Theatre review: Suspicious Minds

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: This time-travelling romantic comedy by Tom Fowler manages to cover a hell of a lot of ground (and time periods) due to its fast pace and creative lo-fi staging.

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

***

Mark and Fran (Tom Wright and Zoë Lambrakis) are having problems: Mark’s dad died and Fran slept with someone else. To rekindle their romance, Mark spends his inheritance on a time travel holiday that takes in Ancient Rome, the Titanic and Elvis’s 1973 Hawaii concert.

Staged like a radio drama, Wright and Lambrakis sit, perfectly still, at one table while, at another, Andrew Turner and Abby Cassidy provide a variety of sound effects, play all the secondary roles and provide a sense of animation. It’s an effective technique; the stillness of the unhappy couple conveys a sense of limbo while they’re whooshed through time.

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This crams so much in that it feels a bit overlong even at only an hour (a couple of eras could be cut) but the time-travel element pays off with an emotional climax where Mark travels back to observe the beginnings of his relationship with Fran. It’s consistently amusing rather than very funny but there’s real heart here – and a breathless level of invention.

Until 28 August. Today 5:30pm.