Grid Iron Presents the World Premiere Of SOUTH BEND At Edinburgh Fringe 2018

In 2006 Martin McCormick flew across the Atlantic to be reunited with a woman he had fallen passionately in love with. But in the four months of their absence she had changed. Changed her hair colour. Her body shape, her address. And almost as soon as he's arrived he's on the road again, penniless and hallucinating.

South Bend muses on journeys, on the dusty road, on long-distance love dissolving into the pixilated blur of Skype, on the vast distances of the Atlantic Ocean and the American continent and of men and women separated by a common language.

"Strangers would buy you drinks in bars because, 'Hey, are you Scottish? This guy's Scottish! Everyone! EVERYONE! LISTEN UP! This guy is Scottish. That's awesome, man. Lemme buy you a drink dude. My last name is McDonnell!!"

"That's actually Irish, but I'll have a bottle of Corona thanks..."

Performed by Martin McCormick and Jess Chanliau, who plays all the other parts, and underscored by the live foley artist David Pollock, South Bend is a road movie for the stage - of hope, of love, of Eddie Izzard and an AIDS blanket. Of a small country and a vast one...of a good Samaritan and a relationship gone bad...

Martin McCormick has previously worked with Grid Iron as an actor, first in 2008 in Yarn, its co-production with Dundee Rep and again in 2010 when his performance in its 10th anniversary remount of Decky Does a Bronco gained him a Best Actor nomination in The Stage awards. He has since become one of Scotland's most exciting emerging playwrights and winner of Best New Play (CATS 2015 for Squash).

Grid Iron has a long track record of producing excellent and popular work at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is excited about performing in an actual venue for only the second time in its twenty-year Fringe history. While the script does not demand a site-specific presentation, the production style will resemble a TED talk, making the most of the lecture theatre feel of the Auditorium in the Museum and keeping a gentle sense of site-response while being very adaptable to other venues

Following its preview in Platform and run at the Fringe, South Bend will tour to The Byre, St Andrews; Paisley Arts Centre; Eden Court, Inverness; The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen finishing up in The Tron, Glasgow at the end of September.

Martin McCormick is one of Scotland's most exciting emerging playwrights. His play Squash won Best New Play the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland in 2015 and he is currently under commission to a number of companies including the National Theatre of Scotland who will be presenting his play 'Ma, Pa & the Little Mouths' at the Traverse and the Tron this Spring. He will also have new work presented as part of Play, Pie, Pint in 2018 and recently wrote and directed Howden Park Centre's pantomime. Martin is also an accomplished actor and has performed with Grid Iron on two occasions but he has moved strongly into writing practice, having been part of the Traverse 50 and having written for Random Accomplice and a Play, Pie and a Pint for Oran Mor (most recently with Flo which was directed by Grid Iron's Ben Harrison). He has also had various rehearsed readings with National Theatre of Scotland, Dundee Rep, the Traverse and Playwright's Studio Scotland.

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