Frisson, Leith Arches ****

Demon Dentist, King’s Glasgow ***

Lockdown changed our world in a myriad of ways; not least the world of theatre, which had to adapt overnight to the loss of its unique selling point – the presence of actors and a live audience in the same space, at the same time. During the pandemic, I saw shows performed online in real time, online shows which invited the audience to join in as players, and – as restrictions eased – shows that played to live audiences and online ones at the same time.

Esther Gilvray as Mimi and Robert Wylie as Tarquin IN Frisson PIC: Production Lines

Not till this week, though, had I seen a piece of theatre that began online – with a 45-minute first act featuring two pairs of characters in online conversation – and then finished in the real world; and the effect of this new show from young Edinburgh company Production Lines is oddly momentous and heartwarming, like a cry for freedom from the desiccated online talk that now often dominates our lives, both at work, and when we try to socialise.

Written by cmfwood (aka Claire Wood), Frisson begins with the tale of bartender Kai, whom we first meet online to her volunteer lockdown therapist, and shy ex-Army man Jonathan, who at 45 is just beginning to embrace the gay identity he has always suppressed; we see Jonathan conducting an awkward online first date with worldly-wise Marcel, a gay jazz singer from Solihull now living in Paris.

Then, a week later, come two further 40-minute live acts, set and performed in the Leith Arches bar, that add new characters and continue the stories of Kai, Jonathan and Marcel. Sometimes, there’s a slightly Beckettian feel to the criss-crossing dialogue, or lack of it, as Kai serves up drinks and advice from behind the bar, and the regulars – chatty Tarquin and silent Mimi – seek solace for their post-lockdown sorrows; while at another table Jonathan blunders his way through an accidental date with a woman called Harley whom he met online, under the impression she was a man.

The pace is sometimes a tad funereal, as the drinks go down. Yet every one of the six performances has a poignant edge of reality about it, as Rhona O’Donnell acts up a storm as Kai, and Alan Paterson and Gregor Haddow demonstrate how opposites can attract, as potential lovers Jonathan and Marcel.

Emily Harrigan as Miss Root, Sam Varley as Alfie and Georgia Grant-Anderson as Gabz in Demon Dentist PIC: Mark Douet

What finally emerges is a real play for today; odd and funny, sad and desperate, but not completely bereft of hope; or of belief in the healing kindness of strangers, which we missed so much during those strange lockdown times.

David Walliams’s Demon Dentist, by contrast – currently on a UK tour – is a children’s show with no claims to realism at all, except in the plight of its central character Alfie, a young carer who lives with his beloved dad, an ex-coalminer severely disabled by emphysema.

Alfie’s woes are soon redoubled, though, when he begins to realise that the new town dentist Miss Root is not what she seems.

It takes a few lively songs from composer Jak Poore and lyricist Neal Foster (who also adapts and directs), plus a strong goodies’ alliance involving Alfie, his not-girlfriend Gabz, Winnie the social worker and Alfie’s heroic dad, to defeat the wicked witch that Miss Root turns out to be.

And if the whole show has a slightly shoestring appearance, on the big stage at the King’s, with small but colourful sets rattling to and fro at warp speed, Emily Harrigan as Miss Root and Sam Varley as Alfie just keep belting out the songs and narrative in fine style; while the audience of sweetie-chomping kids and their parents watch agog, and vow never to go near the dentists’ chair again.

Frisson, run completed. David Walliams’s Demon Dentist will be at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 14-16 April.

Theatre reviews: Frisson | Demon Dentist