Tuesday 8 May 2012

The King is Back - Long Live the King

We had one Elvis on Fringe Sunday - and you can see him again on 23 July at the Grove Hotel in Come Back to Blackpool, Karen Carpenter.

Confusingly, you can also see Elvis in Are You Lonesome Tonight? in the Pauper's Pit. A bit like Father Christmas we'll have Elvises popping-up all over the place. Here's a bit more about Are You Lonseome Tonight? - which open on 21 July.

In the year he would have turned 75, a new play about the tour Elvis Presley never did is coming to Underground Venues for this year’s Buxton Festival Fringe, ahead of a five day stint at Edinburgh including the 33rd anniversary of Elvis' death.

Based on real events ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ begins on 16 August 1977. Dwight and Leanne Carter are on a journey from Memphis to Portland. It’s the day before their twentieth wedding anniversary, and their marriage has been going through a rocky patch. Dwight has decided that the best way to save their marriage is to get them tickets for all twelve dates of a tour by the man whose music brought them together. Sadly for Dwight, fate is set to intervene before he gets the chance to find out whether this was really such a good idea after all.

Denied, or spared, the chance to see him live, they have to decide whether to do the tour without Elvis, or go home to an uncertain future. Whatever they decide, their marriage depends on it, and, even after his death, Elvis holds the key to their future happiness.
Are You Lonesome Tonight? looks at how the music we grow up with can define our lives for far longer than we realise. The play is directed by Howie Ripley, cast are Alison Green (Leanne) and Andy Moseley (Dwight). The play is written by Andy Moseley. Originally a half hour piece, It won the Stagecoach Trophy for original work at the 2010 Elmbridge Drama Festival, and was performed at the Oxfringe Festival in April.

The Buxton shows are the first performances of a new extended version of the play, which takes the action forward to the next day, and 5 years later to show what happened to Dwight and Leanne, and whether or not they took the trip round the places Elvis never reached.

by Keith Savage - Published 20/07/2010

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