Edinburgh Fringe Theatre reviews: Aether | r/Conspiracy | Shirley: A Ghost Story | Baby in the Mirror + more
A science-heavy play about dark matter has almost too much material, but is endlessly surprising, writes Susan Mansfield in this latest Fringe theatre round-up from our critics
Aether
Summerhall (Venue 26)
★★★★☆
How does one make a piece of theatre about dark matter, the material which makes up most of the universe, but which we cannot see and don’t really understand? It’s a tall order, but Emma Howlett, the writer and director behind TheatreGoose’s Fringe hits, Her Green Hell and Sisters Three, is determined to give it a go.
In a fast-moving production packed with energy and inventiveness, the four women performers power through the stories of five women operating on the edge of the unknown, playing everyone and everything from Nobel Prize winning physicists to different types of quark, referencing styles which range from a science lecture to a TV games show.
Sophie is a particle physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider at Cerne, but she’s on the verge of quitting her PhD because the Great Unknown is not showing any signs of giving up its secrets.
She – and the company – look to the past for inspiration, settling first on Hypatia, a female mathematician and astronomer in 4th century Alexandria who met a violent death at the hands of a mob. Via a teenage medium in London in 1874, and vaudeville magician Adelaide Herrmann, known as the Queen of Magic, we arrive at Vera Rubin, the American astrophysicist who provided the first widely accepted evidence for the existence of dark matter.
It makes for a piece of theatre which hurtles around like the particles in the Large Hadron Collider, firing out stories, ideas and information in all directions. It’s packed with research, and so much science it’s in danger of leaving a significant percentage of its audience behind.
While it does need a greater degree of focus, and perhaps a little less material, it’s a well-written and endlessly surprising look at humankind’s fascination with the unknown, the different ways we have pursued it, and how it has affected us.
SUSAN MANSFIELD
until 25 August
r/Conspiracy
Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140)
★★★☆☆
For twentysomething Alex the internet is a place, one she feels at home in and comforted by. Yet it’s also somewhere danger and darkness can be found, albeit at the far remove of mutual anonymity and scary places observed on online maps. She trawls the popular internet forum Reddit, looking in discussion groups called things like r/Local, r/Crime and r/Conspiracy, and pieces together a fantastical, fragmentary understanding of the world.
Others like her are out there, including anonymous user Hipnotic, who reveals Alex’s local park is the locus of an online conspiracy theory about a masked figure known as ‘the machete man’. Intrigued, she finds clues which reinforce this theory, and decides to break safety protocols by meeting Hipnotic in real life.
Writer/performer Ella Hällgren and director Emma Ruse wrong-foot the audience with the tone from here, because the play’s not so much a journey into the internet’s heart of darkness as it is a creepy but Scooby Doo-ish adventure in which an insular and directionless young woman finds herself and her people, first online, then in reality. In particular, it comes thoroughly recommended for the measured and captivating solo performance by Hällgren, who sells every twist and emotional turn with versatile accuracy.
DAVID POLLOCK
until 24 August
Shirley: A Ghost Story
theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53)
★★★☆☆
Far from a straight biography, more a hall of mirrors, this weirdly compelling one-woman show is inspired by the life and work of Shirley Jackson with reference to the ghost stories of M.R. James. Initially, this appears an odd pairing as Jackson’s psychologically acute uncanny tales feature characters who are haunted by something ghost-like rather than James’ more traditional phantoms.
Similarly, the Shirley (an impressive Jasmin Gleeson) here is not Jackson but like her. After finding success with her short stories, Shirley is pressured by her husband to write a more conventional supernatural tale as a novel. Bridling at this, Shirley recalls her formative years (now reimagined as in Gleeson’s native Ireland rather than Jackson’s California) prodding at her memories, searching for what haunts her.
Josh King’s script is largely fictitious but it seems apt — like something Jackson would write for one of her own characters. It’s not true but it feels true. While Shirley scorns the cursed tomes that furnish more antiquated ghost stories, King rather rushes his story toward an almost Jamesian reveal which, while admittedly more psychological, feels a little at odds with the nature of Jackson’s writing — which would have probably preferred to leave things unexplained.
RORY FORD
until 23 August
Baby in the Mirror
Summerhall (Venue 26)
★★★☆☆
This first production from new theatre company SecondAdolescence explores the fraught process of a queer family considering parenthood with sensitivity and humour.
Lena and Joey are a couple that want to have a baby. Lena is a woman. Joey is trans. Last year, Joey got cold feet about conceiving via a sperm donor. Now, the two of them have moved into a new flat and decided to start a family, DIY-style, with their gay best friend Ollie. Lena will be the baby’s mum, Joey its “Dappy”, and Ollie its “Spuncle.”
Over three long scenes, though, things fall apart. Resentments about past behaviour surface. Anxieties about bodies emerge. Tensions over parenthood boil over.
Co-created by Sammy J Glover and Stella Marie Sophie, Baby in the Mirror authentically articulates some tricky topics, its overlapping dialogue and cardboard-cluttered set effectively evoking an angsty atmosphere. It also features three nicely naturalistic performances from Sophie, Zoë West and Derek Mitchell as Lena, Joey and Ollie.
The play’s fast-paced conversations are overwritten at times – too slick, too sitcom-like – and it ends somewhat abruptly, but this is a promising debut from SecondAdolescence nonetheless: a pained portrait of planning for queer parenthood.
FERGUS MORGAN
until 25 August
Almost Everything
Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41)
★★★☆☆
Becca meets Charlie when she’s looking for a room in a London flat. They bond, bicker and become best pals. Both are haunted by events in their pasts, and they weather good times and bad together. But when Becca’s vivacious sister Emily arrives in town, the friendship turns into a love triangle.
Writer/performers Lauren Barrie and Ben McGuinness set out to create a drama about contemporary relationships in the vein of Sally Rooney’s Normal People or David Nicholls’ One Day. The result is a play which feels a bit like it should be a novel; it’s hard to keep up pace and tension when tracing your characters through the course of several years.
There are strong performances from McGuinness (Charlie), Barrie (Becca) and Imogen Eden-Brown (Emily), and Tiffany Yu has created a stylish domestic set, but the dialogue sometimes lacks the necessary sharpness and some of the plot twists are straight out of central casting. However, the play has something meaningful to say about the things which trip people up, which hold them back from taking the risks which will determine whether they gain or lose almost everything.
SUSAN MANSFIELD
until 24 August
Wilde Women
Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236)
★★☆☆☆
A backstage audience with Lily Langtry as she prepares the titular celebration of the playwright’s eminent ladies, this frustratingly bitty show by Texas-based performer Krista Scott doesn’t really work as tribute to Wilde or the illustrious actress. Scott is fine as Langtry but the piecemeal nature of the material is barrier to engagement. Neither a wedge of exposition from An Ideal Husband or an unusually lengthy recounting of the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest provide much in the way of entertainment or insight. Although less than edifying, the production is at least handsomely mounted and looks authentic.
RORY FORD
until 16 August
Flora Macdonald and Zombies
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30)
★★☆☆☆
until 16 August
Given that the novelty of appending “and Zombies” to an unlikely partner lost its appeal about 10 years ago you could be forgiven for expecting that this show from Debbie Cannon might have an ace up its sleeve. Unfortunately, that optimism is misplaced. This pairing of the “Jacobite pin-up of 1746” and the “un-woke” is rambling and largely bereft of wit. Cannon — writer and performer of a well-regarded retelling of The Green Knight — is an energetic performer but her charm can’t disguise the fact that almost all the scenes in this entirely untrue, scattershot adventure through the Highlands go on far too long and would test the patience of anyone — living or dead.
RORY FORD
until 16 August
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