Exonian aims to take Octopus to Edinburgh Fringe

Exonian Afsaneh Gray is looking for help to take her anarchic new comedy Octopus to the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

Afsaneh read Physiological Sciences, matriculating in 2001, and has since gone on to become a successful playwright. Octopus explores what it means to be British. With immigration and concerns about terrorism hot topics, she has teamed up with Fringe First winning director Pia Furtado to take the show—a political satire—to Edinburgh this August.

After a well-received reading at the Greenwich Theatre in April, they have been offered a slot at the Assembly George Square Theatre. The production has already been supported with funds from the Royal Society of Literature and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, with Afsaneh hoping to raise the remaining £5,000 through a Kickstarter fundraising campaign.

The money raised will go towards paying the actors. Afsaneh said, “Sadly actors are often paid too little or not at all for their work, which limits the people who can afford to take a job.” Any extra money raised will be used to commission classically trained harpist and post-punker Serafina Steer (whose last critically acclaimed album was produced by Jarvis Cocker) to compose a live score.

If you would like to support the production of Octopus or to find out more please click here.