Four exciting new productions are at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year thanks to the 2015 IdeasTap Underbelly Award. IdeasTap and Underbelly work hand-in-hand to showcase a diverse season of original work from young, emerging UK talent; one of which is Ben Norris‘ new one-man show The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Family.

The production of CELL is in collaboration with puppetry-focused companies Smoking Apples and Dogfish. The project started in 2012, and after performing at a number of theatres such as Greenwich Theatre, Incoming Festival and the New Diorama, it was nominated for a Peter Brook Festival award in 2014.

There are many categories of performance at The Fringe – something to suit all. From musicals to comedy, puppetry to spoken word, you name it – they’ve got it! One genre that particularly interests me is circus. I’m not sure whether it’s the excitement and sheer adrenaline rush you get whilst watching these incredibly muscular and toned athletes complete death defying stunts, or whether it’s that I like to pretend it’s me up there on the high-wire, staring down at hundreds of gob smacked faces. Either way, I know that never in a 100 years would I be able to complete the tricks and tumbles they skilfully perform on a nightly basis.

This is our first venture to the Underbelly Circus Hub, passing weird and wonderful people along the way, such as men on rollerskates wearing nothing but pants, African bongo players and eccentric fire breathers, leaving us slightly unsure as to what to expect from Bromance.

“You don’t have to be six feet under to be buried”

Much Further Out Than You Thought is a powerful one-man play from the MolinoGroup which looks at the devastating effects of PTSD in soldiers. 

Tumbling After brings together the making and breaking of a relationship in just an hour. A difficult feat, but the devised piece really packs a punch as it explores the twists and turns of what can establish or destroy a physical or emotional connection.

The queue begins forming for the Pleasance Upstairs nearly 40 minutes before Showstoppers is due to start, with an exciting buzz of theatregoers old and young, tall and short, quirky and… normal.  We enter to a tuneful entourage of a three piece band, musically directed by the more-than-capable hands of Duncan Walsh Atkins, whilst our soon-to-be narrator Sean McCann meanders around the modernistic red framed scenery, taking in his surroundings, commanding both the stage and the auditorium from the minute we enters.

David Lee Morgan was bourn in Berlin and grew up in Seattle. He came to the UK as part of a revolutionary movement in 1993. He is a renowned, yet still an underground poet; his words are higher than his stature, winning the London and UK Slam Competitions, also a writer of plays and novels. Building God is currently part of the Edinburgh Free Fringe Festival and is a sequel, following his previous show Pornography and Heartbreak.

This is a true story, a verbatim piece if you like. A story through the eyes of Jonzi D, that detects the conflict arising from an important letter that comes through the post, this letter can effectively change Jonzi D’s life; could it potentially be a possibility for growth? Or a label that dooms a change for the worst?