Edinburgh Festival Fringe gets canal show from Kate Saffin

The Scotsman reported yesterday (Saturday) that Edinburgh's new canal basin was one of the major venues for the launch of the Edinburgh Festival.  (The story is more about the Fringe, but for plebs the Fringe *is* the Festival.)

The Fringe will feature at least one show from a real, living, canal boater, according to The Scotsman. Kate Saffin, who lives on a narrowboat on the southern Oxford Canal will be doing a one-woman show at the Fringe about life afloat in the old boatwoman days. 

She was last seen performing something or other at the Folk on Water section of the Saul Festival, and that time (see pic alongside) she was at the bottom of the bill (with no link to any further information about her). 

But if you've got an ology, you're a scientist; and if you've got a one-woman show then you can go to the Fringe as a bottom-billing boater and come back a *star!*

So the Scotsman says Kate's gonna be a star, but I'm having trouble locating her on the Fringe website.   Once again (poor mite) her name's not in lights.  I can find one canal show, as played by the Roundham Lock Theatre at the Sweet on the Grassmarket venue, and it's called 'A boat's yer whole world'.  And in 2002 Kate played this show at the Oxford Theatre Guild, so I assume that's her one-woman show? 

Perhaps Roundham Lock Theatre is the stage name of Kate in the same way that The Joan Collins Fan Club was Julian Clary, or Buggles was Trevor Horn (that shows my age, eh?).  There's a good photo of Roundham Lock (near Kidlington) here but there's no theatre in evidence, let alone one woman putting on a show. 

Incidentally, if you are going to put on a show at Roundham Lock I'd be wary of being in the audience.  Granny Buttons was stoned in Roundham Lock when passing through in 2001 and (choleric with rage) I chased the little rascals across the nearby railway lines and put the telephoto lens on my camera to catch the evidence. 

While I photographed them throwing even more stones, one of them dropped his pants and mooned me.  I presented the photographs to the Kidlington police the following week, but I never heard more and I suspect they were too busy laughing to press charges.

Anyway, if the following synopsis of Kate's show appeals, book your tickets here, and buy the book it's based on here.

A Boat's Yer Whole World:
Birth, death, tears, laughter... and tons of coal!  Adapted from 'Ramlin Rose: The Boat Woman's Story' by Sheila Stewart, this one-woman show takes you to the canals, to a world you didn't know we'd lost.

Comments

[Mort Bones]

Kate Saffin is going to be doing a show in Oxford in April I think.....

[Louise]

Hello there

Very interesting, reading your blog. I am currently wading through fringe brochures for an organisation I work for trying to find out what playwrights on in the Fringe are Scottish. Do you happen to know if Kate is? She is woefully under-represented on the Web, although you will be pleased to know doollee.com have some bare-minimum information on her latest play...

Thanks and good luck!