Fringe Q&As: Leo Burtin on making soup with strangers, his grandmother’s diary and community

• What is your Fringe show about?

In one word, The Midnight Soup is about death. The starting point for the show is my grandmother’s diary from 2006, which she left to be a few years before she committed suicide. Her story then opens out to being a broader exploration on the passing of time, ageing and the choices availale to us at the end of our lives. This possibly sounds a little heavy, but the show is actually very gentle.

As the piece unfolds, I teach the audience how to make the soup of the title, which we then eat together at the end of the show. What starts as quite a reflective and personal space then quite quickly becomes about the temporary community we form and by then end, it looks more like a dinner party with a group of friends of friends than a show about death.

• How many times/many years have you appeared at the Fringe?

As a performer, it’s my very first time but this is my 6th year in a row at the Festival, where I’ve worked as a producer on shows such as Jo Griffin’s Bricking It, which featured her dad Pat and Tara Robinson and Liz Richardson’s Gutted which was about Liz’s experiences in living with ulcerative colitis. You could say that most of my work at the Fringe has brought personal stories to the Festival to encourage ‘small p’ political conversations… there’s definitely a bit of a theme!

In previous Fringe visits I’ve also worked as an awards assessor and wrote for the Sick of the Fringe, and I have a day job as a promoter… in short, I’ve done most jobs you can do as a visitor to the Fringe, but never brought my own artistic practice to the Festival. It’s as exciting as it is terrifying!

• What’s your most memorable moment from the Fringe?

No need for me to think about this for even one second. It 200% has to be the first time I saw Hot Brown Honey. I was sent by an organisation I was working for at the time and I really resented it. Big audiences and big loud shows are definitely not usually my cup of tea. I had seen shows by the Brief Factory before, and while I did find them fun, I’m definitely more of the shy, quiet type and the big cabaret acts don’t tend to be my favourite.

I saw Hot Brown Honey’s show near to the start of their run; word had already got out that it was fantastic, but I definitely hadn’t been electrified by the hype at that point. And, oh my… within the first 10 mns, the show broke absolutely every single expectation I had walked in with, within 15 it smashed all of my prejudices and I’m pretty sure I was in full on tears by the half hour mark. It is probably one of the best shows I have ever seen, and I’ve been another three times since, each time taking a different friend along. It’s one of the most galvanizing experiences I’ve ever had in a theatre and it’s no exaggeration to say that it was life changing.

• What’s the worst thing about the Fringe?

Again, this is not a difficult question to answer. The Arts industry is in a lot of trouble at the moment. From the gender pay gap and the wider issue of sexism, to the lack of people of colour, working-class people and people with disabilities on our stages, it seems to be one of the most problematic industries around... Add to that London-centricity, a dying touring model and dwindling amounts of funding available and the picture is pretty bleak. As one of the biggest gatherings of all the different cogs in the industry, the Fringe puts a magnifying glass on all of these issues.

Every year, there seems to be new initiatives looking to highlight and tackle some of those issues and people seem to be increasingly keen to have the conversations that will begin to make a tangible difference, so there’s hope yet – but we must get on the gas pedal.

• If you were not a performer what would you be doing?

I’d likely be producing a show, assessing my peer’s work for awards and writing for indie publications, a combination of all these things I’ve normally been up to. For the first time this year, I’ll be focused on delivering my own project to the best of my ability, and I’ve set myself up to do the Fringe on my terms, to ensure all of my team (myself included) can take care of themselves in this high-pressure environment. We will be on a financial tightrope, but doing half a run with a day off will hopefully mean it doesn’t take us until Christmas to recover from our Edinburgh adventure this year!

• How do you prepare for a performance?

I can say with some confidence that The Midnight Soup will be one of a kind of a show during the Fringe. It’s a 2.5 hour experience involving food, which only 16 people can enjoy at a time. It’s very much a piece which is about getting into some kind of depth in our relationship as people participating in the show. For each performance, my preparation involves a lot of deep breathing, and clearing myself of as much of what has happened earlier in the day, so I can welcome audiences in from as much of a clean slate as possible. Given the subject matter of the show, and its length, it’s also really important that I am on top of my own health and wellbeing, so I’d say my Fringe experience is closer to that of a nunnery retreat than the wild nights drinking and dancing until 5 a.m. most people imagine performers get up to on a daily basis!

• Favourite thing about being in Edinburgh?

Between family obligations, my work as an artist and my day job as a producer, I spend a lot of time jumping from train to train, from project to project and I rarely have the opportunity to spend much time hanging out and catching up with my peers. I am pretty sure everyone I’ve ever come into some kind of professional contact with will be in Edinburgh for at least a couple of days at some point. It’s a real opportunity to make time to find out what people are up to and ‘take the temperature’ of where we are at as an industry. It really does bring a sense of community to the profession.

• What’s the most Scottish thing you’ve ever done?

I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything particularly Scottish…  nor what doing that would entail!

• Favourite Scottish food/drink?

I’ve always felt that there wasn’t much of an offering for a vegetarian by way of Scottish food, but I’ve recently been introduced to Cranachan by Alister Lownie of Two Destination Language (who are performing Fallen Fruit during the Fringe, also at Summerhall). I have to say that I was really surprised by the utter depth of flavour and textures such a simple dessert could offer.

It’s a good job that raspberries season is pretty sure or I would probably have the stuff for breakfast every day.

• Sum up your show in three words

Gentle, sharing, food.

Show summary

The Midnight Soup is a piece of theatre during which the audience prepare a meal that they share at the end. The Midnight Soup starts as a monologue and gently opens out to become a conversation. It tells the story of an unremarkable woman who every day sat down to meticulously record the facts of her life in a diary, until one day she chose her own death. The Midnight Soup is the love letter of a grandson to his grandmother. It is also an edible memorial, celebrating a life lived to the rhythm of the seasons.

The Midnight Soup is on at Summerhall - Lower Cafe Gallery, from August 14 - 26 (except 20th).

For tickets, please visit www.edfringe.com​

You can follow Leo Burtin on Twitter at @olamerino

You can also visit his Facebook page at facebook.com/leo.burtin and his official websit at www.leoburtin.eu