Comedians to read out The Chilcot Report at the Edinburgh Fringe
A number of comedians are taking part in a show at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival which will see the entire Chilcot Report being read out.
Iraq Out & Loud will run for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, until the entire 2.6 million words from the war report have been read out.
Starting at 6pm on Monday 8th August, a host of Edinburgh Fringe performers, writers, and politicians - plus members of the public - have pledged time to read out a section of the 6,000 page document. At an expected delivery rate of 120 words per minute, the reading is predicted to take over two weeks to complete.
Iraq Out & Loud is being organised by Fringe veterans Bob Slayer and Omid Djalili, and aims to bring the Fringe's creative community and international audience together to discuss and reflect on the conflict and the UK's role in it.
Stewart Lee, Reg D Hunter, Arthur Smith, Francesca Martinez, Seann Walsh, Jo Caulfield, Simon Munnery, Tony Law, Ed Gamble, Stephen Frost, Michael Legge, Howard Read, Andy Askins and Andy Smart are amongst the comedians who have already volunteered to take part. The organisers have launched an appeal for more readers to sign up via iraqoutloud.com
Iraq Out & Loud will take place in a garden shed, beside Bob Slayer's Blundabus on South College Street, with two readers each hour. Tickets to be part of the small live audience in the shed are now on sale, with four seats allocated per hour. Audience members also have the opportunity to take part in the live streamed reading.
Bob Slayer says: "Producing this is going to be a truly mammoth undertaking, however I know I would totally regret not doing it much more than actually doing it..."
Omid Djalili adds: "Has there ever been a more current and brilliant Edinburgh Fringe Festival idea?"
Crime writer Ian Rankin, who has signed up to read some of the pages, says: "I was on my holidays when the Chilcot Report was published, so this is my best chance to get to read at least some of it. It's either that or wait for the film."
Tommy Sheppard, the founder of The Stand Comedy Club, who is now a SNP MP for Edinburgh East, says he is "delighted to do my part in drawing attention to this damning indictment of Tony Blair's government - pretty much every British military intervention he sanctioned made a bad situation worse."
To find out more about the project, buy a ticket, or offer to read a section, visit iraqoutloud.com
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