen Simon Callow in The Man From Stratford and four powerful one-woman shows from acclaimed theatre producer Guy Masterson: I Claudia, I Elizabeth, A Solitary Choice and Long Live the King.
Assembly broke new ground with Assembly @ Princes St Gardens, showcasing a cracking line-up of daytime comedy, mime and music, and late-night delights care of crowd-surfing cabaret diva, Meow, The Crack’s explosive combination of stand-up, variety and side-splitting comic performance and club night Guilty Pleasures, the place to be in the early hours.
Accolades this year have included a Herald Angel Award for Just Macbeth, a slapstick take on Shakespeare that delighted young audiences; a Stage Award for Best Actor acknowledging Scott Kyle’s remarkable performance in Des Dillon’s Singin’ I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim, a MTM:UK (Musical Theatre Matters) 2010 Awards Judges' Discretionary Award for Zambezi Express; and a hat trick of awards for Do We Look Like Refugees?!, a verbatim play about the experiences of Georgian refugees displaced in the 2008 war and the worthy recipient of a Scotsman Fringe First; Fringe Review’s ‘Outstanding Theatre Award’ and The Stage Award for Best Ensemble.
Finally, two exceptional individuals closely associated with Assembly were awarded Herald Archangel Awards. The awards, which acknowledge a sustained contribution to the Fringe, were presented to Jack Klaff, a veteran of politically outspoken theatre and one of many stage actors who have shared in Assembly’s long history, and Liz Smith, the dedicated “doyenne of fringe press and publicity managers”.
Artistic Director, William Burdett-Coutts says.
“We’re extremely proud to have reached 30 years at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and particularly pleased with our major achievement at PrincesStreetGardens. We hope to build on this new development, and look forward to next year at the Fringe. We would like to thank Edinburgh Council, the Fringe and our sponsors: Bulmers, the Scotsman, STV, Concept, Spotlight, Essential Edinburgh and Highland Spring. Without them, none of this would have been possible.”
For further information please contact:
Catherine Bromley, Head of Press, Assembly Festival:
[email protected]
- Log in to post comments