We chat to Celeste Lecesne about all things Edinburgh Fringe as they prepare to take their show Poof! up North!
Hey Celeste, here’s your chance to give an elevator pitch, can you give us a brief synopsis?
“With uncanny puck and razor sharp wit, Celeste weaves the legend of fairies and their magical ability to survive with the world history of repression, culminating with a contemplation of the earth on the environmedntal edge today. In an amazingly spiritual stream of conscioeusness – Celeste’s language is rhapsodic – “Poof”emerges finally as a prayer for the future. Amen. “Poof!” is theater as pure as it should always be.” The Berkshire Eagle
What inspired the show?
This quote by the playwright Vaclav Havel inspired me to create Poof!
“Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere.’ It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”
How important is the Fringe for new work? And how does it feel to be at the Fringe this year?
It has been a dream of mine to perform at The Fringe and finally it’s happening! Naturally, I’m thrilled, but even more exciting is the prospect of seeing everything the festival has to offer. As Shakespeare famously said, “All the world’s a stage.” If this is true, then surely The Fringe is where we can go to find the whole world.
What are the main themes within the production, and what can audiences expect?
Hope. Wonder. Magic. Queerness. Fairies. The Natural World. The Climate Crisis. It all adds up to a rollicking good time and finishes with an uplift of the highest order.
Finally, with so many shows at the Edinburgh Fringe why should people book a ticket to this show?
If you’ll excuse the brag, I’ve been described by the NYTimes as “among the most talented solo performers of his (or any) generation.” So you might want to see what all the hype is about. POOF! is my latest show, and it is guaranteed to make you laugh and cry. And maybe you’ll find that you really do believe in fairies.
ABOUT THE SHOW
POOF! RUNS FROM 2 -28 AUGUST AT GILDED BALLOON TEVIOT – BILLIARD ROOM at 13.30hrs – info here!
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