Edinburgh Fringe Theatre reviews: June Carter Cash – The Woman, Her Music, and Me + more...

A new show about June Carter Cash, a music-themed drama about leaving prison, and a slick sci-fi sex comedy are among the highlights in our critics’ latest Fringe theatre round-up

Charlene Boyd in June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music, and Me | Pic: Jess Hardwick

June Carter Cash - The Woman, Her Music, and Me 

Summerhall (Venue 26)

★★★★☆

It was lockdown in Glasgow, and as a divorced single mum with two small children, the actress and singer Charlene Boyd was struggling a little in her unglamorous high-rise flat.  What she had, though, was time to explore the story of a woman whose story had always intrigued her, through years of singing backing vocals with a Glasgow-based Johnny Cash tribute band.  The woman was June Carter Cash, 35 years married to the troubled genius of 20th century country music; but as Boyd read and researched, she soon realised that June had been a radio and stage star of the country scene for almost three decades before she married Cash, not only as a singer and songwriter, but as a gifted comedienne and actress.

When she first met Cash, in 1956, she was therefore the big star, and he the bold beginner; and it’s the story of June’s early struggle to maintain and build an independent career in a patriarchal world, while raising two small daughters from two broken marriages, that Charlene Boyd intertwines with her own, in what is not only a stunning solo performance, but also her debut as a playwright.

Backed by a brilliant three-piece onstage band, and put together by an outstanding creative team – including director Cora Bissett, music director Pippa Murphy and designer Shona Reppe – June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music And Me emerges as a stunningly vivid and heartfelt tribute show-cum-memoir, all dressed up in 1950s hillbilly frills and sparkly stetsons, or then again in Boyd’s practical 2020s travelling gear of tartan trews, zip-up jacket and woolly hat.

Boyd’s performance fairly stops the heart, full of wit, beauty, musicality, joy and heartbreak, as she twirls around the little cabaret stage and through an adoring audience.  And she finally connects with June’s own children in a way that gives her a rare sense of completion, in telling a story that resonates with so many women’s lives; while the audience join her in a rousing chorus of Ring Of Fire, a song that Boyd sang for years, before she finally realised that it was a young June Carter Cash who wrote it, in the hope of earning enough money to buy a new couch.

Joyce McMillan

until 24 August

A Giant On The Bridge

Assembly Roxy (Venue 139)

★★★☆☆

Liam Hurley and Jo Mango’s A Giant On The Bridge, playing at Assembly Roxy, is another piece of powerful and thoughtful music theatre made in Scotland. The show’s theme is the difficult and hazardous moment of transition faced by men leaving prison; and it’s presented, on a dark stage, by five performers, each of whom uses different means to tell a different strand of the story. One narrates, one raps, another two sing and play guitar, and one simply speaks her verse; and if the number of perspectives the show offers seems bewildering and a little shapeless, then so, at times, is the constant shifting of registers between different art forms, delivered at varying levels of intensity. 

Louis Abbott himself is a terrific musical narrator though, full of purpose and passion; and Louise McCraw on guitar and vocals likewise turns in an unforgettable performance as the prisoner’s twin sister, living through a moment of unbearably conflicting emotions as her brother both returns “home”, and by his very presence threatens to destroy the new life she has painstakingly built during his long absence. 

Joyce McMillan

until 18 August

Sisyphean Quick Fix

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

★★★☆☆

This new two-hander from Malta-born, London-based writer and performer Bettina Paris focuses on two sisters struggling to cope with the volatile behaviour of their alcoholic father. It is a short, sweet and serious story about sisterly love and the stresses of dealing with addiction in a strict society, delicately performed by Paris and Tina Rizzo.

Paris plays Krista, an aspiring Maltese actor living in London. Rizzo plays Pip, her younger sister, living back home in Valletta with their declining, drink-addled father. The first fifteen minutes plays out via video calls and phone conversations. Then the situation deteriorates: Krisa returns to Malta, and the sisters spend their days hiding their dad’s whiskey and fretting when he goes missing, their own dreams forgotten.

Nicky Allpress’ production unfolds without fuss on Matthew Cassar’s simple set of heavily-stickered cases, and Paris and Rizzo share a sensitive, sisterly chemistry.

Paris packs a lot into forty-five minutes: the guilt felt by migrants living far from their families; the bitterness lurking in those left behind; the shame of caring for an alcoholic, abusive parent; the resentment engendered by the attention and time they demand. All of this and more is explored in deft dialogue peppered with evocative Maltese detail.

Fergus Morgan

until 26 August

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44 Sex Acts In One Week | Pic: Contributed

44 Sex Acts In One Week

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

★★★☆☆

Fringe First winner David Finnigan (You’re Safe Til 2024: Deep History) swaps thoughtful deep history for uproarious deep thrusts in this slick sci-fi sex comedy for a cast of four. Cub reporter Celina Valderama is sick of writing clickbait for sensationalist blog She Squad but is blackmailed into road-testing and reviewing a new sex manual, The 44 Sex Acts That Will Change Your Life, by hyper-stimulated sex guru Malaine Gutierrez. She’s single and there’s a deadline so her drippy eco-warrior colleague Alab Delusa will have to do as a partner. We’re strictly before the watershed here so some audio-visual imagination is required and thus banana meets melon with mushy sound effects.

The cast follow through on the foley soundtrack with some creative sonic effects and vocal distortion which they approach with as much alacrity as they do their spurts in the spotlight. Rebecca Massey is particularly out-there as the grasping Gutierrez, urging her acolytes to get animalistic. Speaking of which, there are some frogs spawning in the dank warehouse where Celina bunks and it’s all set to get primordial in this pounding and priapic ramped-up romp.

Fiona Shepherd

until 26 August

3HAMS

Just the Tonic at The Mash House (Venue 288)

★★★☆☆

In this gonzo sci-fi exploration of eating disorders, Max (Makena Miller) and Ry (Charlie Traisman) are both bright, articulate actors who are plagued by self-doubt and poor self-esteem. The friends wake up in their own heads, a pink velvet-curtained zone with a glowing slab of ham at the centre like an oracular visitation. This promising and surreal set-up gives way to a somewhat piecemeal mix of angsty, candid encounters between the pair; internalised debates on romantic relationships and their image-obsessed industry; and leavening cabaret set-pieces involving posh cocktails, French chefs, gender selection apps and disco dancing.

Whether ironically or deliberately, this is tapas theatre. Some interludes are tastier than others and while it’s not always clear in the moment if the ingredients will mix well, by the end of the show it’s been good to both share something of what can be a particularly private, lonely and knotty illness, and shine a light on societal pressures and anxieties that don’t necessarily mitigate with age, but still disproportionately affect young women.

Fiona Shepherd

until 25 August

Waitin 4 Gaia

TheSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9)

★★☆☆☆

Written and directed by Rosie Margree, this three-hander from young, Leeds-based company LS6 Theatre is, apparently, a spin on Waiting For Godot. Two women, both dressed as Disney princesses, sit on a graffitied bench, drink Lambrini, and contemplate their various anxieties. One has just broken up with her boyfriend. Another is thinking about doing similarly. An odd bloke with bells on his shoes turns up, spouts vague advice, leads them on a jaunty dance while he sings a song about a whale, then falls asleep. It is all fairly sophomoric and sloppy. Beckett it is not.

Fergus Morgan

until 17 August