Dominic Allen & Simon Maeder Present PROVIDENCE

Following many successful years of work with their respective shows and companies, great friends Dominic Allen (Belt-Up, A Common Man) and Simon Maeder (The Jurassic Parks, Licensed To Ill) are joining forces for the first time to create a fun and frightening new physical comedy for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe about the Godfather of all modern horror: HP Lovecraft. The result is PROVIDENCE, The Shadow Over Lovecraft.

Prepare to be amazed, terrified, and driven insane! Great Cthulhu may be sleeping beneath the sea, but in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft can't get a wink. Join the morose and miserable Howard Phillips Lovecraft, author of 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' and other incredibly weird tales, as he contemplates the many mistakes that make up his life.

His father went mad when he was four. He suffered a mental breakdown when he was eighteen. He lived with his overprotective mother until he was thirty. He loathed seafood, loved coffee and hated immigrants. Indeed he despised anyone who wasn't an 18th century English Gentleman. But he hated himself most of all. Lovecraft's losses were fortunately our gains as his enigmatic, tortured mind gave birth to a body of work we now consider as the foundations of the modern horror genre.

Using physical comedy, live music and all the classic horror tropes you can rattle a chain at PROVIDENCE explores a wretched life and asks a haunting question: can any love be salvaged from one so filled with hate?

Says Dominic: 'We created PROVIDENCE as I've always wanted to create something Lovecraftian for stage and Simon was really up for tackling theatrical horror. We're comedians and this show is both funny and scary. Matching this pairing is Lovecraft's character - he's such a 'walking contradiction' - talented but unconfident, intelligent but ignorant, kind but fearful of the world. And of course there were challenges making this show - mixing comedy with horror effectively was naturally the main one, but judging from the reception at London's VAULT Festival, we're confident our audiences are going to enjoy their experience - whether they've read Lovecraft or not! We really look forward to hitting the Fringe stage this year - working together for the first time.'

PROVIDENCE can be seen at the Assembly Rooms, Front Room, George Street, EH2 2LR at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe between 2 and 25 August at 5pm.

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