Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Lions | Right Before I Go | Me and the D.O.G. | Big Dog and more...
A dead dad show that makes you want to hang out with the subjects, a show inspired by suicide notes that’s neither morbid nor voyeuristic, and a broad satire on true crime podcasts and social media influencers that should have narrowed its focus – our critics’ latest Fringe theatre round-up
Lions ★★★★
Summerhall (Venue 26) until 30 August
The spark for Lightning Rod Special’s latest funny, humane, sweet and unexpected show was the bereavement of Artistic Directors Alice Yorke and Scott R. Sheppard. Both lost their fathers in short order in the last couple of years, dads who were proud if bewildered about their children “doing the plays”.
How do Yorke and Sheppard confront their loss? By manifesting as preening peacocks in ill-fitting wigs and false facial hair, employing dorky props, deliberately cliched effects (glitter showers, snowstorms, fake candles) and heightened storytelling in Dickensian fashion, presenting a view of the indomitable if pompous spirit of the archetypal American boomer dad.
A banqueting table strewn with the clutter of a life, two lives, tells a sharper, more painful story, not least the bicycle helmet denoting the crash which took Yorke’s father (at a fifth attempt, it seems) and the pesky laptop which holds the key to the real man beyond the child’s-eye view if only they could figure out the damn password.
Locked out of the hardware, they turn to the moral quandaries around possible interventions, the soul-sucking bureaucracy which arises just when you don’t feel capable of handling it and the laundry list of banal associated tasks which ironically function as displacement techniques. Yorke and Sheppard’s personal “to do” lists eventually morph into their what-they-do lists (“don’t cook for a year”).
The duo take out their frustrations on each other like bickering siblings, hysteria bubbling under, collapse always a possibility. But the tone is expertly marshalled to switch from riotous comedy to close-to-the-bone revelation to moving intimacy in a moment. What emerges is a beautifully anarchic eulogy to two perfectly imperfect men. The ultimate tribute in not respecting their fathers’ desires not to be turned into theatrical fodder is that you wish you could have met them and maybe joined them in a dad dance to their deeply uncool iTunes playlists. Fiona Shepherd
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Right Before I Go ★★★★
Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 31 August
When he lost a close friend to suicide, comedy writer Stan Zimmerman (Gilmore Girls, Roseanne, The Golden Girls) was left, as so many are, with unanswered questions. Searching for answers, he started to look for famous suicide notes.
Later, he wove these together to create Right Before I go, a touring show which aims to bring the subject into the open, performed by a changing line-up of actors, script-in-hand. It premiered at the Hollywood Fringe in 2015, has toured all over the US, and now arrives in the UK for the first time.
Each one is a story: Ida Craddock, a writer on sexuality and women’s rights in the 19th century, who chose suicide rather than be admitted to an asylum; Bill Zeller, a computer programmer who was a victim of childhood sexual abuse; Hollywood actor George Sanders whose brief note began: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored”.
Some are famous: Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Cobain. Other examples come from groups which are particularly vulnerable: US veterans, young people who are bullied on social media, LGBTQ+ people. After reading the note left by trans woman Kate Van Roeder on her social media feed, the script goes on to capture the posts of her friends, in the minutes and hours which followed, as they tried to reach out to save her.
It should feel morbid, perhaps even voyeuristic, to peer into these private, tragic worlds, and all credit to Zimmerman because it is neither. If there is a caution, it is that these well chosen, well crafted examples of the genre can create an illusion that there is an explanation, something that most people who have lost a loved one to suicide must live without. Susan Mansfield
Me and the D.O.G. ★★★
Just The Tonic (Venue 88) until 17 August
Thoughts and desires that contradict one another can simultaneously exist; it doesn't make them any less real. El Keily's one-woman show delves into these contradictions, inviting us into the bedroom of a 30-year-old woman, dressed in an oversized T-shirt and clutching a large water bottle. Chatting to the audience like friends, she is open, funny in her observations of others, and lays out her vulnerabilities and desires, while defining what loneliness is and how it differs from simply being alone.
Her character is likeable, and her honesty is refreshing as she goes through various stages and relationships in her life, from abortion to break-ups and breakdowns. The hour is a continual flow of emotion and its conversational quality makes it an easy watch.
The elephant in the room – in this case the dead legs of an old man sticking out from underneath her bed – is a weird one. Although addressed midway, we never really find out who he is to her or how he came to be there. His presence seems only to create a comparison between his loneliness and that of her much younger self, but it feels like a forced device rather than an important part of the plot. Given how shocking and out-there the choice is, exploring it further could have made the piece really stand out. Suzanne O'Brien
Big Dog ★★★
Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24) until 31 August
Izzy Radford’s bright new comedy takes broad aim at true-crime podcasts, social media influencers and the ethics of broadcast journalism. It’s pointed in all the right areas but might benefit from some structural alteration. Snappily directed by Zoë Templeman-Young, it begins smartly as Eve (Tumba Katanda) begins work as a ghost writer at a true-crime video podcast presented by a social media influencer who remains an unseen presence at the nightmarishly pink office run with weaponised friendliness by Yasmin (the excellent Lauren Jenkins).
Radford — who also plays Eve’s fellow writer, the nice-but-dim Scarlett — has a keen eye for mystifying Gen Z jargon and gives good stupid, but there’s so little in the way of plot development for most of the running time that the swiftly played sitcom-style banter starts to feel a little obvious.
The podcast, a seemingly awful creation, never really convinces,e and you suspect that Radford couldn’t decide what to satirise — influencer culture or true-crime — so went for both. The introduction of the righteously aggrieved Eliza (Eleanor Cross), provides a dramatic shot in the arm but it comes so late in proceedings as to feel a bit unearned. It’s a welcome shift of tone but might be more usefully employed much earlier. Rory Ford
Metamorphosis (Has the world changed, or is it just me?) ★★★
C Aquila (21) until 14 August
Gregor Samsa’s overnight transformation into a cockroach threatens his family’s cherished veneer of middle-class social respectability in Kafka’s original Metamorphosis. Guildford High School’s Morton Players aim to prove that we still feel the need to conform.
The re-adaptation of the novella for stage by Kerry Frampton may have been designed with school-age audiences in mind, but do not let this deter you. The show manages to inject a surreal humour into Kafka’s bleak story, while still fully exploring the message of the grinding monotony and indifference of capitalism.
It plays out like an absurd gameshow; the Samsa family’s performance of Gregor’s grisly transformation is interrupted by a suave chorus of “Data Curators” who periodically ask the audience “are YOU normal?” Their tutting dissatisfaction with our answers puts us in the same situation as poor insectile Gregor.
Though we may not have six legs, we cannot really be sure that we are normal either. The Morton Players tackle Kafka’s bleak existentialism with an impressive confidence that the drama students at my school could only dream about. Lilia Foster
RANK ★★
Assembly Roxy (Venue 139) until 16 August
Gal pals Gemma and Jane have reached the fag end of a night out and there are no taxis to be found at the rank. Cue drunken dissection of midnight munchies, incorporating a brief Pot Noodle fantasia, tears over past relationships, and career bravado. All very believably performed by playwright Goldie Majtas and a plausibly sloshed Paige Cowell, who remains just on the right side of intelligible. What happens in that queue will reverberate across the next week but mainly in such banal terms that it hardly seems worth dramatising. The twist, when it comes, is too little and too late. Fiona Shepherd
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