My Edinburgh: Jack Thorne, writer of Stuart: A Life Backwards

Writer Jack Thorne

This is my third Edinburgh as a writer. The first time I came was with my University drama society doing a reworking (my 'radical feminist' reworking) of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. It sounds as bad as it was. Three Weeks called it, simply, 'wanky', The List went even further with the reviewer describing it as 'the stupidest show I've ever seen'.

The great thing about Edinburgh is, despite these, we sort of had a great time. The cast actually got me a t-shirt made with "'wanky' Three Weeks" written on it which I still wear proudly. Our marketing techniques were undoubtedly the best thing about the show - we constructed a massive splat the rat and made a sign 'splat the rat, tame the shrew' which we pulled around the Royal Mile. If you did splat the rat, you got a free ticket to the show - which was great, other than we kept giving five year old children tickets to a show which contained a five-minute rape scene (it really was a radical feminist reinterpretation).

Now my Edinburgh experience is far more dull. As a bald man I stalk the Edinburgh streets thinking 'I remember when...'. My tips? If you're here for the whole festival, use your day off to get on a train and defry your brain. Oh, and Hotel Du Vin does an awesome burger. 

Jack Thorne's Stuart: A Life Backwards, Topside, Underbelly, 3.30pm, to 26 August (0845 545 8252)

Must see

Pat Cahill - Start (Pleasance Courtyard, 5.45pm). Last time I saw him he'd manufactured a mike stand out of a coat hanger. He's kind of a twisted genius. I think he's going to win prizes this year. And Tim Price's I'm With The Band (Traverse, various times) Tim's one of these secret poetic playwrights who finds new ways of looking at the world. This play seems to involve a live band. I'm in.