Sex, Money And Intrigue Come to The Edinburgh Fringe in Two New Productions

In 2018 writer-director Martin Foreman returns to the Edinburgh Fringe for the fourth time, with two productions featuring famous Venetians - the real-life eighteenth-century libertine Casanova and the fictional trickster Volpone. Both plays are presented by Arbery Productions.

In Martin's one-act drama, a Fringe First, Casanova Dreaming, the young Casanova is visited one night by an old man who shows him his future. Out of the shadows come the women and men who will touch his life in many different ways - a life more complex and varied than legend relates. Adult language and content restrict the production to 16 years old and above.

Meanwhile Martin's adaptation of Ben Jonson's classic comedy Volpone is set in the nineteenth century. Volpone still pretends to be dying to cheat the gullible and greedy rich, but his wily servant Mosca is now a woman who avoids her employer's clutches as she builds upon his scams.

Following a successful short run at the Fringe in 2017 Volpone returns for three weeks with Vanashree Thapliyal (Mosca) and Alastair Lawless (Volpone) reprising their roles.

A Scot who lives in Edinburgh after many years abroad, Martin's involvement in theatre began in 2011. As a writer he has won the London Solo Festival New Writing Award (2012) and the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Short Play Award (2018); as a director he and his cast won the Scottish Community Drama Association Bob Buchanan Trophy in 2016 for J B Priestley's The Rose and Crown.

"The Fringe has been good to me. In 2014, as an unknown playwright / director I had small audiences but good reviews for my trilogy of one-man plays Desire and Pursuit. The commercial success of The Rose and Crown (???? British Theatre Guide) and Volpone (???? All-Edinburgh Theatre) confirmed there is a large audience for comic and intelligent theatre with a cast is as talented as those I am lucky to work with."

Laughter rather than controversy is at the heart of Volpone, but Casanova Dreaming may divide audiences. "#metoo reminds us that sexual relations are often dictated by power, but it is simplistic to assume that all men have power over all women. Casanova may be seen as one of the world's great lovers but he considered himself no more than a servant to the women he pursued. I wonder what today's audiences will make of him."

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