Cycling actors who pedalled 2,000 miles scoop Edinburgh Fringe award (+ video)

Four actors between them playing 40 characters from two Shakespeare plays have won this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award – after riding a total of 2,000 miles between venues on a tour of England and Scotland that included performing Macbeth and Comedy of Errors at the Scottish capital’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

The HandleBards – Callum Brodie, Tom Dixon, Callum Cheatle and Paul Moss – concluded their nationwide tour yesterday evening, in which they hauled all their props, set, costumes and camping gear on bikes supplied by Luv Handles Bike Boutique – with a performance of Macbeth at London’s Middle Temple Gardens.

On the way, they performed at venues including HMS Unicorn in Dundee, Harewood House near Leeds to coincide with the Grand Depart of the Tour de France, and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s outside playing space The Dell in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Quoted on Energy Live News, Moss said of the award:  “This is such a great honour. We’ve cycled 2,000 miles, slept in tents for three months and performed 60 shows to over 5,000 people. And, not even a single puncture.”

Here’s a video from earlier this year in which The HandleBards talk about their tour, which is estimated to have saved 45.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions.