Edinburgh Fringe Theatre reviews: Nowhere | You’re an Instrument! | The Long Good Bye Bye + more

Nowhere ★★★★☆

Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) until 24 August

The interconnectness of our lives with the political events of our times and previous times, as well as those who came before us and will come after us, is at the heart of Khalid Abdalla’s biographical-plus-much-more show. It starts with the story of his involvement in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 – something that may come as a surprise to anyone who only knows him from his screen work, including playing Dodi Fayed in The Crown. It then develops into a broader, highly ambitious attempt to contextualise where he and we, sitting in the ‘nowhere’ space of the theatre, have come from, but also where we are heading, before finally focussing back in on the mass murder and starvation of the people of Palestine that is happening right now.

Directed by Omar Elerian, in a production produced by Fuel, who are known for their immersive, imaginative sets, Abdalla’s varied life – as both the actor who played the “lead terrorist” in the film United 93 and as the real-life grandson of a man imprisoned by the Egyptian regime in previous uprisings, it's a personal and also, through drawing in other conflicts, global charting of the history of resistance to authoritarian power.

A piece that’s delivered with passion, sometimes polemic and constantly questioning its own purpose and potential, there’s the ever-present danger but also excitement of it overwhelming itself with its sheer scope. A huge infrastructure of visible and invisible architecture is required to hold together its many strands. Abdalla’s warm narration – with his polished Cambridge tones at one point brilliantly dissolving into his native Glaswegian – constantly finds new ways to connect the personal with the geopolitical in a piece that makes ingenious use of a screen, juxtaposes photographs and live drawings (including some of ours) with film footage of past protests, immersive audio and a powerful final call for “never again” to apply to all.

SALLY STOTT

READ MORE: Here & Now showcase aims to 'push boundaries' at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

You’re an Instrument! ★★★☆☆

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August

When Alon Ilsar and Ciaran Frame, aka the Sonicrats, tell their young audience that they’re university lecturers, the white-coated duo aren’t just playing characters. They really are music technology researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, and this show doubles as both a fun hour for children between the ages of five and twelve, and an opportunity for Ilsar to show off his invention, the AirStick.

An AirStick is a device which can be held or attached to clothing and connected wirelessly to a speaker, then when it’s moved it causes a different tone of sound to be played depending on the movement. What begins as an apparently wider piece about musical instrumentation becomes a more focused demonstration of the AirStick’s capabilities, especially when a willing apparent stooge from the audience (the play’s third actor, Erick Mitsak) is brought onstage to become a kind of human theremin.

The piece’s focus narrows as it becomes all about the device’s capabilities, and while it’s a really novel tool presented with enthusiasm, charm and a degree of fun interactivity by the hosts, it appears to be quite tricky to get a complex tune out of it. In this regard it’s as much a piece about the simple pleasures of noise-making as it is about music, although that’s also an activity many kids enjoy.

DAVID POLLOCK

The Long Good Bye Bye ★★☆☆☆

Laughing Horse @ Freddy’s (Venue 194) until 24 August

This noir crime spoof features some cringey puns, uneven acting and an all-round handmade aesthetic but it is also silly, infectious fun if you can overlook its more slipshod elements. Reports (by cub podcaster Veronica Scoop) of the deaths of pop group The Femme Fatales have not been greatly exaggerated. Someone has a grudge. Could it be ex-member-turned-private investigator Justin McGuffin, or is he the next victim? The amateurish action is narrated by a Philip Marlowesque gumshoe, presiding over a parade of stock characters from shady sources to rookie cops, and laced with a host of song titles and lyric references for the sheer merry hell of it.

FIONA SHEPHERD

Not Without Right★★☆☆☆

C ARTS | C venues | C alto (Venue 40) until 25 August

This boisterously performed two-hander about a curmudgeonly characterised Shakespeare looking back on his life, as he’s chastised by his female muse, presents its own offbeat version of ‘the truth’. With the booming voice of a classically trained actor, Colin Cox’s direct-to-audience address, as the playwright, at times feels like an assault, while Alessandra Mañón, as his fickle inspiration, adopts the beaming and bedazzled delivery often favoured by American actors performing Shakespearian plays. The sparky dialogue between them is more successful and Tudor London well-evoked in a piece that’s rich with research and an original if surprising take.

SALLY STOTT

Consumption ★★☆☆☆

Paradise in Augustines (Venue 152) until 24 August

There’s more than a hint of NF Simpson’s whimsical surrealism to some parts of Beware of the Theatre’s promising three-hander about a couple with idiosyncratic culinary tastes, and the neighbour who threatens to expose their nefarious activities. But from moments of daft humour, it swerves unconvincingly into tragedy and even grand guignol, and it really needs to be snappier, tighter and a lot shorter to make its mark, and for its themes of forced dependency (I think) to emerge. There’s potential here, and a likeable young cast, but Consumption needs a fair amount of work before it’s the convincing piece of drama it could be.

DAVID KETTLE

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Agent Red’s AUDITION ★☆☆☆☆

The Royal Scots Club - the Speakeasy (Venue 241a) until 24 August

You’ve got to feel for Ruth Rosie, aka Agent Red in this audience-reliant recreation of a movie audition. Beset by technical difficulties, she’s hardly been able to offer the experience she clearly intended – but it was unwise, nonetheless, to include a litany of her tech problems as a substantial part of the paper-thin show’s content. There’s something here, but it needs an awful lot more work and finessing. As things stand, despite its interesting starting point, AUDITION simply isn’t in a state yet to put in front of an audience, paying or otherwise.

DAVID KETTLE

Wait, What Is This? ★☆☆☆☆

PBH’s Free Fringe @ CC Bloom’s (Venue 171) until 24 August

The best guess as to the question posed by the title is: possibly what passes for entertainment on an alien planet — albeit one that speaks English and is really into rhyme. The Rhyming Rogues are an unlikely couple who have clearly rigorously rehearsed this presentation, which arguably may be a sketch show. It is so tightly drilled as to be hermetically sealed and allows for little in the way of light, spontaneity or laughter. As such, it perhaps transcends such bourgeois notions of “good” or “bad” but one is forced to admire their commitment.

RORY FORD