Our team, all aged 18-26, is a small collective from Wiltshire, where there isn’t much creative work. We are a group of young people (also friends) who wanted to produce work and bring theatre to rural and urban communities alike.
Fionn (our director, writer and producer) did a year at Lamda and was looking to develop new work with people from their local area and brought each of us together to build the show. Fionn has lived with psychotic illness since they were 16 and decided it was a topic that faces misinformation and stereotype in both rural and urban areas in equal measure.
Despite wanting to work to destigmatise this condition, we all also really wanted to be creative, playful and make a good show! The challenge was set to make an entertaining, but challenging and respectful representation of psychosis, that was enjoyable and educational (people tend to learn best when they are enjoying themselves and feel engaged with theatre)… And so our quirky Brechtian comedy about god and the devil in the modern world was born. Our show incorporates surrealism (bad game show, faulty sitcom) and relatable scenario (a fight with your mum, a game of truth or dare with your best friends) to bring to life the experience of living with god and the devil on your shoulder.
Synopsis: Gabe is a perfectly average teenager, with perfectly average problems… except he is best friends with god and the devil. Revelations will be made, loyalties will be tested and the biggest reveal may not be groundbreaking, but more about Gabe himself.
We toured last year in Bath, Liverpool, Barnstaple, Bristol, Edinburgh and Camden as part of fringe season. We raised over £200 for young minds (a figure we’d love to top this year at Edinburgh) and loved all getting to go see theatre we would never had had access to back in Wiltshire. We enjoyed flyering and brought god and the devil to the streets of Edinburgh for fringe- something we’d love to do again. We have also performed this year at the etcetera in Camden, the artbank at Shepton mallet and will hopefully be performing before Edinburgh in the Drayton arms London and Norwich uea drama studio.
We really want to bring the show to Edinburgh again this year. We see God, the devil and me as a submersiexperience and beyond the play we offer free resources around mental health, a free Spotify playlist built around the characters in the show and fun social media skits with god and the devil, but we are desperate to raise enough to come to Edinburgh again so this (and our new show growing pains) can be seen and enjoyed- and maybe impart a thing or two…
We have many people back home and who have seen the show already who are rooting for it and we would love to be able to welcome more to our little community.
We are also bringing a second play called growing pains which is a comedic play about a mid-twenties teacher caught between the struggle of the state education system, an unruly class of teenagers, a struggling relationship and a bad case of a dream she of writing she thought she’d outgrown, but this year may prove otherwise. The show takes a look at the very real and human reasons the education system is hard to implement and why the saying “those who can do, those who can’t teach,” doesn’t mean that all those that “can’t,” are good teachers. The show looks at different cross sections of education (class, wealth, parental involvement, gender and disability) to understand why education SHOULD be for all, but often falls short on the ground. Also exploring that you can have angst at any age- teenage angst isn’t specific, mid-twenties angst is real too!!
All this means that your donations are even more crucial to us, trying to bring two plays to Edinburgh means higher expenses on:
-venue costs
-accommodation costs (we have 6 young cast members to bring up with us)
-transport (flights and transport in Edinburgh)
-marketing (to try and reach the widest audience we can)
-printing costs (for posters, flyers and programmes)
-money to help make the show more accessible (we would love to get a sign language interpreter)
Truly any money you can donate is so appreciated- big or small. Really, anything helps us get to where we need. We really appreciate all the support we’ve received already and we know it’ll make a huge difference to us getting to put this show on again- we know how many of our followers have seen the show and loved it and felt seen by it. Thank you in advance if you’re considering donating and please do take a look at what tip top theatre collective has on offer- we really do put a lot of thought, time and work into what we do and that’s all because we want people to enjoy it!!
The company also offers several resources related to our shows which are free: a Spotify playlist for god, the devil and me based on each characters song choice per scene, an interactive social media page where god and the devil have accounts to respond to comments and links to resources for support around the issues we cover.
Louise Penn gave us three stars and called it “a tight and thoughtful fringe piece,” and “a comic play with barbed teeth.” https://loureviews.blog/2024/11/04/edinburgh-fringe-digital-review-god-the-devil-and-me/