Theatre review: The Unmarried

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: The late-night time slot and the darkened, pounding atmosphere of a portacabin in an Edinburgh ÂUniversity square gives this show an infectious party atmosphere, but the script by writer/performer Lauren Gauge reveals a far broader palette of emotions than just night-before-the-morning euphoria.

Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302)

***

Her character is a twentysomething, hard-partying single woman who unexpectedly meets a man and falls in love. From there she plays out the tale of an urban millennial travelling between the freedom of late nights, dancing and the endurance test of hard-living, and the temptation to settle down and make a more stable life.

Gauge is the driving force behind this play, onstage and off, and the loose rhyming couplets she delivers it with are as tightly-focused as her CV (she is also a producer, PR and Soho Young Comedy Lab graduate).

Under the direction of Niall Phillips, the piece is sonically compelling and always in motion around Gauge, a sharp and comfortable character lead. Beatboxer Haydn-Sky Bauzon and singer Georgia Bliss deliver a vocal-only (with the occasional pre-recorded beat) soundtrack of big-room house and garage club classics which give the show an infectious, contemporary energy. Yet for all the quality and talent throughout the production, the fact that Gauge’s script reveals no layers beneath the rather simple story it purports to be denies it the edge that would have made it great.

Until 28 August. Today 10.:35pm.