Theatre review: The Wild Unfeeling World, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh

The Fringe is full of things one does not expect, among them a tale based loosely on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick staged for an audience of about a dozen in the charming Pleasance Green (look for the dome-shaped structure next to the Kidzone).
Casey Jay Andrews concludes that seeing the world in black and white is dangerous and some things are too big to deal with. Picture: ContributedCasey Jay Andrews concludes that seeing the world in black and white is dangerous and some things are too big to deal with. Picture: Contributed
Casey Jay Andrews concludes that seeing the world in black and white is dangerous and some things are too big to deal with. Picture: Contributed

The Wild Unfeeling World, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh * * * *

Writer and performer Casey Jay Andrews, a Fringe First winner last year for The Archive of Educated Hearts (which alternates with this show), returns with a very different beast: Melville’s whale quest, relocated to contemporary London and told by one woman with a model boat, some ceramic animals and a soundscape of oceanic proportions (which threatens, at times, to drown out her voice).

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Dylan has just lost her job and her flat and is sitting next to her broken-down car on the top floor of a multi-storey car park in Hounslow. Faced with the prospect of her life falling apart, she begins a odyssey across London on foot. Meanwhile, Ahab is a ginger cat with a grudge against the woman who ran him over causing him to lose a leg. And while the Pequod, with a feline crew, is sailing up the Thames, a young female bottlenose whale is in difficulties near Westminster Bridge.

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It’s a story about seeing the world turn against you and being honest enough to acknowledge that it’s partly your fault. It’s about the danger of seeing the world in black and white, the importance of small acts of kindness, and how sometimes it’s okay to admit that some things are just too big to wrestle with.

Until 25 August

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