Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: The Book of Mountains and Seas | I Sell Windows | Gogo Boots Go + more

The Book of Mountains and Seas  ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August

In this digital age every life leaves a trail, but when Archie, a young Chinese-American, is attacked and killed in New York, all his parents have of their son is his Yelp reviews page.

So his father, Raymond (Eric Elizaga, whose performance here is particularly strong), makes the journey from California to New York armed with a printed and anotated version, aiming to visit every one of the 179 restaurants his son reviewed.

He persuades Archie’s boyfriend Andrew (Ephraim Birney) to accompany him, throwing them together on an awkward - not to mention impossible - culinary quest.

From ordering everything on the menu at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeout to having a night out together at a gay bar, they navigate the tricky territory of post-bereavement: is it ever possible to really know someone? When is the right time to move on?

This play by Yilong Liu, a playwriting fellow at the Juilliard School in New York, has already been recognised with a number of awards in the US. It’s a story of fathers and sons, of what it means to enable your children to fly the nest, and what they might rather you didn’t know about their independent lives.

It’s also a migrant story about adapting to life in a new country while seeking out, through food, flavours and memories of home.

The events of the play are framed by Archie (Charles Hsu), who appears through the urbane, sassy voice of his writing (he refers to one diner’s avocado toast as “a sweet, hot piece of sh*t”). He is both present and absent, a reminder not to read too much into the traces which remain.

While the pace falters at times, this is solid writing, a thoughtful examination of grief, love and learning to let go.

Susan Mansfield

I Sell Windows ★★★

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 25 August

Kacie is a good salesperson. She could probably sell windows to a cave dweller. It’s all about that extra psychological push. But then, she is a former actress so she’s used to selling an idea and she does appear to have known words like “sociopath” from the age of five when she fought back against racist bullies in the playground.

Through weekly sessions with her therapist, portrayed as a shadow puppet on an overhead projector, we learn that she is working through grief and guilt over the death of her grandfather, a man who knew how to deliver the world’s pithiest grace.

At the heart of this wry monologue written and performed by Kacie Rogers is an extended anecdote about attending an audition in New York when she could have been back home but there are also fabulist elements as Rogers personifies two conflicting influences on her life, one pulling her back, the other urging her on.

These are also portrayed as shadow puppets – a nice visual touch but one which needs to be more clearly executed for it to be dramatically effective.

Fiona Shepherd

Gogo Boots Go  ★★★

Zoo Playground (Venue 186) Until 25 August

Young all-female theatre company Talkers & Doers, who had a sell-out hit on last year’s Fringe with 1 Tent, 4 Girls, return this year with a very different piece.

Gogo Boots Go is a two-hander written by its two performers, Rosalie Roger-Lacan (who wrote 1 Tent, 4 Girls) and Amber Charlie-Conroy, which is more complex than it first appears.

Charlie (Charlie-Conroy) runs a wedding dress shop, Clelia (Roger-Lacan) is a bride-to-be, and designer Alice Flagan has created a superb wedding-shop set. But right from the start something is off-kilter. Clelia doesn’t seem to have a lot of enthusiasm for her “traditional wedding” to Yves; Charlie can’t stop asking her personal questions. It’s edgily surreal.

One feels the company is not quite clear whether they’re going for out-and-out comedy or something more nuanced. The drama of the piece depends on its unspoken undercurrents, and that’s hard to stage. It’s all about the subtle cues buried in the conversation, which requires absolute clarity from the actors and director.

However, as they did in 1 Tent, 4 Girls, Talkers & Doers capture female communication, both in what is said and what is left unsaid.

Susan Mansfield

Murder at the Fringe ★★★

Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41) until 25 August

Anyone who remembers the cheesy old ITV game show Whodunnit? should get a kick out of this neat interactive murder mystery.

Throughout the 1970s Jon Pertwee would host a weekly homicide investigation where a panel of celebrities between proper jobs were invited to play detective and question the suspects. That’s essentially the format of this show from Edinburgh Little Theatre - except here you are the detectives!

Lottery winner, John Winner (yes, it’s that sort of show) has been found dead, shot, in the study of his Morningside manse. Who could have done it? All the suspects - the ex-wife, the lover, the financial advisor or dodgy MP - had the means and motive. There’s even a butler (this is Morningside, after all).

All the characters are stock, their script littered with clues rather than much else but the actors all know their backstories well and don’t fold under questioning. This comes to life under the audience’s examinations and the cast clearly enjoy the interaction.

There’s a certain buzz of satisfaction if you guess the murderer correctly at the end (reader, I nailed it) but one lady’s justification for her - in this instance - erroneous choice was so convincing that it suggests that the culprit could easily change every night. 

Rory Ford

Good Luck, Catherine Frost! ★★★

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 25 August 

Where are the philosophies of birth? Catherine Frost wonders, as she recounts the entry points that led her to motherhood. The audience assists her in this by turning into a series of characters - we are Socrates, her husband, her husband’s genitals, even - and in one scene participants are tasked with reenacting her C-section.

There is a sense of playfulness from the off, something mischievous about each moment of action and interaction onstage. No detail is too intimate, it seems. As with childbirth, nothing is spared. 

While the piece has a softness to it, it also provides a serious education on pregnancy, miscarriage and abortion. We bristle collectively when we learn how one third of women will experience childbirth as a traumatic event, that patients who elect to have a self-determined abortion in Frost’s native Norway also forfeit their rights to sick leave and after-care. 

We consider the feeling of a contraction, and the loneliness of giving birth on the bathroom floor. The material is thought-provoking, if too long at an hour and twenty minutes. But Frost is certainly onto something - if Socrates had been able to conceive, the phrase ‘cradle of Western civilisation’ would have a very different meaning today.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts 

My Pretties ★★

theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall - Theatre 3 (Venue 53) until 24 August

Double, double, toil and trouble. Neighbours Agatha and Cassandra have been let down by men one too many times - in a fit of rage, they vow off romantic relationships and decide to start a supernatural smoothie business instead. Who among us hasn’t been tempted to do the same?

The performance feels more like a collection of short sketches than a cohesive story, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing; from a magic tribunal (complete with a wizard hand puppet acting as the prosecutor) to a PG-13 musical number sung solely from the perspective of local delivery men, My Pretties is at its best when it engages fully with the absurd.

Ariane Branigan