Fright night follows Bard breakfast

“Split Second” actress NORAH LOPEZ writes today’s Edinburgh Festival blog
We started the day with a morning showing of “Shakespeare for Breakfast”, a long-running favourite at the Festival.

This year’s showing is a modern take of “Macbeth”, the appropriately-named Scottish play, set it in modern garb at a secondary school with the character of Macbeth plotting with his GFF (girl friend for ever) Beth to earn the title of Head Boy.

It was also another day of soul-destroying leafleting on the Royal Mile, with members of the team desperately trying to stand out against the many actors and groups competing to capture their audience from the thousands of tourists streaming through the streets of Edinburgh.

The task of promoting the powerful and hard-hitting plot of “The Split Second” against the bright colours of comedy and musicals, was a challenge that the group had not anticipated. Despite this, we met the challenge head on, and brought our own original techniques to our leafleting.

These include trying to be statues, playing catch with the buckets, and inventing witty tag lines to promote the badges, and the performance.

The range of shows that we have seen today has been diverse to say the least. After Shakespeare, dinner was a two-act piece about an online Facebook relationship taken from real transcripts.

A performance named “And The Birds Fell From The Sky” (II Pixel Roso) was a sensory, surreal sensation using sights and smells as the focus.

A piece named “Thirsty”, by Paper Birds, focused on the issue of binge drinking — only at the Fringe, eh? By early evening, we became quite apprehensive as we headed for Mary Kings Close.

“The Real Mary Kings Close” is notorious for being insightful, eerie and steeped in history. It is an underground tour of the streets which were once inhabited by hundreds of townsfolk until the Black Plague swept through the city. It is a truly unique way to learn about the history of Edinburgh.

Following a challenging day leafleting on the Mile, and another fantastic performance of “The Split Second”, Mary Kings Close was a welcome relief, entertaining us and educating us in equal measures.

At 10pm, some of us (the brave ones) set off out into the dark bitter night to embark upon a terrifying historical ghost tour (named “The City of the Dead — The Double Dead Tour”) around the city.

We met outside the stunning St Giles cathedral and were introduced to our spooky Scottish tour guide, Gerry.

He led us underground, locked us in the vaults, and told us some vile stories about the way human waste was disposed of — townsfolk would throw their waste out of their doors and windows shouting “Garde loo!”

He also told us the history of a cursed bridge — funnily enough, we were standing beneath it. Apparently, we are all cursed after being below the cursed bridge, and will shortly be returning to Oldham with this, so good luck everyone!