Edinburgh Fringe Q&A - Mythos: Ragnarok's Ed Gamester

Pairing the equally larger-than-life worlds of Norse mythology and professional wrestling, Mythos: Ragnarök was one of the must-see shows at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

Creator Ed Gamester is back for another run this year, weaving ancient myths, legends, and folk tales into original pieces of theatre, with some of the most intense and thrilling fight scenes ever seen in a theatrical setting.

“The staggering reaction we received at Edinburgh Fringe last year changed our show, our lives and our industry beyond measure,” he says.

“We’re still the only theatre show in the world to use this type of stage combat and the only wrestling show in history to do a Fringe run, so we’re thrilled to be able to return and build upon that legacy, because it’s making such a positive impact on everything.”

How are you feeling ahead of the Fringe?

I am exceptionally excited! Although it wasn’t where my show debuted, the Fringe was certainly where it came to life. We made history last year as the first show of our kind to do a Fringe run, so to be back again – by popular demand – is so much more than I hoped for or expected.

Last year took months of painstaking effort to find anybody willing to put us on, so I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Karen at Gilded Balloon for believing in the show. This year we are back by invitation, which is a huge and unbelievably exciting honour, so I’m absolutely hyped to get stuck in!

What is your show about, and what inspired it?

Mythos: Ragnarok is based in the world of ancient Nordic myths and legends, which I’ve interwoven into a new story about the rise and fall of the Gods. It’s the only show like it in the world: a mixture of storytelling, theatre and a unique form of stage combat derived from professional wrestling.

Artistically it was inspired by my love of the myths and desire to tell my own versions of the stories that shaped my childhood. Professionally it was inspired by my desire to present professional wrestling in a brand new context; I wanted to reignite the love so many of us felt for wrestling when we first experienced it.

What can audiences expect to see at the show?

Expect Gods and Goddesses, giants and monsters, fabulous physiques, tremendous costumes and fight scenes like you’ve never seen on stage before! Expect to have fun, too: I made the poster too aggressive and now everybody is surprised by how funny the show can be… I’m always astonished by the variety of people at our shows; I assumed it would appeal to fans of mythology and wrestling, but for most people it’s their first experience of both – so don’t be put off if you have no idea what it’s one about!

Did you enjoy your festival experience last year?

Honestly, I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I wrote, directed, produced, performed and paid for Mythos: Ragnarok at Edinburgh Fringe 2022, which meant it was one of the hardest months of my life. It’s a very physical show to perform on a nightly basis, even without the hours of daily street promotion, the mental exertion of managing a large cast of actors, and the constant worry about how much money everything was costing.

I had a broken arm, slept in a van in a car park and worked up to 20 hours a day. It was certainly a unique and life-changing experience, but much like running a marathon or climbing a mountain, I think I enjoy looking back on last year more than I enjoyed it at the time. In some ways that’s more valuable: the memories last a lot longer than the experience itself.

In short: no I didn’t enjoy it, but I wouldn’t have done it any differently – otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are today!

The show received rave reviews last year – how much has that changed your life?

This time last year I was selling my possessions and spending all my income to bring my show to the Fringe, fully accepting that I’d lose it all. This year we have a wonderful producer investing in us and – while it’s virtually impossible to turn a profit at the Fringe – there’s a chance I might get paid to perform, which would be a first on this show! So that’s a massive change right away.

When we arrived at the Fringe in 2022 we’d only performed the show three times. Today we’ve performed 56 times and have 150 performances pencilled in for the next year, across three continents. Mythos has been my life since 2021, but these days I get to spend my time producing and performing instead of convincing people that we’re worth putting on.

I’ve always believed in Mythos and the people in it, but thanks to the massive public support and the insight of the press, I now know that other people believe in it too: enough of them to justify trying to perform it around the world.

Why are pro-wrestling and Norse mythology such a match made in heaven (or indeed Valhalla)?

Like most legends, the Norse myths involve overpowered larger than life characters getting themselves into ridiculous conflicts, which can only be solved by some kind of teamwork, test of strength, treachery or violence. If that doesn’t sound familiar, then I suspect you didn’t grow up watching wrestling! In my mind, wrestling is modern mythology.

There is also a fantastic physicality about the Nordic Gods. They’re less lofty and capricious than other mythological deities: they’re rugged representations of simple human experiences: love and war, sex and death, farming and boat-building. That means they really come to life on stage, especially when played by wrestlers – who can be astonishing talented performers. There are no ropes or wires in our show, no crash mats, sound cues or special effects: everything you see is as real as it looks. It’s one thing to listen to a story about Thor fighting ice giants; it’s another thing altogether to watch it happen live!

Where did your love of both come from?

My love of wrestling started in the 90s when WCW Nitro used to come on immediately after Cartoon Network. I’d never seen anything like it then and I still haven’t seen anything else like it now: it’s an alternative universe in which stories carry more weight than reality. As a writer (I already felt like a writer, even as a child) this was magical to me and I needed to be part of it.

At 16 years old I found a wrestling school in London and embarked upon a lifetime of getting beaten up in live shows, TV shows, films and now theatre. I’ve been doing that for 20 years as one of the UK’s foremost practitioners of professional wrestling outside of the industry itself, which is what inspired me to bring it into theatre. There have been other shows about wrestling or using wrestling, but none that have cast wrestlers as actors and allowed them to work their craft.

As for the myths, I can’t remember when I first heard or read them, but by my early teens I was carving runes into everything, writing my own myths and studying Ancient Icelandic to better understand what was going on. This was before the internet was particularly helpful, so I just buried myself in books and lived there quite happily until I realised I’d apparently grown up!

What are your favourite memories from the festival?

My favourite memory from 2022 was when my 10-person cast performed an improvised role-switched version of the show, at 4am in the kitchen of our shared accommodation. Lumbering giants became dignified Goddesses draped in tea towels; golden princesses became brooding war chiefs wielding spatulas as they tried valiantly to work out each other’s lines.

It was hilarious, impressive and utterly inexplicable: like some kind of fever dream to prove I was going mad. It turned out they were doing it to distract me and my girlfriend from the fact that they were putting the finishing touches to a beautiful scrapbook of memories they had created for us.

My other favourite memory was at the end of our very final show, when I realised the one person who had attended our first preview had come back to witness our final performance, which was a total sell out. Lots of people came to see the show multiple times through the month, but it meant the world to me to know somebody had seen how we started and how we ended.

If you were put in charge of the Fringe, what changes would you make?

Nobody should put me in charge of anything, but I’d prioritise making it more affordable for the artists. Without them there is no Fringe, yet they seem to be the only ones expected to make a loss. It’s more affordable to fly to and perform in Australia than here in Edinburgh: that’s absurd.

The Fringe generates something like a billion pounds of value (£500m in direct spending), yet the artists don’t make anything, the techs don’t make anything and the promotors (apparently) don’t make anything…so it’s unclear where all this spending is going, other than to whoever is charging rent on the venues and accommodation. So that seems like a good place to start.

A temporary accommodation tax might help: a percentage of rent taken from profiteering landlords and venue owners, and reinvested into covering the costs and fees that artists have to pay to entertain the very people who come to Edinburgh and spend their money on everything other than the artists.

If that sounds unfair on landlords, consider that I could BUY a house for the amount they charge for accommodation for my cast in Edinburgh during August. Tickets to our show are a tenner, of which we get less than half. Imagine trying to buy somebody else a house in fivers…in a month…while paying a dozen other people.

How would you describe how you feel when you first take a step out onto the stage?

Relief. Being onstage is the only time I get to myself in the day. Until that moment I am answering questions, solving problems, fixing broken things, giving directions, apologising to the people who can’t get tickets – the myriad jobs required of a writer, director, producer and stage manager. I’m never even in costume more than five minutes before I’m due on stage, but when I finally step out there I get to switch off for an hour and lose myself in the character and the combat.

I can’t pretend it always works. I’m not a good enough actor to just snap into character and forget about the fifteen things I was just doing. Fortunately, the first time I get is so hard that I can’t think about anything other than the pain, so that tends to focus my mind and clear the cobwebs!

Who else are you looking forward to seeing at the Fringe?

It’s disgusting self-centred to admit this, but I have no idea who else is on. Last year I only managed to see two other shows in the entire festival, so it seems futile to look into who I won’t get a chance to see this year. If Sarah Keyworth is there, I’ll try to see her: she’s great and I carried her off stage every day of the Fringe last year, which looks weird now I write it down… Otherwise, I have a big cast to pay every day, so unless our show is sold out I’ll be working – which, to be honest, is how I think it should be.

Mythos: Ragnarök, Assembly Roxy, 9:20pm, Aug 2-27, mythologicaltheatre.co.uk