Some parts of Edinburgh have a theme park feel all year round, but it's dialled up to 11 during August when the festivals come to town, the Fringe especially. If you're unfamiliar, the world-famous Edinburgh International Fringe Festival features thousands of performers from all over the world, with shows ranging from stand-up comedy to circus, a capella, live baking, ballet, interpretative dance and improv; new theatre, student theatre, experimental theatre ... All in venues including jazz bars, lecture halls, private clubs, tents and shipping containers. And every single one of them is fighting for attention wherever they can get it.
If you come anywhere within ten minutes of the Royal Mile (peak theme park all year round), in my experience you're just as likely to be intercepted by a vitamin D-deprived student actor dressed in a stained Dolly the Sheep costume as you are to bump into cultural royalty like Sir Ian McKellen, or any number of TV-famous British comedians who swap arena tours for the sticky-floored basements of their roots. All of humanity can be found here, which, though this sometimes feels literal when at its busiest, makes for an extraordinary atmosphere. Creativity, culture, some degree of diversity. For a creative mind especially, it's an inspiring time of year to be in Edinburgh. To "do the fringe properly", though, is to witness at least one absolute dud, preferably as one of just a handful of squirming audience members, but there's always the sense that the next big thing could be just around the corner.
One show vying for career-defining next-big-thing status happens to tell the story of maybe modern cycling's favourite maverick Tour de France winner.
I think we’re in a time when inspiring stories are what we need. And Cadel’s got a good one – he went through it."
– Connor Delves
Kit Nicholson
'Cadel: Lungs on Legs' is playing at one of the city's 320 or so Fringe performance spaces, a dark windowless room in Edinburgh's labyrinthine Old Town that seats 88. It's potentially quite an awkward space, wide and shallow with a low arched ceiling that slopes up from the floor creating a sort of half tube, and the small stage, little more than a platform, is centrally positioned against one long wall between two screens.
If you imagine the start ramp for an individual time trial, you're getting pretty close, and that makes it perfect for this show.
Australian actor-athlete Connor Delves is the creator, co-writer and star of this exciting new play. Delves grew up in his family's Perth bike shop and has never known life without sport, but when the day came to make a choice, he chose acting. Some years later, the now-New-York-based actor has finally found a way of combining the two in Cadel: Lungs on Legs, and he has big plans.
A few days after experiencing the show myself, I sat down with Delves almost a week into his Fringe run to talk about the play, its origins, Cadel Evans' own involvement, and his dream of bringing the story to audiences all over the world.
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