Edinburgh Fringe interviews

It's been a few years since I covered the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival for the Edinburgh Evening News or my own blog, but I still try to keep an eye out for something that might interest fellow film and TV fans.

This year I got in touch with the team behind Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut, a loving homage to the 1941 film, and asked for an interview with two of its stars, Gavin Mitchell and Jimmy Chisholm, for ReelScotland. I took along my video camera and set it up in the noisy bar at the Pleasance to film a short chat for YouTube, and the guys couldn't have been nicer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZ34PmUuFU

Then, as a vintage television fan (to clarify, it's the TV programmes that are vintage, not me), I couldn't turn down the opportunity to interview Clive Mantle, one of the stars of 1980s TV show, Robin of Sherwood. He's in town playing Tommy Cooper in the brilliant Jus' Like That.

This time I decided on recording short audioboos, one about the show and one about Clive's TV work, which also includes The Vicar of Dibley, Casualty and Holby City. During the interview it emerged the cast and crew of Robin had attempted to revive the show with ITV a few years back, only for the channel to turn the idea down.

I blogged about it and it generated hundreds of page views and a number of comments, including one from another star of the show, Mark Ryan. I've now had interest from fans and press around the globe and it'll be interesting to see if the story goes any further.