Interview: Mark Hannah, Athens of the North

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 Mark Hannah about their piece Athens of the North.

1. Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far?

A: I’m an actor and playwright who was born and bred in the city of Edinburgh and who trained at LAMDA during the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had the privilege to play a huge variety of roles during my training including Julius Caesar as well as appearing in Jesus Christ Superstar. In Scotland I’ve worked a fair bit with director Cora Bissett as an actor, appearing in two of her professional productions. As a writer, I performed a self-written piece for Open Court at the Royal Court when I was 21 but Athens of The North at this years Fringe is my first full ever full length play. 

2. What is your show about? 

‘Athens of The North’ is essentially a love letter to the people of Edinburgh. It’s about everybody I know and nobody in particular; an episodic monologue of three Edinburgh residents swimming against the tide of gentrification and transient population, rediscovering what their home means to them, in their pasts, their presents as well as their futures. 

3. What was the inspiration behind Athens of The North and what’s the development process been to get to this stage? 

I’ve been living in London for nearly 5 years since starting drama school and Edinburgh is deeply entrenched in my psyche so I wanted to write a monologue about the place I loved and missed. It was written precisely one year ago in the Summer of 2023 and I did a script in hand scratch of it at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith before performing that first draft at the Hibernian Supporters Club for 4 nights in August of the same year. 

4. What made you want to take Athens of The North to the Fringe?

Athens of The North is absolutely intrinsic to this city and its indigenous population. It’s a voice for all the people here who have been pushed out and alienated by a festival that commandeers its space, its housing stock and its facilities. The Fringe is the perfect place for this show, for its the very festival that it was born out of. 

5. Apart from seeing Athens of The North at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, what’s your top tip for anybody heading to Edinburgh this Summer? 

Oh lots. Definitely get out of the Old Town and don’t let the big Fringe spaces swallow you. Support locally owned business wherever and whenever you can. Try and see a Hibs or Hearts game once the football season gets going near the end of August for a proper Edinburgh experience. And please, if you can, go for a drink in The Hoppy on Marionville Road, made famous by Baby Reindeer, but it’s my local when I’m at home and the landlady Angie is a diamond. 

6. Why should people book Athens of The North? 

People should book Athens of The North if they want proper, no holds barred, fresh, Scottish new writing in the environment of a proper Edinburgh social supporters club. It’s very funny, it’s very poignant and it’s occasionally heartbreaking, it’s everything you’d want in 55 minutes with an array of differing characters and the cheapest bar at the Edinburgh Fringe, too. 

7. When and where can people see Athens of The North?

People can see Athens of The North between the 5th to the 12th of August, at 19:30 every single night, at the inimitable Hibernian Supporters Club (VENUE 499) at Sunnyside, just off Easter Road.