Theatre review: Cow

Edinburgh International Festival: There was really only one venue for this 'rural tragicomedy' by Jessica Barker-Wren and Lucy Wray, starring a cute, cuddly cow on wheels and a rather more irritating Barker-Wren as Bethan Ingram, a posh country girl working in arts media who has returned to her Devon roots following the death of her mother to help her father run the family farm.

Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61)

***

There are quirks galore in Ingram’s ’s affectionate tales about her family – cats called after vitamins, extempore street opera from her mum and other everyday eccentricities and random episodes presumably intended to coalesce for some greater dramatic purpose.

Ingram’s mission is to source and borrow a tractor but it’s really just a thin excuse to digress into interpretative dances with (cardboard) chainsaws, haunting folk songs, ancillary country characters and the inevitable Brexit references, which are brought together with a degree of head girl charm by Barker-Wren (the audience were certainly more charmed than me) before throwing away a potentially powerful ending as if it were another oddball anecdote.

Until 27 August. Today 12:10pm.