The Pleasance has announced the winners of the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund for theatre as Unpolished Theatre, selected from the largest ever number of applications.
Unpolished Theatre was created by Elliot Warren and Olivia Brady in 2016 alongside the idea of their first production Flesh & Bone which they will now premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe this coming August.
Flesh & Bone was performed at the Etcetera Theatre in December in its initial version, but the company are planning extensive re-writes before the Fringe. It will be the company’s debut on the Fringe.
Elliot and Olivia studied together at Drama School in Bournemouth and forged a brilliant working relationship and friendship creating work throughout and afterwards. In early 2016, both back home in London, Elliot wrote a short film called Stick Up which Olivia produced and which garnered quite a bit of attention, going viral on the internet and gaining 2.2 million views on Facebook .
In the same year, both Elliot and Olivia were in a production of East by Steven Berkoff and remembered their shared love of his style. Once the run had finished they were afire with ideas and energies that needed put onto a stage, igniting a similar style to Berkoff but with contemporary ideas and subject matters.