Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Self-Raising | Raising Kane | When Kurt Met Thora | It’s a Woman’s World | Coconut | Varmints | The Only Punk Rocker In The Village

A slice-of-life solo play about family secrets from disability-led company Graeae is pick of the bunch among our latest round-up of Fringe theatre reviews

Self-Raising ****

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23), until 27 August

A bag of flour has a weight and density akin to a small baby. This is what I discover when Jenny Sealey hands me one of her “flour babies”. All of them have names and, for the purposes of this show, they stand-in for her family members. This solo show by the artistic director of disability-led company Graeae is very much about family, in particular about the secrets families keep, sometimes from one another.

Sealey, who has led Graeae since 1997, is more used to directing than performing, but is nonetheless at home on stage, frank, funny and moving. Self-Raising, co-written with Mike Kenny, best known for his award-winning adaptation of The Railway Children, takes a meandering course through various aspects of her life. BSL interpretation and audio description are integrated smoothly and often wittily into the performance.

Sealey is deaf, having lost her hearing in an accident at the age of seven, and this could make a show in itself. Her parents were advised not to let her learn BSL because they “didn’t want her to grow up looking deaf”. She became adept at passing for hearing, but struggled in groups and dreaded large gatherings. More shockingly, her deafness made it easier for a doctor to abuse her under the guise of treating her condition.

The main heft of the show, however, is nothing to do with deafness, it’s about the family secret which she discovered after her father’s death, and is impact on her and her siblings. It feels as though there are at least three different stories struggling to become the dominant narrative in this production. But life isn’t neat, and this show is a slice of life, honestly and warmly delivered. Susan Mansfield

Raising Kane ***

Self-Raising

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 28 August

Congratulations to David Shopland, artistic director of the Fake Escape theatre company. He takes one of those entirely adequate one-person bioplays of a famous figure which appear with predictable regularity on the Fringe, and turns it under our noses into a far more thoughtful and engaging piece about the nature of hero worship and the measure of success as an artist.

The majority of the piece sees him in character as famed film director Orson Welles, soon after the release of his career-defining Citizen Kane in 1941. The recreation is so thorough, in fact, that the staging and makeup present Welles in an almost-convincing black and white, looking much like Kane physically. Welles recounts his life, including his early days as a wannabe painter and emerging actor in Ireland, the famed radio adaptation of HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds which caused a panic and made his name, and media baron William Randolph Hearst’s displeasure with Citizen Kane.

Then Shopland himself appears, explaining where his and Welles’ biographies overlapped in the story, and where Welles’ diverged when he found fame with Kane aged just 26, claiming he doesn’t want to end up as angry as Kane did in his later career. This personal touch elevates a show which had been run of the mill. David Pollock

When Kurt Met Thora **

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 19 August

This straightforward, warm-hearted two-hander imagines an encounter between Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and national treasure Thora Hird in a BBC green room in late 1991. Neither has a clue who the other is and they could hardly be two more contrasting personalities but they come together over a shared love of The Beatles and seal their meeting with a harmony burst of Mr Sandman. Hird’s chat is all no nonsense working class humour and maternal warmth while Cobain’s language is overly florid as he opens up about his troubled adolescence and dark thoughts over a custard cream. Fiona Shepherd

It’s a Woman’s World **

theSpace Triplex (Venue 38) until 20 August

Exeter University’s Theatre With Teeth tackle the ingrained sexism of the Hollywood movie machine in this ensemble piece set during the transition from silent films to talkies. It’s a Woman’s World initially seems to reinforce sexist stereotypes - the female characters are either peachy keen ingénues or femme fatales or scurrying secretaries. But that is presumably the point. These were the roles available at the time – restrictive enough to provoke star turn Mary Costa to set up her own studio to combat the abuses of the system. In this production, it is the female characters who are most roundly sketched while the closing roll call of Hollywood greats, from Ida Lupino to Hedy Lamarr, is a reminder of the women who blazed a trail against the odds. Fiona Shepherd

Coconut ***

theSpace @ Niddry Street (Venue 39) until 26 August

A young woman tells us about her life, and is particularly frank about the sexual part of it. She likes young white men with one-syllable names who think they’re bound for becoming the next version of superstar DJ Fred again…, because their “sheer audacity” makes them good in bed. She works in Primark and is an aspiring actor, but her parents are disappointed in her. They expected her to enter a “brown career”.

Written by medical student Ellora Kamineni and directed by Neetu Singh, with an alternating actor in the lead role for each performance, Coconut is a sharp and bitingly funny look at the lives of young British-Indian women. In particular, this character’s carefree and hedonistic European life sits at odds with the hopes which drew her parents over from India, yet the careful and relatable writing blossoms out into a wider tale of grief over her elder sister’s death.

This show doesn’t appear in the Fringe programme and is split between two venues (note the 21 to 26 August dates are at theSpaceTriplex), suggesting it was a late addition. As the group of young women behind it introduce themselves at show’s end, they’re open about their inexperience; in fact, today’s lead actor is performing in her first play. It only makes this confident, compelling and truthful debut even easier to recommend. David Pollock

Varmints 1star

Greenside @ Nicolson Square (Venue 209) until 19 August

Yee - and unfortunately - naw! Edinburgh’s Punk Monkey Theatre shot at a meta Haggis Western proves far too ambitious as a showdown in a ramshackle saloon devolves into chaos. Things briefly threaten to get interesting as one stranger suddenly enters dressed like a Hibs casual and the cast revert to their own accents, slipping in and out of character with flat footed abandon. There’s actually an apparently sincere emotional point to this but it comes too late and the script is even more rickety than the bar. Sometimes the cast do appear have some fun with it but more often their diffident performances - and material - can’t match their aim. Rory Ford

The Only Punk Rocker In The Village **

TheSpace Triplex (Venue 38) until 19 August

Irish storyteller Dermot Petty is a likeable, loquacious chap, but his solo show The Only Punk Rocker In The Village is just nowhere near developed enough. It is autobiographical and essentially consists of Petty recounting his adolescent awakening in the sleepy County Clare village of Lisdoonvarna to the tunes of the Ramones, Patti Smith, The Sex Pistols and more. There is the odd little skit, too – Petty teaches his audience how to pogo dance, and stages a mock episode of Mastermind to tell this history of punk rock – but, at barely 30 minutes long, this show needs a lot more work. Fergus Morgan