FLANDERS AND SWANN Plays the Pleasance, Now thru Aug 25

G'ninth G'normous year at the Pleasance! Tim Fitzhigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins return for one week only with their award-winning, hilarious show. Featuring the songs and wit of those masters of mayhem, mirth and Madeira, and legends of 1950s and 60s comedy, Flanders and Swann. The show runs Upstairs (Pleasance Courtyard) from 18th to 25th August at 14:15 (15:15).

This Fringe favourite includes a new song selection for 2014, with all the classics from The Hippopotamus (Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud) and The Gnu to The Gasman Cometh, plus many more hidden gems. Featuring award-winning comic Tim FitzHigham and Radio 4's Duncan Walsh Atkins.

Legends of 1950's and 1960's cabaret and silliness, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (always accompanied by piano and wheelchair) played to packed houses, creating a canon of great songs and irrepressible laughter wherever they went. As Michael was always the first to admit, their songs are not performed enough; this is an attempt to redress that balance and for Duncan's wife to re-dress him in a smart suit. With generous support from the estates of Flanders and Swann.

Tim Fitzhigham trained at the RADA with Lloyd Trott. Tim is an actor, multi-award winning (Perrier among others) comic writer, performer and explorer. Theatre work includes several major UK tours; lots of radio, including his own BBC Radio 4 series; The Gambler, 13 series of the Arthur Smith Lectures (BBC R2), Friday Night is Music Night (BBC R2) and the Museum of Curiosity (BBC R4). On TV he's cosyed up on the sofa at This Morning, burnt duck on Ready Steady Cook, played in the mud on Channel 4's Time Team and presented Super Human Challenge for CBBC. His own live shows have toured the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland since 1999 and you might spot him in films with the likes of Sir Anthony Hopkins. Like Michael Flanders he's spent lots of time in boats. In 2003 he broke the world's oldest record (set in 1619) in a Paper Boat. Tim is the only person in history to row the English Channel in a bath. He's run up active volcanoes, across deserts in suits of armour, pioneered endurance Morris Dancing, raced race horses, climbed tall buildings and run across Death Valley.

Duncan Walsh Atkins, like Donald Swann, studied at Oxford University, where he conducted the University Gilbert & Sullivan Society. After graduating he worked as a choirmaster in South Africa. Back in the UK, his numerous tours include Mitchell & Webb's 'Macbeth & The Beanstalk', Coward's 'Words & Music', 'Bleeding Arts', Tom Lehrer's 'Tomfoolery', 'Half a Sixpence' with Gary Wilmot and a Japanese tour of 'The Blues Brothers Party'. Other credits include 'Burlesque' (winner 2011 Off-West End Best New Musical Award). He composed the music for Jonathan (Gimme, Gimme, Gimme) Harvey's 'Taking Charlie' and his latest musical 'Tailor Made Man' ran in the West End in 2013. He is musical director of 'Showstopper: The Improvised Musical', which has had sell-out Edinburgh Fringe and West End runs, UK and international tours, and a BBC Radio 4 series. He has also appeared on Radio 4 with Jonathan Firth and in 'Tina C' and 'Ida Bar' with Christopher Green.

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