The Black Cat

Nottingham-based company LaPelle’s Factory present a modern, deconstructed and misbehaving retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August.

Two performers dismember the process of adaptation by reimagining a macabre classic with the cheekiest of glints in their eyes.

An enigmatic writer has adapted Poe’s original story and handed scripts over to LaPelle’s Factory. Merciless liberties are now being taken with the words – like a madman taking out a furious rage on a helpless pet.

Balanced between the hilarious and the horrific, this show revels in the darkness that hides just below the surface.

Gravely good fun, but be warned: it will get catty.

Meow.

Poe’s story is closely related to his famous A Tell-tale Heart, concerning the growing insanity of a guilty mind, and touching on alcoholism, mental health and emotional violence. Led by performer-devisers Olwen Davies and Ollie Smith, LaPelle’s Factory’s disrupted retelling revels in the darkness that hides just under the surface of the tale.

With metatheatrical play, The Black Cat is a surprisingly humorous tale which was developed with scratch performances at Derby Theatre, SPRINT (Camden People’s Theatre), and First Bite (China Plate/MAC Birmingham).

Presented in association with In Good Company.