By Kelly Apter, Josephine Balfour-Oatts, Fiona Shepherd, David Pollock

Published 10th Aug 2023, 14:11 GMT

KING ****

Dance Base (Venue 22) until 27 August

When Pat Kinevane walks onto the stage, you know you’re in safe hands. His ability to create and embody characters who live on the edges of society has been proven time and again. Previous Fringe shows Forgotten, Silent, Underneath and Before all saw us spellbound by his storytelling prowess and feeling a deep well of empathy for whoever he’s portraying. KING packs the same punch, taking us into the humble home of Luther, a middle-aged man from Cork who wants a last shot at love before it’s too late.

The stage is strewn with purple, from the kettle to the ironing board, a nod to Luther’s cash-in-hand evening job as an Elvis impersonator. As he presses his shirt and trousers, ready for the wedding gig ahead, he takes us into his confidence. Family members loom large – his dearly departed mother, his terminally ill father and biggest of all, Granny Bee Baw who named him after her hero, Martin Luther King.

Although KING is a theatre show, there’s a reason Kinevane’s Fringe venue of choice is always Dance Base. Physicality plays a central role in all his work, and this is no different. Intermittently breaking off from telling us a tale, he eases into an Argentine tango, arms aloft, filled with a passion that can find no other home.

There’s a vulnerability to Luther that Kinevane pitches perfectly. References to his mental ill health, and the medication he relies on to manage it, are delicately handled with a dash of humour. But as memories of family secrets and adolescent trauma are imparted to the audience, we see just how deep those vulnerabilities lie.

Kinevane writes beautifully and delivers his words with wit and gravitas in equal measure, but it’s his connection with the audience that impresses most.

Kelly Apter

Fool’s Paradise ***

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 27 August

Britt Plummer and her long-time, long-distance fiancé, Otto, are about to get married. A white dress lingers in the back expectantly, Plummer is waiting - it’s time to get ready for the ceremony. But where is the groom?

Otto is wished into shape, made up by a microphone stand, a mop head, an empty suit, and memories. It is 2019, it is 2020: the couple meet for months at a time, but they live a world away from one another, on opposite ends of the Earth.

What is challenging enough in practice is, for Plummer, complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. When the international borders to her native Australia close, the pair are back to loving in long-distance - here shown brilliantly through snatches of puppetry, a nostalgic meal for two, and personalised ringtones.

The tension tires dramatically at points, becoming as absent as the groom, who still isn’t here. He’s not at the altar, and he’s not emotionally present in his relationship with Plummer, either. So, will he call? Will he show?

At once imaginative, lively and transportive, Fool’s Paradise captures the struggles of sustaining a romantic relationship, when your chief means of maintaining intimacy is an iPhone.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

The Death of Molly Miller ***

Underbelly (Venue 61) until 27 August

Molly Miller is a social media influencer turned reality TV star, whose house is supposedly crammed with stacks of money and complementary designer goods. At least that’s what the young man who breaks into her house and takes her hostage, desperately seeking money to pay off his gambling debts to the local gangster, believes.

“You make people feel shit for not being millionaires,” he barks at her, positive she’s undeserving of her success and lifestyle. “I make aspirational content,” she says back, attempting to calm him, but also more determined than he imagined she would be. Even as his jeopardy builds, the pair bond over their enjoyment of food from Wagamama, and he realises Molly is a lot like him, not least in the fact they’re both taken advantage of by people more powerful than them for money.

Produced by Wound Up Theatre, also the home of satires It’ll Be Alt-Right on the Night and Bismillah! An ISIS Tragicomedy, The Death of Molly Miller’s origins as a BBC Radio 4 play are clear; Matthew Greenhough’s script is built for conversation, not action, and it retreads its own steps a little too much. Yet it’s a solid piece of work, thanks especially to Greenhough and Esther-Grace Button’s performances, with a biting pay-off right at the end.

David Pollock

Thirst ***

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 28 August

Callum Hughes is easy company, the kind of guy you can imagine passing the time with over a few pints. And that was his problem. For over a decade, this actor/musician was very good at drinking in a way that was very bad for his liver.

He eventually gets to the crunch moment in the closing minutes of the show but before then he has sundry key scenes from his life to share, colouring in the detail with bursts of song on his trusty guitar. Many, most, of these scenes involve partying and alcohol or substances yet nothing too high stakes and almost all of it genial, surrounded by loving family and caring mates.

Hughes captures the insidious nature of addiction, particularly the lie that you’ve got your habit under control. He doesn’t make a meal of his mental health but he’s been struggling with the noise in his head since childhood. At different points in his life, religion, cannabis and alcohol provided temporary respite.

The lightness of touch in his delivery makes it all too relatable and the abruptness with which he ends his account of his near-death experience suggests that there is no neat conclusion he can offer.

Fiona Shepherd

Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England ****

theSpace @ Niddry Street (Venue 9) until 22 August

Inspired by the real-life story of the roofer who briefly became a celebrity after being pictured on Leicester Square with a gushing smoke flare shoved up his backside before the COVID-delayed Euro 2020 final in July 2021, the in-yer-face show title and garish flyer image tell the audience this will either be a piece of garish football hooliganism cash-in or a brave work of subversive genius.

Now the scores are in, it’s pleasing to report that, although it doesn’t break major boundaries, RoxyDog Productions’ one-person show sits closer to the latter.

Billy (Alex Hill) is a teenage Londoner who feels suffocated doing menial jobs in his parents’ hair salon and yearns for something more, until football comes along and fills the gap. It’s all healthy at first; he and his childhood friend Adam have a ritual of café (where Billy and the waitress are getting closer) on Saturday morning and AFC Wimbledon match in the afternoon, until a group of older fans take an interest in the pair. Together, their generally lairy behaviour gives way to organised fights with away fans.

While Adam backs away, Billy – spurred by drink, drugs and the unaddressed grief of his mother’s death – revels in the adrenaline and sense of belonging, until his fateful day on Wembley Way. The flare incident and its personal fallout are glossed over, a brief, inarticulate radio interview aside, but Hill’s performance is especially powerful, as Billy’s puppyish youthful eagerness builds into a kind of psychosis.

Both Billy and Adam’s psychological states feed into the wider conversation about men’s mental health, and actor/writer/producer Hill and director Sean Turner deserve a lot of credit for a pacey, involving show which gets to the heart of the lack of direction and meaning which brings young men together to cause trouble.

David Pollock

Edinburgh Festival Fringe theatre reviews: KING | Fool’s Paradise | The Death of Molly Miller | Thirst | Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England