News / Yell man at the Fringe
SHETLAND actor Robert Williamson will be performing Gogol’s Dead Souls during this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The theatrical event will take place at the Scotland-Russia Institute, at 9 South College Street, on 4 August (at 2pm), 10 August (at 7.30pm) and on 11 August (again at 2pm).
Williamson, originally from Yell, has been living in Edinburgh for many years, working with companies such as Theatre Alba and The Elements World Theatre.
A former pupil of Tom Anderson and Trevor Hunter, Williamson said he put down his fiddle to pick up an electric bass guitar, which he has been playing with the Portobello Ceilidh Band since 1989.
Premiered in March, Dead Souls was adapted by David W W Johnstone of production company Lazzi.
Williamson said: “The space at Scotland Russia Forum holds 31 people. My playing area is about eight square feet, so I’m virtually in the audience’s laps.
“Their proximity and the intimacy of telling them Gogol’s story of his great work ‘Dead Souls’ is exceptionally fulfilling and I’ll always be grateful to David for asking me to do the work.”
He will also be on stage a few days later, on 14 August at the Netherbow Theatre, also as part of the Fringe, this time in an adaptation of Nigerian novelist Ben Okri’s The Comic Destiny.
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