Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: A History of Fortune Cookies | A Brief History of Difference | The Emu War

Summerhall (Venue 26). until 26 August

★★★★

Like a course from the tasting menu that is the Fringe, performance artist Sean Wai Keung’s autobiographical piece A History of Fortune Cookies doesn’t last for long, but it leaves a powerful aftertaste. In fact, at first it doesn’t even feel like a theatre show at all; in an intimate basement room at Summerhall, his audience of ten sit facing him across a table which is set for something more akin to a cookery demonstration.

Keung is here to tell us about fortune cookies. About their history and surprisingly non-traditional origins (the largest fortune cookies manufacturer in the world is in New York, he tells us), and about what they mean to him culturally as a descendent of immigrants from Hong Kong to the UK with little English, who speeded their own assimilation into the community in the same manner many other Chinese, Indian and Italian immigrants did – by cooking and selling the dishes of their home countries.

He shows us a bundle of the kind of fortune cookies most consumers of Chinese food in the West will be used to, the crunchy sort wrapped in a foil packet, but he’s here to go even deeper, by making each member of the audience a fortune cookie in which they can wrap their own wish. Like (most of) the results of his efforts, the piece is perfectly-formed.

This process of cooking is an intriguing and revealing one, but Keung’s gentle, soothing storytelling as he completes it adds layer upon layer to what he’s doing. This isn’t a play about a simple, idiosyncratic food accompaniment, but one about migration, belonging, cultural identity – especially when your heritage is mixed – and the historic use of food as a means of enhancing cultural cohesion. As promised, you’ll also learn a lot about fortune cookies from it.

David Pollock

A Brief History of Difference 

Summerhall (Venue 26), until 25 August

★★★

In introducing themselves as a queer, neurodivergent, post-binary lapsed Catholic former social worker pigeon fancying Talking Heads fan from Newcastle, DAR Rogers has labelled themselves several times over. Their lovely devised solo show in a living room-style set strewn with banners, knick-knacks and other mementos which signify their past and their interests is a gentle, thoughtful and in places exuberant exploration of identity and belonging.

The audience is invited to choose their own label randomly on arrival. Some have labels thrust upon them. Swaps are allowed and in some cases desirable (“capitalist”). Rogers kicks off with a bit of show and tell, is partial to breaking into dance, either letting the music course through them or following their brother’s perverse choreography, and recruits audience members to read aloud some of their poems, reflections and a memorable passage from their autobiography (written at the age of ten).

There are many absorbing shows on the Fringe where performers share their painful personal stories. What a treat in contrast to relax in Rogers’ informal company, engage in a bit of light cultural exchange, hear snippets of a full and searching life and soak up the good vibes emanating from someone who is comfortable in their own skin.

Fiona Shepherd

The Emu War: A New Musical

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), until 25 August

★★★

Here is another quirky historical story that seems ideally suited to the musical treatment. In 1932, the Australian government went to war against the country’s population of emus, after veteran farmers in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt started complaining that the giant bird was decimating their crops. It did not go well.

This seventy-minute show from Bristol-based musical-maker Lotte Pearl tells the story through a combination of fact and fiction. It follows two real men – defence minister George Pearce and major Gwynydd Meredith – and two invented farmers as they wage war on the local emu population. At first, they shoot them from standstill. Then, they try to machine gun them from a jeep. Then, they basically give up, beaten by the birds.

Pearl and Toby Little’s score – played live on keyboard, guitar and cajon – is resonant, and the young, seven-strong ensemble sing it beautifully, harmonising particularly well. Jessie Milson’s staging is fairly slick, too, and there are a couple of entertaining performances from Lili Mohammad as Meredith and Pearl herself as Pearce.

Other performances could be bigger and funnier, though, and the drawn-out ending could be curtailed. A storyline about a gay farmer who lost his lover in the First World War feels superficial, too, and the odd episode’s deeper themes – conservation, nationalism, PTSD, politics – are not plumbed particularly profoundly.  

Fergus Morgan