Blasts from the Past: The Edinburgh Fringe

At 2am on a Saturday in August 1993, a group of bleary-eyed youngsters attempted to begin the technical dress rehearsal for a production of Pirandello’s Man, Beast and Virtue. As they gathered in a small venue on Princes Street in Edinburgh, things did not get off to a great start. One of the cast could not be found. ‘Harry!’ called out the director. ‘Harry! Harry! Harry!’ It turned out that Harry was fast asleep. He had good reason. They had travelled from London to Edinburgh that day and had already sat through a midnight performance of The Big Sleep. Added to which, Harry was only 12 years old. In that moment, did Philip Swan, then in charge of drama at King’s, question his decision to take a student production to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Possibly, but it turned out to be an inspired move. The KCS Theatre Company is still going strong at the Fringe, and has amassed countless five-star reviews over the last 32 years.

That 2am technical rehearsal (the first of many over the years) was abandoned and instead the cast and crew reassembled after a few hours sleep. They knew the play, most of them having been part of the version performed the previous year in another of Philip Swan’s new ventures: the Q2 Drama Studio. And they were good. ‘Rarely can there have been such a hilarious production of Pirandello’s biting comedy as this one’ raved the reviewer in the Scotsman. ‘In a new and forthright English version by Charles Wood and imaginatively directed by Philip Swan. It is all the more remarkable an achievement given the youth of the cast.’

Going to the Fringe pushed pupils out of their comfort zone. They were no longer staging a production for family and friends; their work would be seen and reviewed by complete strangers. The accolades they garnered in Edinburgh were hard won but they must have been rewarding. The festival also introduced them to a new, immersive experience in which drama, music, cabaret, and stand-up comedy all jostled for attention, were all available for consumption seemingly non-stop. Jack Williams (OK 1997 and older brother of the sleepy Harry) wrote of their experience for the school magazine: ‘On Monday our festival engines were revving, on Tuesday the car had started up and by Wednesday we were speeding along the electrifying energy of the motor way that was the Edinburgh Festival. Every morning, at the Assembly Rooms, we joined the long queues of people, hungry for tickets. We found ourselves in remote, seemingly deserted places in our quest for the next venue.’ When the festival came to an end that year, Jack knew it would not be the end: ‘I knew that although it was over now, this was not the last I would see of the Edinburgh Festival. I had acquired a taste for it, I wanted more. I would be back next year.’ Jack, with his brother Harry, would later produce the television version of the Edinburgh hit Fleabag (just one of many acclaimed hits made by their company, Two Brothers Pictures).

The KCS Theatre Company would also be back. For several years they took a production – sometimes two – to the Fringe every summer. In the early years, Swan often chose quite meaty plays with small casts, allowing for very intimate and moving productions. In 1995, the play chosen was The Island by Athol Fugard. The first performance was sold out, and the audience called the actors back onto the stage twice. The Scotsman called it ‘a rare treat: a flawless production of a perfect play.’ The following year they performed John Logan’s play Never the Sinner. A couple of months later, in a first, they staged the play again at the Arts Theatre in the West End as part of the school’s Centenary Festival (to mark 100 years in Wimbledon).

In 2023, this feat was repeated when the school’s Edinburgh production Dorian was presented for one night at the Criterion Theatre in London. This time, the impetus to take it to the West End was solely the remarkable standard of the production which one reviewer called a ‘mini masterpiece.’ By the time Dorian was performed, pupils were involved in developing almost every aspect of the production: devising the text, designing the lighting, composing the music, choreographing the movement. Hints of this collaborative approach can be traced back to 1998 when Swan handed over directing duty of the Edinburgh play, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, to then pupil Khalid Abdalla (OK 1999). Yet again, the review in the Scotsman was glowing: ‘director Khalid Abdalla and his three school actors realise it all superbly, breaking out of the cramped space with lyricism, laughter and lunacy before falling back into it with anguish, madness and fear. One dies and one escapes: but what remains is tenderness, poetry and hope.’

Philip Swan’s last outing with the KCS Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Fringe was in 2009 with the play Billy Budd (it featured Alex Sawyer (OK 2011) who is currently playing the titular role in the London production of the musical Hamilton). What’s On Stage Edinburgh summed up Swan’s quite incredible achievements at the festival thus:

‘For a schoolboy company, KCS Theatre has a remarkable Fringe record. No, scrap that. KCS Theatre has a remarkable Fringe record, full stop.’

The statement remains as true today.

If you would like to find out more about drama at the school, come along to our open archive evening on Friday 16 May to see the display An Exhibition in Three Acts: A History of Drama at King’s. (Click here for further details.)

What are your memories of drama at King’s? As ever, please do email if you have stories to share: I can be contacted at archive@kcs.org.uk.

Dr Lucy Inglis | School Archivist