Edinburgh Fringe: the musical ones

Islander

This enchanting new musical paints a rich picture of a Scottish island divided by an economic crisis, merging the mundane everyday with mythical Orkney folklore. 

Resident Eilidh (Bethany Tennick) finds a lost girl, Arran (Kirsty Findlay) – based on the Orkney Finfolk – on the beach. She claims to be from the seaborne island of Set Asea, which was once part of Eilidh’s island, and she carries a secret shame. While Eilidh at first refuses to believe her, thinking Set Asea is just a fable, the pair eventually form a tender friendship, and Arran is introduced to the island’s traditions – including an amusingly embarrassing dance event.

Stewart Melton’s book has political echoes: the residents are planning for a referendum on whether to leave the island and let it grow wild, because they haven’t the resources to stay (they have been drained by the mainland); and at the heated ‘sprachans’ – town hall meetings – one won’t stop complaining about their missing gnome, accusing the "foreigner" Arran of taking it.

At the heart of the piece is a bid to overcome this struggle to belong. Both Eilidh and Arran are torn between two places – Eilidh’s mother has moved to the mainland to find work, leaving her daughter to do distance learning on the island and live with her practical joker grandmother; while Arran’s own island is irrevocably linked to Eilidh’s, but has seemingly abandoned her. 

This divide is highlighted in Eilidh’s struggles to use the island dialect, and the resentment in the heartbreakingly sung calls between mother and daughter, heightened by poor signal. Tennick and Findlay skilfully play these multiple characters, embodying them with just a movement, glance or subtle change in voice.

They present Finn Anderson’s stunning folk songs with their gorgeous tones and the most impressive, precise loop pedalling I’ve ever seen, which works perfectly in the round. They also use sound to breathe life into the island and its surroundings – the breath of the whale that washes up on shore; a phone ringtone; the cross-purposes discussion at the ‘sprachan’; even the radio station's jingle.

This soothing tale of friendship and community is just what we need in these turbulent times, and I sorely hope it has a life after Edinburgh.

Tokyo Rose

This highly promising show from Burnt Lemon Theatre, the follow up from last year’s hit The Half Moon Shania, explores the 1949 trial of Iva Toguri, accused of broadcasting Axis propaganda to Allied troops as ‘Tokyo Rose’, a Japanese wartime DJ. 

Of course, for this fast-paced, rap-imbued show, which won the New Diorama Untapped award, comparisons with Hamilton are inevitable – and in the era of historical musicals, following the Edinburgh origin story of Broadway-bound Six, hopes are perhaps unhelpfully high.

Writers Cara Baldwin and Maryhee Yoon present an emotive tale of women caught between two countries at war, with family ties stretched to the limit, but the show would benefit from being longer than its classic one-hour ‘Edinburgh slot' runtime. There are plenty of plot gaps to fill in, further human stories to expand on, and more elucidation of the links between the tale’s strands is needed – as well as time for the audience to process the dense historical information it’s receiving. A few too many words got lost in the ensemble songs, too.

However, the ambitious performances from Yuki Sutton, Lucy Park, Cara Baldwin, and director Hannah Benson, feel sincere; Maya Britto, who plays Iva, has a mindblowing vocal range; Luke Robson’s retro set is beautifully minimal; and William Patrick’s score is a riot. This fascinating piece of gig theatre has plenty of potential, and I’m excited to see what the company does with it before it opens at New Diorama in October. 

October 8-12, New Diorama

Electrolyte

Watching the multi-instrumentalist cast of Wildcard’s Fringe 2018 hit setting up – involving the audience in their process from the get-go, unlike any gig theatre I’ve seen – you can tell they have bucketloads of fun: essential when you’re telling a story with this much gravitas and emotional depth. And this will be a shared ride.

The heartfelt tale, written by James Meteyard (who ‘triples up’ as actor-musician to play love interest Jim), focuses on Leeds party girl Jessie, played thrillingly by Olivia Sweeney, after the death of her father. It traces her journey to a London warehouse after receiving a letter from her estranged mother, as she follows her new friend/obsession, musician Allie Touch. Composer Maimuna Memon, who stars as Allie, carries the musical aspect of the show: her lungs will take your breath away.

Jessie is in the relatable, awkward early-20s phase of life, as childhood friends get engaged or move away. She seemingly wishes to move on from them, but her anguish is palpable as she rattles through powerful spoken word poetry in the manner of Kate Tempest, coming out into the audience to break the fourth wall further still.

The storytelling leaves you discombobulated and wondering what is real and what is not, as it highlights the importance of community in ensuring vulnerable people are looked out for – hence the overriding sense of togetherness. The overwhelming ending, affirming that 'we are all stardust and dreams', had me in tears. I defy you to watch it with dry eyes.

Pleasance Courtyard, until August 26

Edinburgh Fringe: the ones that broke me

Hotter

I know what you’re thinking – a show about what makes people hot under the collar? How can that be emotional? I thought the same thing… Boy, was I wrong. 

Simply put, if you have a pulse, see this show. Devised and performed by ex-girlfriends Mary Higgins and Ell Potter, it’s actually got far more to do with bodies and society and the very nature of existence than sex (although the bits about sex are honest, refreshing and funny – women don’t talk about masturbation nearly enough, and a dance piece on it is the perfect tonic to that. Mary’s references to her struggle to orgasm are also moving and vital).

The show revolves around audio recordings of women, trans and NB folk aged 11-97 discussing what ‘hot’ means to them (obviously, the pair asked the 11-year-olds very different questions), which Ell and Mary mime and dance to – a sort of euphoric, verbatim disco. 

As they respond to individual interviewees; frankly chat about periods, poo, and boobs, with the hilarious help of balloons; and write letters to their past selves, discussing their relationship with their bodies, and with the other, they uncover tensions between self-image and how others view them – and a need to rally against society’s pigeonholing of bodies as mere symbols of desire. Ell considering the moment one elderly interviewee, who has experienced epilepsy and mobility issues throughout her life, told her that her body was perfect, is devastating.

Mary and Ell saturate the piece with intelligent, feminist humour, introducing us to the only instance it is ever acceptable to dance to Blurred Lines. What a brilliant takedown of Robin Thicke.

Even though it is clearly rehearsed, it always feels believably spontaneous and immediate, as if we are watching a series of intimate moments – as when Mary asks Ell, ‘Why did you leave me?’ and walks offstage upset. The image of the two girls perched on the edge of the stage as a recording of Ell chatting to her grandma, who is sick, plays and Mary rubs her shoulder comfortingly, will stay with me for a while yet. 

Edinburgh opened me up to the beauty of physical theatre (Spies Like Us’s Murder On The Dancefloor being another prime example), and dancing on stage with the pair and the audience in a jumbled mess of sweaty bodies at the end was an honour, and empowering as heck. 

Underbelly Cowgate, until August 25; Soho Theatre, September 2-7

Bobby and Amy

As someone who grew up among Cotswolds farming communities, went to a comprehensive across the road from a Co-op, saw the tragedy of foot-and-mouth disease firsthand… and, yes, was a devoted mother of a Tamagotchi, this two-hander hit me hard with its poetic portrayal of early Noughties nostalgia. 

Will Howard and Kimberley Jarvis put in deft performances as loners Bobby and Amy, who become firm friends after meeting in the folly of a farm and later helping to deliver a calf. They have to contend with bullies, the potentially isolating nature of rural life, domestic horror (violence, and sickening unwanted attention from Amy’s new ‘Uncle’, permeate the piece, unspoken) and the impact of foot-and-mouth, as Farmer Rodge’s cows burn.

Playing multiple characters, including the fish and chip shop man; a clique of three mean, popular girls (an impressive feat); and, a particular highlight, Howard’s posh horse-riding lady – every village here has one – the pair paint a worryingly accurate picture of Cotswold life: a deeper, darker version of the BBC’s This Country. 

Writer and director Emily Jenkins builds suspense with the piece’s energetic, dance-like movement, which works beautifully in the compact space of the Pleasance Upstairs. Her illustration of the pair's resilience in the face of a gentrifying bid to build over the rural landscape, when the economic climate gets too much, is breathtaking.

Pleasance Upstairs, until August 26

Bible John

In Caitlin McEwan’s gripping show, four female work colleagues bond over their secret obsession with a true crime podcast about Glasgow’s Bible John, the serial killer who murdered three women after they went dancing at the Barrowland Ballroom in the Sixties. The women, played wonderfully by Ella McLeod, Laurie Ogden, Lauren Santana and McEwan herself, become desperate to solve the crime themselves, piecing together clues on their very own evidence board, as paper scatters across the stage. The deeper they go, the more the play delves into the questions: why are women so fascinated by true crime, and at what point does your interest become too morbid?

There is a lot of detail to take in at the start of this fast-paced show, directed by Lizzie Manwaring, and I struggled – perhaps because my brain isn’t attuned to true crime podcasts (as they said, if you’re not a true crime fan, Bible John probably isn’t for you). This weighty information overloads the play, distancing us from its more human element, and it lost my attention slightly in the middle – the repetitive dance sequence, where the women dress up as those involved, including a police officer investigating the crime, and the victims themselves, feels a bit too overwhelming and detracting.

In comparison, the following segment of frantic movement, crafted by movement director Ogden, is where the show really takes off. The girls realise they must break out of their ‘rabbit hole’ and confront what true crime actually means, for both the victims and the women interested in it. McEwan’s monologue pulls apart the anger and fear that women learn to live with, acknowledging that they listen to true crime podcasts in a bid to almost learn the signs to look for in a serial killer, as most victims are women.

The fact that the police gave men a sign that said ‘I am not Bible John’ once they had been eliminated from inquiries, but did not put in place enough safeguarding for the women of Glasgow, places much of the blame on society’s gender divide. So, too, does the play’s exploration of the sexual shame felt by the women who went dancing under pseudonyms at the Barrowlands – we are told the victims ‘just wanted to dance’.

The powerful denouement which examines the ‘non-specific aura of fear’ felt by women, mentioned briefly at the beginning, pulls the play together rather well. As audio of women discussing this fear plays out, you can feel those in the audience silently acknowledge their own experiences of it.

However, the show never quite becomes defiant against that fear – the one that leads us to carry our keys between our fingers – a fact heightened by the chilling acknowledgement that Bible John hasn’t been found, as the group contemplate what he could be doing now.

Pleasance Above, until August 26

Edinburgh Fringe: the queer ones

Len Blanco: Firing Blancs

After my four extra hours and three extra trains’ worth of travelling (thanks, flooded tracks) I was in need of some joy on my first day of the Fringe – and it came in the form of drag king Len Blanco. Len is a newly #woke former boyband member, seemingly embracing feminism and veganism, but during their London Palladium show things take a turn for the worse when a famous special guest fails to show... 

Len is a skilful lipsyncer, but their own songs are the highlight – they could sing the phone book in their silky smooth voice and I would be rapt. I was especially excited to hear Baby again after falling in love with the tune, about why calling a lover ‘baby’ is problematic, during a scratch night. It’s utterly hilarious. If you need some non-stand-up laughs, Len’s the answer. 

It is such a fast-moving piece that some of the jokes and clever wordplay seemed to fall on deaf ears, and I have to admit that I probably missed a few too (though with the acoustics of the new Fringe venue I probably shouldn’t be too surprised), but it is always wonderful to see a drag king tear apart gender conventions. I’ll treasure the ‘dick pic’ forever (…you’ll have to see the show to understand that reference).

Just The Crypt, until August 24

The LOL Word

We were perhaps not the most energetic audience, as special guest headliner Sarah Keyworth noted: ‘Are you wet?’. This, of course, elicited nervous giggles (we definitely were... it had been raining for several days (not so) straight)... but as a room of LGBTQIA+ people, and the token straight audience member, we were always going to enjoy jokes about being misgendered, introducing your girlfriend to a devoutly Catholic family, and the three-strong comedy group’s flyering misadventures, which saw them accidentally target 12-year-old boys. 

Host Chloe Green led the show with panache, joking about everything from her experience working for the Labour Party and trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn from tweeting constantly about manhole covers, to lesbian oil parties (‘the one thing worse than an expensive lesbian oil party is a cheap lesbian oil party – no one wants to go to a means-tested lesbian oil party’). Amusingly, she also flirted with an audience member who turned out to be there with their partner!

The first act Chloe Petts’ description of trying to blend in with the straights (with photo evidence, complete with pink dress and clutch – ‘I didn’t know what to put in there so I just poured a fun-sized bag of Wotsits in’ – and a fringe hiding her ‘gayest eye’) was genius. And Jodie Mitchell’s portrayal of God making the vulnerable bumble bee the crux of the ecosystem, as well as creating a fragile political system, and fragile masculinity (‘I’m crying. Oh sorry, flood’) floored me.

It was also so refreshing to be at a comedy gig where people were careful with pronouns. I will be seeing them again, and not just for the ‘Queers come twice’ badge.

Old Tolbooth Market, until August 25

Pink Lemonade

Mika Johnson’s experience of falling in love with a straight girl is a queer tale as old as time, but the way they present this story is anything but. Mixing slam poetry with monologue and movement, including the most impressively lengthy and uproarious simulated cunnilingus I’ve ever seen, they explore their dating history, exoticisation of their race, and their relationship with gender and sexuality.

Martha Godfrey’s neon pink light design has a well-worn association with femininity, which Mika rejects (a loved one describes their reluctance to wear dresses), and also reflects the bar environment which was formative for Mika’s dating life – alongside the lemon drop cocktail they first made for their love interest, and the bashment soundtrack.

The tension rises as they describe the queer rite of passage of getting a haircut, when the barber tries to persuade them to find a nice man. They insist they like ladies – after all, they’re getting an undercut. The beautifully messy show, directed by the stellar Emily Aboud, is also candid about the way others try to co-opt and use Mika’s identity for their own purposes – the straight woman using their sexuality for her own pleasure, but refusing to commit, or the woman who takes them to a heterosexual, predominantly white pub and parades them in the centre. She fetishises Mika’s brown body, but they take ownership of it by rolling lemons across it, dripping with charisma and confidence. When life gives you lemons... make a vibrant and fresh work of art.

Assembly Roxy, August 21, 23 and 25

I, AmDram 

Hannah Maxwell’s delightful show about her involvement in an amateur dramatics society in Welwyn Garden City (which has been a family pursuit for four generations) left me grinning from ear to ear – it’s the perfect light relief after a morning of heavy plays. 

The fun begins as soon as you’re handed the programme/songsheet – printed upside-down inside in true am-dram fashion – and Hannah leads us in a singalong of ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’, setting the audience up for what will be a riot a minute.

The show explores her struggle, as a queer live art performer living in London, when she returns to the ‘hearts big, racism casual’ nature of small-town shows. Her two worlds merge in the comical moment when her mother uses an underground queer performance night in the capital to advertise an upcoming production of The Pirates Of Penzance.

To illustrate her ‘dual life’, she takes us back in time with audio and visual aids – to the point of her coming out via Robyn’s Dancing On My Own and a carefully donned flannel shirt, and with clips of her am-dram shows played between scene changes on a tiny TV.

Her desire to play the male role of Freddie in My Fair Lady reveals shades of resentment towards a pastime which is inevitably stuck in the past (the group is willing to let youngsters play old people, and elderly folk play teen sweethearts, but not have a woman play a man), leading her to hilariously audition for Eliza instead.

Hannah has devised some ingenious set pieces – she uses the notes of a piano to illustrate a conversation around the dinner table, and begins an ode to the beauty of an awkward, drawn-out blackout in the fast-moving age of technology, of course, in the dark. I was humming her update of the Gilbert and Sullivan song ‘I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General’, transformed to that of 'A Learned Urban Lesbian’, for the rest of the day (I need a recording of this ASAP). 

The emotions Hannah experiences when revisiting home felt slightly underdeveloped in places – her feelings are merely described as ‘something something’, and I would have liked further exploration of what home means for her now – but she takes such ownership of the stage; I could watch her forever. 

Pleasance Courtyard, until August 26

Edinburgh Fringe: the one-woman ones

Now, I’m wholly aware that ‘female’ is not a genre, but I wanted to highlight the wealth of female talent that is on show at the Fringe. These picks are just a drop in the ocean.

I’m A Phoenix, Bitch

Before I got to the Fringe, I was very much of the mind that performance art was not for me. How wrong I was. 

Bryony Kimmings’ exploration of her recovery from PTSD, which occurred after the birth of her son, who became gravely ill, is a stomach punch of a show. Even while singing a rather hilarious song about how women try to make men never leave after their first night together, satirising the ‘predatory woman’ stereotype, she sets the audience on edge. Having reassured us at the start that we are safe, just as her therapist does as she retraces her experiences, she keeps us in a state of tension until the closing line. 

Will Duke’s carefully crafted sets – including a gorgeous recreation of Bryony’s thatched Oxfordshire cottage in miniature – and video design helps her reveal her range through old-timey film personas, haunting songs and spectacular visual effects. But it never feels ‘too much’. 

The tension is increased by Bryony’s movement and repetition, as she paces the stage chanting ‘I’m not coming’ and obsessively lifts weights (suddenly her base outfit of sport gear makes sense), her ‘I’m strong’ mantra from her time in therapy echoing in our ears. The use of a voice modifier to create a deep, male tone which represents her inner monologue (much like the dark voice of depression in Caroline Horton’s mesmerising All Of Me, playing at Summerhall) brings the lasting impressions of her trauma into focus. 

Her manipulation of audience feeling by drip-feeding us information is what makes the show a winner. Her relationships with past, carefree Bryony, who opens the show dressed in a long, blonde wig and orange sequinned dress, and with her son Frank, feel initially lighthearted. The voice memos of funny tips to help Frank survive the apocalypse, which she records throughout the show, is at first merely evidence of the gentle bond between mother and son, until her trauma is gradually revealed (along with mini sets under white sheets, like furniture in a dilapidated house) and we realise he already has survived it. And so has she.

Pleasance Courtyard, until August 25

Algorithms

Sadie Clark’s tale of newly single bisexual woman Brooke's bid to find a date for her 30th birthday party is a heartwarming look at millennial dating – and the intimacy she creates with the audience while playing an array of characters is pure magic. 

Brooke works on compatibility algorithms for an online dating site, and as we bear witness to the dates she goes on, she has her comic timing down pat. However, the strongest thread is the candid exploration of her relationship with her overbearing mother. This lets Clark perfectly offset the funny moments with the empowering message at the heart of the play: ‘You do you’. 

While at times Clark’s clownlike expressions – emotion plastered onto her face – feel a tad well-worn, this cannot dent the spirited nature of her performance. She makes you root for Brooke, and by the end you want to grab a pastel-coloured balloon from the set and just dance.

Pleasance Courtyard, until August 26

Madame Ovary

Rosa Hesmondhalgh’s beautiful mixing of prose and poetry, and her powerful, startling transition between the two, was a highlight of my Fringe. I had such a bodily, visceral reaction to her words (likely heightened by the heat of the full house – full for good reason). This blending is what Rosa does most artfully – the humour with the tragedy, the cold and clinical with human warmth.

She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 23, and at the heart of the surprisingly feel-good show is the thanks she gives to the support she received while undergoing chemotherapy, upending her worry that she would never find love. While many of us thankfully cannot connect to the central topic, Rosa still ensures that the show feels wonderfully relatable, with her portrayal of the struggle of online dating and the search for a successful career after getting an arts degree. She puts multimedia to good use, with tidy messages to 'Tinder Boy' contrasting with the messy representation of Googling symptoms that later fills the screen.

The opening resolutions from the year she was diagnosed come full circle – her dreams of making good art, of looking after her body, and of getting her priorities right. These priorities – or rather her understanding of them – have naturally altered by the end, a fact Rosa reveals with the merest of changes in expression, and emphasises with a poignant closing video montage featuring a cameo from a certain documentary-maker...

Pleasance Dome, until August 26

Collapsible

Breffni Holahan breathlessly rattles through Margaret Perry’s words, crouching uncomfortably on a plinth for the duration as dust from it falls to the floor – the perfect symbol of her precarious, panicky existence. Despite a few slip-ups (inevitable in a show of this nature), Breffni’s performance as newly single and jobless Essie is staggering. Her mantra-like recital of the list of words describing her, put together to help with her job search, grips you. She hopes to find a sense of belonging and identity in them, but you are jolted out of believing that can work each time she is unable to finish the sentence ‘Feet firmly on the ground’, as the sound of crashing rocks plays out. 

When her ex-girlfriend points out that these are simply generic job application words – those you are meant to define yourself with in a society which lays out the expected, stable path of a career and marriage – she cannot handle her security blanket being taken from her. As Essie snatches the list back, we see a chink of violence that sits unnervingly under the surface, echoed by her ex’s testimony – her troubles run deeper still. 

The beauty of Collapsible lies in the images created by Perry to convey Essie’s hopelessness – a body full of stones, the desire to slip into someone else’s skin – and Alison Neighbour’s crumbling set. But as the lights go down, you sense that her cry for help might just be answered.

Assembly Roxy, until August 25

Sexy Lamp

A woman sits with a lampshade on her head, as sound bytes of well-known films treating women with... contempt feels like too weak a word... play in the background. Aptly wordless, she uses cue cards to note that if a female character in a film can be replaced with a sexy lamp without altering the plot, it fails writer Kelly Sue DeConnick's sexy lamp test. 

Katie Arnstein's humorous ukulele-based examination of what we might have expected when booking the show (it shall not be sexy, nor include much in the way of lighting chit-chat) takes us nicely into her journey to becoming an actor, and her desire to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz – the film that led her to this career. 

But we’re soon shown a darker side to the industry – after all, the only lead paid less than Judy Garland was Toto the dog. We see the horrors of a ‘part-time full-time job’ got via an agency that was sickeningly also an escort agency; an agent who tells her there aren’t many roles for ‘tall girls’; and an audition she is forced to do topless. This deliberately jars with Katie's joyous, playful songs, juxtaposing an actor’s desire to play with the harsh reality of being a female in the job. 

Yet, in the aftermath of the #MeToo era, Katie chooses to end on a hopeful note, with a moving, empowering tale of how she helped a woman being harassed on the Tube: finally, she is Dorothy. Her plea to the audience to see more female-led shows, after telling us of the struggle to just get to the Fringe as a woman, sits on my chest – it feels more urgent than ever.

Pleasance Courtyard, until August 26