Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Early births, break-ups … some shows have all the bad luck

IT'S that time in the Fringe when shows hungry for publicity air their bad-luck tales - missing instruments or visas, imploding venues, lost leading ladies - with all the drama they can muster.

Comic McKenzie Taylor's 2008 show, No Straightjacket Required, was centred on how he tried to kill himself.

The 2010 follow-up, Joy, is about how he found wholeness and love with his mental health nurse.

Sadly, however, they broke up last Friday. Apparently, the show goes on.

The Cry, a "site-specific human rights drama telling the true story of Palestinian poet Ghazi Hussein", claimed a chronicle of disasters chasing them from three spaces in the Pleasance, before venue bosses found them a disused, burnt-out room at the top of C Venues Chambers Street building - ideal for a story of torture and imprisonment.

Kamikaze cabaret phenomenon' Meow Meow, in Feline Intimate at the Assembly, was struggling on in the dark after her lighting man dashed off to cope with an early baby.

The Inside Intelligence company laments the last-minute withdrawal of Tony-nominated Xanthe Elbrick from Poem Without a Hero, heading off to New York for "personal reasons", leaving the "brilliant unknown" Holly Strickland to fill her shoes.

Actor and Fringe Society board member Pip Utton has posted an advert for an extra cast member for his production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Due to a last-minute script change, he requires an actress to spend an hour a day lying dead on stage, preferably with dark hair.

"Sadly, no fee, just the chance to be part of a production at the Pleasance," goes the listing. "Pip has to lift Esmeralda, so please be lightweight!"