Interview: Wright&Grainger, ‘Half Man/Half Bull’
Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with Wright&Grainger about Half Man/Half Bull.
What is your show about?
HALF MAN || HALF BULL retells two ancient stories, and brings them bang up to date as two 10-track concept albums. THESEUS & THE MINOTAUR is a story about trying to prove yourself and what happens when you fail. DAEDALUS & ICARUS is about loss, grief, and finding your way back out to the light again. Both those ancient stories overlap, and our tellings are fuelled by live music, soaring melodies and searing spoken word.
What was the inspiration for Half Man / Half Bull and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?
We first wrote the albums in 2020 to send through people’s letterboxes as an at home listening experience. Now we’re pretty damn excited to turn that in to a collective live experience. We worked together to write it, and worked with a brilliant local music producer Isaac McInnis to make the albums. Now, years later, we’re diving in to translating it into a live show which unites us all in a room, together.
What made you want to take Half Man / Half Bull to the Fringe?
The Fringe is a wonderful place to play, to experiment, to push boundaries and develop a new piece of work. We want to make work on a bigger scale, to tell two big stories back to back, to invite an audience into a big collective experience. We’ve always come to the fringe to push at a new idea and, when we were thinking about how to bring HALF MAN || HALF BULL to life, then being a part of Summerhall’s incredible fringe programme seemed like a great way to go.
Apart from seeing Half Man / Half Bull , what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?
Gravity & Other Myths are one of our very favourite companies. They’re an Australian circus and acrobatics company and have become really good pals. They’re out of this world. They have a show called 10,000 hours.
There’s show called Werewolves at Summerhall which looks like a blast. And Gary Starr has a new show for all ages (which means he keeps his kit on) called Monkeys - we’ll be excited to see that.
Why should people book Half Man / Half Bull ?
Big tunes, a wild retelling of an ancient story, and a really uniting and moving experience. We love the live experience, we love being in a room with a few hundred people, it’s a joy. We don’t tell stories like many other companies do, we fuse together narrative-led spoken word and gorgeous melodies. And we’re over the moon to be bringing something brand new to the stage.
When and where can people see Half Man / Half Bull ?
We’re at Summerhall! The show is in 2 parts…
HALF MAN || HALF BULL, PART ONE: THESEUS (18.40)
HALF MAN || HALF BULL, PART TWO: DAEDALUS (19.50)
And we’d recommend seeing them back to back!
