Theatre review: Razing Eddie, Underbelly (Venue 61), Edinburgh

EDDIE is a “born-again hooligan” whose attempt to show he’s deserving of a second chance from his ex, having emerged from prison, seems doomed even as they utter their first reunited words to one another.

Razing Eddie

Underbelly (Venue 61)

Star rating: * * *

He’s a shellsuit clad Leeds casual with a taste for verbal brutality, even if he’s trying to keep his fists to himself. Shauna’s a woman of moderate success judging by her flashy apartment, if you count as success being kept by her wealthy boyfriend, Richard.

“Is ’e a Chelsea fan, now they’ve started winnin’ things?” sneers Eddie, his whole life reducible to footballing rivalries.

This element of the play – the tension between rich and poor, north and south, have and have not, nouveau-riche Chelsea and plain old prosaic Leeds United – is one of the most interesting, although it’s never fully explored. Richard doesn’t show up, and Eddie and Shauna are instead visited by the ghosts of his murdered friend Billy and her late daughter Gemma – their work cut out trying to coerce this narcissistic pair into feeling anything approaching guilt. The ghost story feels a little pat and Philip Stokes’ script exercises Eddie’s machismo rather than truly exploring it, but the performances are excellent, and the unexpected revelation of gay longing towards the end is handled with deft tenderness.

• Until 26 August. Today noon.