The Edinburgh Fringe Archive – Shedload Theatre (The Statement of Randolph Carter, 2015)

The Edinburgh Fringe Show, with Ewan Spence

The world of H P Lovecraft is one that many people have explored, both the horror of the writing and the horror of the man. In 2015 Shedload Theatre looked at the former, in an inventive show called The Statement Of Randolph Carter.

The big moment in the show is the Foley work. The show is presented as a radio play, and that means lots of sound effects performed live. The story is very much classic horror, but the theatre experience is much more visual than you would expect… and thoroughly engaging. There’s also the importance of the entire body of work built on H P Lovecraft’s work – all of which are out of copyright and free to perform.

H P Lovecraft’s signature wordy and overflowingly verbose style suits performance rather well, as does the brilliant use of live foley to create a sense of being in the story in more than simple words. The evocations of rippling water, grating stone and creaking metal become almost immediately natural as the audience is swept into the tales… If you are looking for something eerie and chilling to round off the Fringe, you couldn’t do much better.

British Theatre Guide / * * * *

As Shedload Theatre piled into the studio, we did something a little different. Yes there’s an interview in here to find out more about the show… but there’s also a performance from part of the show (a story called The Temple) which they perform live… along with all those foley effects!

And so we head, warily, to Surgeons Hall, to a desk of foley effects and horror, to ‘The Statement Of Randolph Carter.’

• Find out more from The Space here.. Follow Shedload Theatre on Twitter (@ShedLoadTheatre) or on its website, www.shedloadtheatre.com.

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