Fresh from the fringe - Coin Toss collective's first adventure to edinburgh

FREAK OUT! by Coin Toss Collective

Coin Toss Collective (Alyssa Thomas, Ben Notice, Claudia Zita Kurucz, Rosie Mullaney, Sol Woodroffe, Sophia Oriogun-Williams, Weronika Dwornik) are a seven-strong, diverse theatre company from Bristol, who first formed through Bristol Old Vic’s Made in Bristol programme in 2021. They took their critically acclaimed, multi award-nominated show FREAK OUT! to the Pleasance at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

Tell us about FREAK OUT! – what’s it about and how did it come about?

FREAK OUT! tells the story of a seaside town battling coastal erosion, which is accelerating due to climate change – over 35 homes have been lost to the waves in Happisburgh, Norfolk over the past two decades alone. Set at a fundraising party for a sea wall, difficult conversations rise to the surface as the local community slowly starts to fracture. The show draws on research by the University of East Anglia and features interviews with people from affected communities. We blend lots of genres, such as clowning, physical theatre and movement, audience interaction, and archival video, into a high-energy, “collage-like” tragicomic theatrical cocktail. Things get very messy… literally. A five-star review from Broadway World said that FREAK OUT! “celebrates the beauty of the coast and laments its loss… half love letter, half mourning song, it changes tones at the speed of light with exceptionally ingenious flair”.

Collaboratively created, written and directed by us, Coin Toss Collective, FREAK OUT! was originally conceived as our end of our year show during Bristol Old Vic’s Made in Bristol programme. Made in Bristol has produced many brilliant artists and theatre companies over the 15 years it’s been running, such as The Wardrobe Ensemble, who were Fringe First winners in 2017 with their brilliant show Education, Education, Education. We debuted the first iteration of FREAK OUT! in the Weston Studio, here at Bristol Old Vic in July 2022.

How has the show changed since it first debuted at the end of Made in Bristol?

We have spent the past two years continuing to develop and elevate FREAK OUT! into the Fringe-ready show it is now. In 2023, FREAK OUT! came to its first festival, VAULT Festival, which was creatively our first major opportunity to revisit the show, rework it, and take it to the next level. Incredibly, we secured Arts Council funding(!), which meant we were able to work with some fantastic creatives, such as Papatango Prize-winning playwright Matt Grinter (Orca) and choreographers Anthony Matsena (Shades of Blue, Sadler’s Wells) and Deepraj Singh (Akademi’s The Troth), to elevate our show’s script, choreography and movement. Another key change our fab set designer, and own fellow Coin Toss member, Claudia made was reimagining our set to be easily transportable, durable and made out of sustainable materials. Our props are all recyclable or reused every show, and we try to waste as little as possible.

Since VAULT, we have also performed the show at Camden People’s Theatre, Tobacco Factory, and Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, and we’re hoping to tour the show to South East coastal venues in the UK post-Fringe to engage with local communities who may be impacted by coastal erosion. Recently, we were also very fortunate to be able to get a session with the incredible George Mann, co-Artistic Director of award-winning Bristol-based theatre company Ad Infinitum. George gave us some great tools to help us get in good shape to perform at the Fringe and it was wonderful to play and train together in the room as an ensemble again – which is something we haven’t done in a while due to touring our show, rehearsals and various Fringe prep!

FREAK OUT! has been nominated for Show of the Week at VAULT Festival 2023, received an Off West End Commendation this year and we have just been announced as a finalist for the Sit-Up Awards. We’re really over the moon with our show’s success so far; the positive response we’ve received from both critics and audiences alike has been incredible and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank Bristol Old Vic and all our friends, family and audiences for all their amazing support thus far!

How was Edinburgh?

We were nervous but excited! It was our first time going up to the Fringe performing as a company, and there was so much fantastic theatre, dance, comedy, and music. We wanted to see it all! We were especially keen to check out the work of other Bristolians going up to the Fringe like the fantastic comedians Amy Mason and Dani Johns, and great theatre companies such as Mechanimal (Vigil), Pearl Whirl Productions (The Emu War: A New Musical), and Degrees of Error (Murder She Didn’t Write). Special mention also goes to the wonderful Documental Theatre’s play Scaffolding, which was the recipient of the Bristol Old Vic and Pleasance partnership funding award. (They also took our set with them up to Edinburgh – thank you legends!)

Individually we all have varying theatrical tastes and interests so we caught lots of different shows at the Fringe and shared what inspired us with each other. These include a show where carpentry and circus collide (Sawdust Symphony), a play which infuses live feed and miniature models (Untapped Award finalist Bark Bark by Buzzcut), and a Polish theatrical séance (Grotowski Institute’s Sheol) … to name a few!

 The Fringe is a unique opportunity to explore hundreds of different artists and genres in the same place, and we took full advantage of that.