Assembly Roxy — Attraction in City of Edinburgh

We are based in Edinburgh at Assembly Roxy, run Assembly Festival at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (we are the longest running of the curated multi-venue operators) and tour with the best of our programme. Throughout the year, we host theatre, music, comedy and events in the beautiful Roxy in the heart of the Old Town. An example of our previous credits include Nirbhaya, which we premiered at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and we have since toured to London’s Southbank Centre and to New York, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore in India. In short, we bring the best talent in the world to Edinburgh.

After the cancellation of events in 2020, 2021 will be our 40th year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We look forward to celebrating the past, present and future of Assembly with yet another diverse and exciting programme.

The 2019 season was a roaring success with over half a million tickets sold (up 30% on the previous year) including two sell-out weekends, five-star reviews, and a multitude of awards.

Chamäleon Productions kicked the awards off, with the all-female Berliner circus collective, Still Hungry, winning a Scotsman Fringe First in the first week for its production of Raven, a thrilling and humorous blend of circus and theatre which honestly confronted the challenges of modern motherhood. The production bookmarked its festival with a Three Weeks Editor’s Award in the final weekend.

There was early recognition for Assembly Festival’s Disruption series, produced in collaboration with HighTide, with the first Stage Award of the month going to Breffni Holahan for her performance in the funny and furious monologue Collapsible. The final Stage Award also went to this series of new work, for Nigel Barrett and Sophie Melville’s performances as father and daughter caught in a cycle of addiction in Pops.

Home-grown work proved popular with the critics, as David Colvin took home a Herald Angel for Thunderstruck, the tragic and comic tale of the greatest bagpiper who ever lived. The play was also named First Runner-Up at the Scottish Theatre Awards, arranged by the Scottish Arts Club.

Assembly’s international performers also enjoyed success; there were two Mervyn Stutter’s Spirit of the Fringe Awards, for Ukranian company 2Theatre and their debut of INTERBEING – Stories From a Current War, a visual rhapsody of physical theatre to tell a story about the root of human conflict; and the Divet Show: The Greatest Divas performed by Marko Vanio and his drag backing dancers.

Assembly Festival’s Korean Season received high praise in its fifth year, with a Three Weeks Editor’s Award for Brush Theatre, Doodle Pop, and Asian Arts Awards for Spray for Best Directing and Best Technical Production.

At the final Scotsman Fringe Awards, The Fall actor Ameera Conrad won the Filipa Bragança Award for her performance in Tales From the Garden, exploring life as a young woman raised in a world that makes women targets for aggression and violence.

Away from theatre, Knot won a Total Theatre Award for Circus for its finely crafted theatrical journey through the absurdity and joy of a very modern affair; while Scottee earned a Judges Discretionary Award for his dance show about flab, Fat Blokes.

While in comedy West End Producer won a Malcolm Hardee Award for Most Cunning Stunt, for his “audacious subversion for the perfect poster quote” appearing to be from national critics, when in fact they are from similarly initialled members of the public, and Police Cops won Best Comedy Group in Theatre Weekly’s Best of the Fest Awards for their latest comedy blockbuster Badass...

Operating an absolutely ridiculous mask policy, I know it's a comedy show but this was farcical.

If you have a drink, their policy is when you want a sip you pull down your mask, then pull it back up again, wth.

Can you imagine, being in a restaurant and operating that policy?

What they think this is achieving is beyond me, you are sat like shoulder to shoulder people in the venue and we all queued close together.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem following the mask rules, and wear then happily when moving around the building, or when I don't have a drink but these guys are applying rules for to the point of stupidity.

Advice to venue Make this rule clear on your site (I wondered why there were tickets available) If you want people to wear masks then don't sell people drinks (you can't have it both ways) Follow the same rules as every other venue in Edinburgh (it works fine). It makes no difference if you are applying this rule in your venue, while 5 minutes earlier I am in a packed pub. Apply a sensibly policy and don't blindly follow rules.

I don't buy this is for peoples safety, as if it was, they wouldn't be the only venue in Edinburgh doing it.

Added a star as it was actually...

Unfortunately a very unpleasant experience. Went to see a festival show here and the comedian was great but the rest of the experience was horrible. You have to keep your mask on the entire time, even seated. We were packed into seats that are so narrow you can’t actually sit back, and you’re crammed up against the person next to you, my back is in agony today. We were shouted at when we tried to join the queue to get a drink, and were not allowed to get one because the bar closes well before the show start time but this isn’t specified anywhere. Someone was shouted at for checking the time on their phone before the show had even started, I was snapped at when I went to the toilet and walked in the wrong direction. The staff were acting like police! It was not a fun festival experience at all, and other venues are...