Hidden gem at festival Fringe

If you are thinking of heading to the Edinburgh Fringe this month, it’s worth seeking out a new play by Sheffield-based Laura Lindsay and her co-writer Peter Carruthers.

The pair, who met at drama school in Manchester, will be performing their piece Hidden, which has a three-week run at the Underbelly’s Iron Belly venue and marks their debut at the festival.

“It started off as a monologue I wrote for myself because I could never find suitable pieces for auditions,” says Lindsay. “Then I performed it at a showcase event in Preston and a couple of people said I should make it into a full-length piece. It was going to be a one-woman show but I don’t really like working on my own so I spoke to my friend Pete about it.”

Lindsay had the idea of using the theme of things we keep hidden from other people and from there she and Carruthers began to develop characters and subsequently a narrative.

“We started writing in April 2011,” says Lindsay. “We booked ourselves into the Preston Tringe Festival as a kind of deadline and performed it there in the July. It went down really well and that’s when we started getting a bit of faith in it.”

In January 2012 they put it on for three nights at the Lowry in Salford as part of Manchester’s prestigious Re:Play Festival where it sold out and received an excellent response from critics and audiences alike. The Guardian described the play as “a true gem... Talent as natural as this shouldn’t remain hidden for long”. “It was incredible,” says Lindsay. “I just couldn’t believe that people were coming to see a two-person show with me and my mate.”

Darkly comic, Hidden tells the story of six characters and the complex way in which their lives interweave and unravel in a modern urban world. Although the play is a comedy, it explores the concept of secrecy and the inner workings of our hearts and minds, exposing all those things people would rather keep hidden from others.

“We thought it would be suitable for the Edinburgh Fringe because it is quite comedy-based,” says Lindsay.

“But it also covers a wide range of issues including mental health, body image, infidelity and domestic abuse – they are all embedded deep in the characters’ journeys. It is about isolation in the modern world even though we are all so connected today.”

Lindsay and Carruthers each play three characters, a challenge which Lindsay says she has relished. “I like the way you have to just make the switch from one to the other,” she says. “I play a Glaswegian, a bubbly northern lass and a posh character.”

Lindsay and Carruthers set up their company, Black Toffee, in 2011 after having graduated from Arden School of Theatre in Manchester and decided on the name “because we both have a dark sense of humour and we are dealing with important issues. Dark and chewy – we liked that.” They aim to continue to create high-quality theatre and film which reflect modern society and challenge perspectives.

Lindsay came into acting relatively late, beginning her training after having already completed a degree in biology at Sheffield University. “After graduating I went from job to job not being happy,” she says. “Then I joined an amateur dramatics group in Sheffield called The Company and I found I was living my life for rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, so I spoke to my husband about going to drama school... It’s taken me three years to get to this point.”

After the festival, Black Toffee plan to tour Hidden in Yorkshire in 2014 in association with Harrogate Theatre, which will be their opening venue.

Kevin Jamieson, Executive Programmer at Harrogate Theatre, has been a strong advocate of the company since seeing Hidden when it was performed at the Lowry.