Touring Florida April 2012

An interactive play about hope, endurance, greed…
…and a very big pick-up truck.

Promotion Video

Live Video from Edinburgh

They can hardly stand.
They can hardly talk.
They’re beyond rational thought, but they’re delightful.
They break your heart, and they make you laugh- they’ve become the best of friends, or have they?
Is one of them still playing the cleverest game of all?

Inspired by US contests Stand by Your Van is a performance piece centred on a competition to win a £25,000 pick-up Truck.

Stand by Your Van is an incredible spectacle as 12 determined, half crazed contestants are pitted against each other to see who can keep their hand on a pick-up truck for the longest amount of time.

Whoever endures the longest without leaning on the truck or squatting wins the truck.
Five minute breaks are issued every hour and fifteen minute breaks every six hours. That’s it.
90 or 100 hours usually wins it…

In just 90 minutes this play packs in a life-time for the 12 contestants determined to beat the odds and win their dream. Some of the 12 contestants drop out early on, but the hard core last up to a week and as time moves on and sleep deprivation kicks in, so the stories emerge, alliances are made, favourites are established, violence erupts, humour endures and… at each performance any one of the contestants can win the competition!

The audience bays for a winner – someone has to have this vehicle – who will it be and what are the consequences?

Cheer on your favourite and find out the truths that lie behind the laying on of hands…

Ages 16+

Written by Anna Reynolds
Directed by Paul Bourne
Produced by Menagerie in association with Pleasance and Escalator East to Edinburgh

Venue 33, Pleasance Grand
5-31 August 2009 (not 18/25) 7.40pm

“…here’s the rules…

Keep one hand flat on the truck at all times. If you take your hand off, you’re out
No second chances.
No sitting.  No squatting.  No leaning.
No intimidation.
No sleeping.
You snooze you lose.

There’s a five minute break every hour
Every six hours, a fifteen minute break.
Your phone rings – put it on hold.

The last winner survived eighty seven hours.
This truck is worth twenty five thousand pounds.
To win it, all you have to do is keep one hand on it.

You wanna get your hands on this truck?
You gotta keep your hands on this truck…”