FSPA shortlist of 21 is selected

THE eagerly-awaited shortlist for the sixth annual Fringe Sustainable Practice Award (FSPA) has just been announced.

The FSPA is awarded to the Fringe production that best engages with sustainability issues.

The shortlist of 21 was selected from the highest number of applications yet. T hese include: A Cinema in South Georgia, Atomkraft, Bayou Blues, Calton Hill Geology Walk, Current Location, Frankenstein, Fraxi Queen of the Forest, Garden, Green Poems for a Blue Planet, Lungs, Maiden: A Recycled Fairy Tale, Ndebele Funeral, Photosynthesis, Scarfed for Life, Sing For Your Life, The Assembly of Animals, The HandleBards: Secret Shakespeare, The Wild Man of Orford, To Space, Ventoux and We May Have To Choose.

Previous winners of the award include a satirical comedy on commercialism and the food industry; a show with a real allotment for a set; an allegorical puppetshow of beloved tale The Man Who Planted Trees; and a playful look at political protest.

The award will be presented on August 28 at Fringe Central. creativecarbonscotland.com south of the Border characters – but I try to do them different,” he says. “Everybody’s different. And I definitely try to angle for my freedom within the interpretation of the character.”

The next two months sees the 48-year-old Del Toro add two more to his trophy cabinet. The first is the sought-after role of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug baron, appearing in Andrea di Stefano’s film Escobar: Paradise Lost. The second is fictional – in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, a mesmerising border tale in which a covert CIA operation is put in place to bring down a ruthless Mexican drugs cartel. Del Toro plays Alejandro, a former Mexican prosecutor and the Sicario (or hitman) of the title, brought in to pull the trigger.

In the case of Escobar, a character who has been dramatised before but never by an Oscar-winning actor, Del Toro was keen to show a rounded portrait.

A father, a politician, a philanthropist, Escobar built houses, hospitals and schools to help the poor of Colombia’s Medellín. But he ruthlessly made his fortune from a drugs empire that made him billions.

At its height, the organisation

‘‘ Escobar built houses, hospitals and schools to help the poor. But he ruthlessly made his billions from drugs

Escobar: Paradise Lost opens on August 21. Sicario is released on October 9.