Assembly Festival Has A New Online Venue, Assembly Showcatcher

Assembly Festival makes a return to Edinburgh's Festival Fringe this summer, with three live performance spaces, and a stimulating digital programme presented live or on-demand hosted on its new online venue, Assembly Showcatcher, including a Quebec and Korean Season of curated online performances.

The festival will kick off on Friday 23 July with the opening of the beating heart of the Fringe: the iconic Assembly George Square Gardens, and run till Sunday 29 August with an exciting programme of in-person and virtual events. The first tickets for Assembly Festival go on sale Thursday 8 July for the digital season on Assembly Showcatcher.

Assembly Festival will welcome back international performance to Edinburgh with a hand-picked selection of curated seasons to be streamed on its new online venue, Assembly Showcatcher. The Quebec Season opens Friday 6 August with a mixture of circus, dance and physical theatre to delight audiences at home and abroad. Featured in the season is 2019's 5-star circus sensation La Galerie from Machine de Cirque; with more circus from Festival favourites FLIP Fabrique with Blizzard and Six°, and 7fingers' Out of Order which is performed throughout a deserted and post-apocalyptic circus big-top. Also on demand will be contemporary dance Bones and Wires and GROUND unplugged from FOVE diffusion, and an explosive and visceral performance of Rite, the perfect balance of body, voice, guitar, and percussion from La Otra Orilla. A new play and talk, The Tarantula, rounds off the season which will be available to view on demand through Assembly Showcatcher.

The Korean season will also return to Assembly Festival from Friday 6 August, with a triptych of shows for audiences across the globe. East meets west with music from Ensemble Su, who masterfully blend traditional Korean instruments with modern western styles that will leave you yearning to visit Korea. There will be more live music, accompanied by traditional Korean dancing in After4, a beautifully told tale about the journey of an 80-year-old woman. The season is completed by 13 Fruitcakes, which in a stark departure of the traditional, looks at the historical impact of 13 LGBTQI+ figures in a dazzling multi-media extravaganza that depicts the story of mysterious drag queen Orlando.

Bring the family together this Festival with two digital children's shows available on-demand on Assembly Showcatcher. Award-winning clown Gemma Soldati explores the source of imagination and the tick-tock of our internal clock in The Adventures of Sleepyhead, an otherworldly hour that promises better dreams and a good night sleep to adults and children alike. And there's Something in the Water - For Kids!, an immersive and funny coming out story that uses puppets, live video and projection to go beyond the binary; available for children, and additionally as an accessible adult comedy (Something in the Water).

There will be more online comedy with We Missed You, a theatrical film about the impact of the pandemic, created in lockdown and told through the eyes of clown couple Harlequin and Pierott. And a hit of the Adelaide Fringe 2021, Grief Lightning: A Satire is part-theatre, part-stand-up, part-PowerPoint Presentation. One lecturer desperately tries to prove a popular 'Grease' fan theory: that Sandy drowns in the opening beach sequence and the rest of the film is her coma fantasy.

For those looking for a more interactive experience, Once Upon a Crime will run as a live online event, Wed - Fri from 6 August. Something's going down at the Impossible Things Detective Agency and only YOU can help bust open the case. Gather a team of between 2-6 people, and be thrown into this noir fairytale underworld this summer.

More international talent in the digital season on Assembly Showcatcher as Taiwanese company, Yun Company, presents This is Not a Solo Dance. A dance dedicated to all womxn, the performance is inspired by Chinese calligraphy and the three strokes in the mandarin character for 'woman (a??)'. If not written in the set order, does the writing still make a 'woman'?

Assembly Showcatcher will be the virtual home for theatre this Festival, with a theatrical programme selected from across the globe. Three lost souls make a break for freedom and embark on a journey of discovery in Distance Remaining, written by Stewart Melton (BBC Radio 4) with an original soundtrack by Louise McCraw (Goodnight Louisa), and directed for the internet by Caitlin Skinner (NTS's Scenes for Survival). While with nothing but the titular suitcase, a trench coat and a scarf, Mimi's Suitcase centres on questions of identity, immigration, women's rights and involuntary displacement in a humorous and heartfelt portrayal of 27 characters in four languages. A tour-de-force performed in English, Spanish, French and Persian with English supertitles.

Divine performances are assured in Testament, a compelling re-imaging of four oft-forgotten Bible characters, against a haunting score of gospel and blues; the promise of the apocalypse in Ram of God, with influences from seventies horror to cult documentaries, music videos and cereal adverts. And the critically acclaimed The Saviour, presented by award-winning Landmark Productions and funded by Culture Ireland. Deirdre Kinahan's fierce and funny play features 'blazing performances' (Irish Times) from Marie Mullen and Brian Gleeson.

Captivating storytelling with The Power of Silence, a play about family, growing up, missed opportunities and lost memories. And an immersive experience from prestigious writer/ creator group Fresh Ground Pepper The KlaxAlterian Sequester will reframe the experience of walking around your home, transforming your flat, house, mansion, or trailer into the theatre itself.

The first tickets for the digital season on Assembly Showcatcher will be released on Thursday 8 July, with more shows being added in the coming days and weeks. The Assembly digital season will run Friday 6 August to Monday 30 August, with all shows being available to stream live or on-demand via Assembly Showcatcher.

Assembly George Square Gardens will open on Friday 23 July with the Edinburgh Food Festival, with a live programme of cultural events from Thursday 29 July to Sunday 29 August. Assembly Festival has been awarded £162,962 from the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council to help fund outdoor events and support the safe return of live events at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

For tickets and to keep up to date with the full programme at Assembly Festival this summer, visit www.assemblyfestival.com.

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