Writers create potted Potter and condensed Dickens

EDINBURGH, Aug 8 (Reuters) For lazy readers in search of potted Harry Potter or digestible Dickens, the Edinburgh Fringe has the perfect shortcut to instant literature.

Whether galloping through Oliver Twist in minutes or storming through the boy wizard's adventures in an hour, the world's largest arts festival is tailor-made for the short attention span generation.

Playing to packed houses of children eager to pick up on their every mistake, actors Dan Clarkson and Jeff Turner have condensed the seven Potter books into a parody of J K Rowling's saga.

For inspiration, the pair even sat writing their script in the same Edinburgh cafe where the single mother claiming state benefits penned the books that turned her into the world's first dollar billionaire author.

''There is always a front row seat reserved for her at every show,'' Turner said. ''I would just love it if she came along, but I must say I would be terrified if I suddenly saw her sitting there.

''It's a tongue-in-cheek homage,'' Turner said of their ''Potted Potter'' show.

Clarkson likened the success of Harry Potter to that of the Beatles.

''Potter is the Beatlemania of books. Like The Beatles, I don't think we will ever see it again. I've never known a book which has had 5,000 people queueing up at midnight to buy it.'' Thousands of Potter fans lined up outside bookstores around the world last month for the release of ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'', the final instalment in the series. Millions of copies were snapped up in a matter of hours.

Popularising novels with stage adaptations can boost readership, but Clarkson is a realist.

''It would be nice to say we were taking Potter to the masses, but the masses got there first. Still, if we can make just one extra person read the book, then hooray.'' Adam Long, writer of ''Dickens Unplugged -- The Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Abridged)'' -- managed an even greater feat by squeezing 35 books into one hour.

Long, a founder member of The Reduced Shakespeare Company that turned The Bard into palatable soundbites, said: ''I hope our show is a signpost pointing people to the original material.

''We have found a big audience for him. Everybody gets turned off things at school. Then we get this bounce back with people returning to things they were scared of.'' Long, who uses a slick and fast-paced quintet of Californian actors, is convinced the Victorian novelist will always have universal appeal.

''What we now need is a global Dickens to come along. Oliver Twist would be working in the workhouse. But this time it would be set in a sweatshop in Vietnam making Nike shoes.'' REUTERS SG DS1407