Church pulls out as Edinburgh Fringe venue

Published Thursday 19 July 2007 at 11:20 by Thom DIbdin

First-time Edinburgh Festival Fringe venue, the Edinburgh Apostolic Church has withdrawn from this year’s event following a row over inappropriate material with theatre managers Understairs Arts.

A total of 29 shows were left homeless following the dispute, although The Stage understands that most have now been found new venues by the Fringe Office or rehoused in Understairs’ other venue at Euroscot.

The row blew up in June when the Church got sight of scripts for seven of the shows that Understairs had booked into the venue. The company, also entering the Fringe for the first time this year, had agreed that the church could veto scripts which would potentially “offend or question the moral, social and religious beliefs of the Church’s community”.

Four of the seven were deemed unacceptable and while Understairs immediately withdrew one of them, featuring the execution of a hooded Iraqi boy, they stood by the other three. This included Double Dutch, in which a character tries to initiate an orgy but is rejected, and a dance piece in which a “shamanic drum” is mentioned.

The Church subsequently lost confidence in Understairs to manage the venue and, in the absence of a written agreement, withdrew on July 5.

Understairs’ Project Manager, Thom Joanson, is adamant that they have not done anything wrong.

He told The Stage: “We concurred with everything the Church asked for. We were under the impression that we were still negotiating, then they sent a solicitor’s letter pulling the plug - despite the fact that we had pulled the shows they were not happy about.”

For the Apostolic Church, Pastor Adrian Galley, says that while he sympathises with the shows made homeless by the pull out, the agreement was with Understairs Arts, not the individual companies.

He said: “Once we reached the point where there were scripts that were unsuitable, that was the point where they should have been operating on our behalf and pulling these shows as we had previously discussed.”