Phone box tales proving a good call at the Fringe

THEY were once a familiar sight on streets across the country before disappearing almost without trace.

Now the red telephone box is making a temporary comeback in the Capital - if only for the duration of the Fringe.

Four red telephone boxes have been installed on various streets across the city, although they're not being used for the usual purpose.

Instead, residents and tourists are being invited to step inside any of the payphone booths, lift the receiver and listen to a short story that has been specially written and recorded by a variety of Fringe performers, including comedians, playwrights and authors from the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

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There are nine short stories to choose from and each one is "loosely" themed around phones or phone boxes. There is no charge to listen.

Among the performers to have written and recorded a story are novelist Will Self, children's author Julia Donaldson, comedians Tim Key and Mark Watson, and comedian and broadcaster Arthur Smith.

A spokesman for London-based company Invisible Dot Communications Ltd, which installed the phone boxes, said: "The idea's been floating around for a while and now felt like the right time and place.

"There's no better place than Edinburgh to try something like this.

"There are a few curveballs in there, a few people playing against type, but it's panned out well. There is a real mixture and everything's entertaining."

The phone boxes are already proving a hit with locals and visitors, with the company claiming that each box is being visited by around 200 people every day.

The phone boxes have been installed on the Pleasance, Bristo Square, George Street and South Bridge, and are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the Fringe.

The Invisible Dot bought the old British Telecom payphone kiosks and opened its new sibling enterprise - Invisible Dot Communications Ltd - to maintain the phone boxes.

The spokesman added: "We bought them from a man in Essex who has a field of around 500 old telephone boxes, but nobody quite knows how he got them.

"They were in a really sorry state so we refurbished them and got old handsets from BT."

Each phone box is thought to be around 50 years old, with stories delivered via a more modern automated handset.

Edinburgh is the first place to have the phone boxes installed.

"We definitely hope it won't be the last - we plan to travel around the world," the spokesman said.

"Various people from various strands of the Festival all come together in these phone boxes and you can navigate through the stories and select which one you want to listen to.

"We just thought it would be a nice way of making this stuff more available and taking it out of theatres."