A day at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with our Senior Producer, Harriet

Wednesday 20 August

First thing first is checking emails and trying to keep on top of anything urgent. Then it’s off out on a walk to Zoo Playground for my first show of the day: TANKED at Zoo Playground, where two Angel Fish, Coral and Gil, navigate love under pressure and within the four walls of their tank, in a quirky docuseries format.

I head over to The Pleasance do a bit of work in a rare window of time before my next meeting with an emerging playwright to talk about touring and how to get their work made. Up next is a lunch meeting exploring some future partnerships before I’m off to my next show The Insider by Danish company Teater Katapult delving into the real-life cum-ex scandal that defrauded European banks of billions of pounds.

By now we’re well into the afternoon so I’m glad to have had the foresight to pocket a self-made cheese roll from our student halls breakfast buffet which I eat on the move as I head over to Shedinburgh, a new venue this year, where house hosts a panel on Small Scale Touring. In conversation with the delightful theatre maker Victoria Melody (who’s legged it across from her show Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak which came down all of 10 minutes ago), theatre maker and producer Josie Dale-Jones (supported by the Here & Now showcase) and The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre’s Creative Director Laura Woodward, we cram as much as we can into the next 60 minutes as we pull back the curtain on touring and outstretch a hand to the artists who have given their time to come and listen. We pass Ivo Graham on our way out, who’s taking to the Shed’s stage next.

After a hugely enjoyable hour, it’s off to Gilded Balloon to catch Scottish company Visible Fiction’s UP, an piece of object theatre exploring luck, choice, fate and coincidence following the chance meeting of two people in an aeroplane. It’s a glamourous Sainsbury’s Meal Deal for dinner as I head over to the beloved venue Summerhall, this year with a Paines Plough Roundabout shaped hole it it’s courtyard, to catch Northern Irish company SkelpieLimmer’sAnthem for Dissatisfaction by Gina Donnelly. An hour later, I’m out the door again and headed down into Edinburgh’s Cowgate to theSpace for American company Xhloe and Natasha’sA Letter to Linden B Johnson, or God returning to the Fringe after it’s success last year.

Somehow, it is now 10:30pm so I swing past our house delegation drinks at The Pleasance to hear how everyone’s days have been and what they’ve been seeing (and hopefully enjoying!) – we exchange recommendations and curse our busy schedules for not being squeeze in this show or that, there’s just never enough time to see it all at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as much as I’d love to.

Total steps: 18,810
Total shows: A conservative 5