The Stage

Roadkill recognised with Edinburgh International Festival award

Published Monday 6 September 2010 at 13:12 by Thom Dibdin

Works from opposite ends of the fringe theatre spectrum have been recognised in this year’s Edinburgh International Festival Fringe prizes.

Mercy Ojelade (Mary) in Roadkill, which has been recognised with an Edinburgh International Festival Award Photo: Tim Morozzo

Roadkill, Cora Bissett’s play based on the experiences of young women trafficked to Scotland, and “kamikaze cabaret” star Meow Meow both receive £5,000 seed money, mentoring from established EIF artists and the invitation to present a work in development as part of the EIF’s Behind the Scenes programme in 2011.

The prize brings Roadkill’s awards haul to seven at this year’s Edinburgh festivals, including a Stage Award for Acting Excellence for its star Mercy Ojelade.

Australian Melissa Madden Gray, the actress behind Meow Meow, also featured in the Olivier award-winning La Clique. Her Feline Intimate show at the Assembly Rooms @ Princes Street Gardens was “a sensation” according to the judges.

Announcing the awards, which are in their fourth year, EIF director Jonathan Mills said they are “an attempt by us to engage with artists at the fringe who are excellent at what they do but might be potentially artists that we might engage with.”

He added that the long term ambition of the awards is to find work which might appear in the EIF. “We are not, in any way, discouraged by the fact that we have not found a specific work that has done that,” he said. “We think this is an extremely important engagement between artists who come to Edinburgh and artists who might return to Edinburgh as part of the International Festival.”