Theatre review: Torch Town, Greenside @ Nicolson Square, Edinburgh

Peter and Alice are going to get married, ride on a honeymoon in space, and slay dragons.

Torch Town, Greenside @ Nicolson Square (Venue 209)

Torch Town, Greenside @ Nicolson Square, Edinburgh * * *

Peter doesn’t want to play football or go to the pub or Man Up, but he’s running from the people who want play doctor with his head. Alice wants to mend her family, close her ears against the sound of mum and dad shouting every night, as their arguments wash in like angry storms.

Birmingham’s Tiny Change Theatre aims to make big ideas in small rooms. Sure enough the studio space at Greenside opens up in a little piece of magic, to the attic where Peter and Alice make their escape, as the stars wash over them and they build Torch Town as a city of lights. Lighting, thunderous sound and deft theatrical effects are poured into the little stage, in a minor miracle of Fringe production between get-in and get-out.

It is a stellar performance by Lara Sprosen, who as as Alice is a bundle of energy and expression, scrumpling her face in confusion one minute, reaching for the stars the next, legs and arms firing in different directions. Sprosen and Tom Garrett, as Peter, are physical opposites, none more so than when she teaches him to waltz; he’s lanky, and has a Steinbeck quality of simpleness, which in the script sometimes feels ever-so-slightly old-fashioned.

Until 24 August

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