By BBC News Online's Jatinder Sidhu Theatre fans can now sample one of the highlights of the Edinburgh Festival without leaving their armchair - or their seat on the bus. Static, an new play at the Fringe Festival, features a unique extension to stage performances with an additional narrative told using mobile phone text messaging. While theatre-goers see a story unfold on stage, subscribers to a messaging service can get a running commentary direct to their handsets. Playwright Chris Thorpe writes the messages, a one-sided conversation from each of the characters' on their separate lives. Insight Two characters from the stage production, identified simply as Male and Female, send short teaser pieces of text to subscribers at regular intervals during the production's run.
Users can choose to subscribe to the narrative of the male or female characters.
He died and I have to go on living. We slowly build up an image of their separate lives which collide at the end when he turns on the TV, sees her on the screen and their eyes meet. Creative potential Test, a lottery-funded project based in Huddersfield, is providing the technology behind the play. It aims to research the creative potential of digital technologies to provide access for arts groups and the local community. Nothing smells of anything.