Infinite Space, The Edinburgh Festival, and then at the Rondo Theatre, Bath.


Britain is in the grip of a pandemic. The rapid spread of the disease and an appalling death toll have caused mass panic, and there is fighting and lawlessness on the streets.

Two young men find a place to hide. Gareth is a Welsh teenager, a petty criminal brought up in care. Alex is a young doctor, married with children, who remembers a childhood hiding place that might provide a safe haven for his family.

The situation of the two characters is desperate, but as they settle in to their constricted world, running out of teabags becomes as great a crisis as deciding whether or not to risk emerging from their hiding place.

The edgy comedy of their attempt to live together, and the different ways they react to their own personal tragedies and the general predicament of living in the 21st century produce a wry commentary on our own relationship with the frighteningly fragile world in which we live.

Infinite Space is a black comedy from a world finally cracking under the strain of terrifying yet vague dangers - global warming, super-volcanoes, meteors, bird-flu, terrorist attacks.

Starring up-and-coming actors Jon Smith and Jonny Walker, this darkly funny and compassionate play from Red Folder Productions, is a Waiting for Godot of our times, where the fear is not that there isn't anything out there, but that there is Artistic director, Sue Curtis, said: "Infinite Space was inspired by the paranoia of modern life, by Hamlet, by the people walled up in the plague houses in Mary King Close under Edinburgh.

Two men inhabit a room and as the play develops it becomes clear what their connection with the outside is, and how real the danger they perceive. In the process it explores the nature of our relationship with this terrifyingly fragile world in which we live."

Red Folder Productions is a professional company formed to explore new texts with new actors. This is its first appearance at the Fringe.

Infinite Space will be running at the Edinburgh Festival at Venue 260 at Jury's Inn, Edinburgh from Monday August 14-Saturday August 26. It will also be performed at the Rondo Theatre, Bath, on September 14 and 15.