SCHOOL'S out in downtown Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is a few days before the Sri Lankan new year in April, and, at the gates of Bishop's College, a few students are hoisting a banner for Exstastics, a Sunday night extravaganza that's a hipper version of a gang show. All 650 seats at the theatre are sold out, and there is an endof-term frisson in the air. Outside the theatre itself a beggar lies prostrate as the Tuk Tuks - the barely-legal three-wheeler taxi cabs - buzz by. Inside, a culture shock from the mysterious west is taking shape. The Glasgow-based Vanishing Point theatre company is preparing for the opening night of their Edinburgh Fringe hit, Lost Ones. This dark slice of gothic fantasy has arrived in town following stints in Kosovo and Macedonia, having first impressed the talent scouts in Edinburgh last August at the biennial British Council showcase. "Everything I bring here, " British Council Sri Lanka's arts manager, Ranmali Mirchan
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.