Edinburgh: Love in the age of the NSA - Notoriously Yours
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It’s love in the age of the NSA and GCHQ. South Australian contemporary theatre group five.point.one are bringing their unsettling spy noir Notoriously Yours to the Edinburgh Fringe C venues.
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The show asks a question: What would Hitchcock's Notorious look like in the age of Tinder and indiscriminate surveillance?
Van Badham was prompted to write the play following Edward Snowden's revelations that not even our most basic metadata is sacred.
It's an issue that five.point.one's Artistic Director and actor Brad Williams thinks will resonate with the Fringe crowd.
“It's a fairly pertinent time in Edinburgh at the moment, because the UK government have passed some strong surveillance laws recently which give them a lot more freedom,” Williams said.
The performance uses fairly threadbare contemporary staging with clever use of mixed media; live camera feeds and short video extracts enforce the surveillance themes of the show.
five.point.one's second collaboration with playwright Van Badham, Notoriously Yours proves her mastery of the political moment, written for the Adelaide Fringe Festival where it garnered a slew of four and five star reviews and a number of critics' awards.
“This is one of the shows I'm proudest of,” said Williams, “because every performer helped develop everything from scratch. Whether it was the video footage or technology, it's something that we feel we own more than other scripts in the past.”
Williams said their journey to Edinburgh began when C venues saw their show at the Adelaide Fringe, the largest arts event in the Southern Hemisphere, and decided to co-produce it.
“We're excited, but it's a bit terrifying at the same time because it’s a lot of financial outlay for a small independent company,” Williams said.
five.point.one put together an online flea market to fund their trip to Edinburgh – selling everything from their clothes, baked goods, hairstyles, cooked dinners and their acting skills to make their way over the pond.
Notoriously Yours won the Adelaide Festival Centre inSPACE:development Award, the Adelaide Critic's Circle Award and Flinders University 'Behind The Scenes' Award during an extended season.
The season runs from July 31st until August 25th.
Past coverage:
5 Stars: “Fast-paced, topical, edgy, well-produced, perfectly cast – from the opening scene, we’re voyeurs in an underworld of grey intelligence operatives, manipulation and subterfuge, where, despite the characters’ best attempts, humanity breaks through.” – Rip It Up
“Five.Point.One are known for high quality modern, thought-provoking but entertaining theatre. This latest production, Notoriously Yours by Van Badham keeps their reputation well intact – it is flawless.” – Glam Adelaide
4 Stars: ” The actual drama is much more fun, and unfolds in film noir style with lots of short scenes, usually an interplay between the characters on stage and filmed events or chapter titles being flashed on a big screen behind them. Some of the filming of love scenes is done live with mobile phones to make sure that the audience gets the message, that nothing goes unseen any more.” – The Advertiser
Theatre company selling it all to reach Edinburgh Fringe Festival
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