TRUE STORIES LIVE Welcomes Fringe Performers to Edinburgh International Book Festival

Fringe performers Shôn Dale Jones (Hugh Hughes), Pauline Mayers and Athena Kugblenu are to escape into the calm of Edinburgh International Book Festival for unique storytelling event.

In the hurly burly madness of The Fringe Edinburgh International Book Festival has always an oasis of calm, a tranquil place of escape for Fringe audiences in the know.

Now a special storytelling event allows selected Fringe performers to escape too, and tell their own stories in a bill that contains three professional performers and a selection of ordinary people, most of whom have never been on stage before.

The Fringe performers are:

Shôn Dale-Jone (aka Hugh Hughes) who is performing his shows The Duke and Me and Robin Hood at Pleasance

Pauline Mayers who is performing What If I Told You at Army@The Fringe in association with Summerhall

Comedian Athena Kugblenu who is performing KMT at Underbelly Med Quad.

Established as a monthly storytelling event at Norwich Arts Centre, True Stories Live is an intimate event with a simple premise, ordinary people (and occasional special guests - Sara Pascoe made an appearance recently) tell their own anecdotal stories to a warm and friendly audience, relating to a different theme each time.

Hosted by poet and scriptwriter Molly Naylor the event will tour literary festivals in the latter part of 2017 beginning with a night at Edinburgh International Book Festival's Spiegeltent on Sunday 20 August at 9pm.

A mix of selected Fringe performers and ordinary people who have taken part in an afternoon workshop run by Molly Will take to the stage to tell their own true stories based loosely around a theme of 'Lost & Found'.

Heartwarming, revealing, funny, shocking or sad - True Stories Live will have your emotions leaping from one extreme to another as you are drawn into each storyteller's world. First time ever and established performers will all be telling their own personal stories about their own experiences in a theatrical setting.

True Stories Live is the brainchild of producer Lucy Farrant. She teamed up with Radio 4/Sky TV writer, poet and performer Molly Naylor as compere/host to run workshops for those interested in taking part, helping with their confidence in public speaking and giving tips on how to make the stories interesting and fun.

Lucy said, 'The idea came from an American organisation called The Moth, which I heard about on a BBC Radio 4 programme. We believed that British people have just as interesting stories to tell as those over the Atlantic - and we've been proven right'

Admission to True Stories Live: Lost & Found is completely free and all are welcome, including Fringe theatre critics who would like to escape to the calm of the Book Festival.

True Stories Live 20 August, 21:00 (90 mins) FREE unticketed

Edinburgh International Book Festival, Spiegeltent Charlotte Square

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