Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Refuse | Tilly No-Body | The Players of Diadon + more

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 25 August

You can tell a lot about people by what they throw away. So says Maks, a binman in a Ukrainian town.

He seems content with his lot, with his wife Valentyna and their young son Andrej, and with his community, the characters he meets as he empties bins. And then there’s Yelena, the lonely trophy wife who waits for him at the end of his round.

But just as Maks is negotiating the complexities of his personal life, Russia is building up troops on the borders of Ukraine. Ordinary life itself appears to be under threat; people pack emergency backpacks and talk about escape plans. Suddenly, everyone is facing tough decisions and Maks’ love triangle is the least of his worries.

Lucy McIlgorm’s lively, heart-warming three-hander has an excellent central performance by Ukrainian actor Vasyl Sydorko as Maks. McIlgorm herself and Maria Shtofa complement him very ably, playing all the other characters, and Anastazie Toros’ production is full of clever staging ideas.

There is something of an awkward shift in tone about halfway through when the threat of invasion is introduced into what has felt like gentle observational comedy; perhaps it should have been foreshadowed more from the beginning?

But the play captures well the way which ordinary Ukrainians struggled to continue with their lives under the shadow of an invasion which seemed increasingly inevitable.

When, in the final section of the play, the invasion does arrive, the devastation is palpable. Now, everything is about the fundamentals of life and death.

These are ambitious shifts within an hour-long play which starts as a comedy and ends up revealing the ways in which the worst of times can call out the best in ordinary people.

Susan Mansfield

Tilly No-Body ★★★

Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140) until 24 August

The name of Frank Wedekind, German playwright, actor and director best known for Spring Awakening and erstwhile teacher of Brecht, is well-known.

Less so Tilly Wedekind, his wife, and the actress who embodied many of his most important roles. Or, as she styled herself, Tilly Niemann - Tilly Nobody.

Writer and performer Bella Merlin seeks to rescue Tilly from the shadows in this colourful play directed by her husband Miles Anderson. The story unfolds in a set which draws on the circus (a popular Wedekind motif).

Wedekind was 22 years Tilly’s senior and was - in today’s language - controlling and abusive. She lost her sense of herself and attempted suicide. “Where do your words end and mine begin?” she asks.

The disjointed narrative spills from Tilly’s mind as she blurs the boundaries between herself and the characters she plays. Yet, she never stops loving Wedekind; in all her conversations, he is the imaginary addressee.

Performed by Merlin with precision and pathos - and with a range of songs - it’s not an easy show to watch, a reminder of how women can often be the ones to pay the costs for the careers of great men.

Susan Mansfield

The Players of Diadon ★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 25 August

In an unnamed fantasy world, seven amateur actors prepare to stage a play for the great and merciless King Diadon, a well-thumbed account of his incredible and unlikely triumphs over the years.

Aside from new member Rick, Mr Porridge’s troupe knows this story well, because a rotating cast have been performing it every night for the past fifty years. Except now, with over 18,000 performances to the Players’ name and counting, King Diadon has announced he’s bored, and that he wants to hear them make up a new story.

Failure to please the King, portrayed here as an impatient disembodied voice, inevitably leads to a head-severing situation, so with this pressure looming over them the (fictional) cast’s meagre improvisational skills are put to a severe test.

The sense of jeopardy in Ellis Green’s play is diluted somewhat by the contrived fantastical setting, although the world-building is effective enough to get the point across and get us rooting for the group.

What’s most enjoyable about the piece, however, is the collection of fine performances director William Homer coaxes from the seven-strong cast, with particular standouts in Matt Wake and Jessica Enemokwu’s feuding prima donnas Calvin and Camille, and Tijan Sarr’s Polonius, the elderly poet who knows the Oz-like truth behind Diadon’s life.

Green also writes brisk dialogue full of satisfying interplay, with just a hint of satire on the real-life theatre world.

David Pollock

Timestamp ★★

Dovecot Studios (Venue 198) until 24 August

What kind of expectations might be getting in the way of you feeling at ease or fully yourself? This is the question that organises Timestamp, a work that uses live sound, movement, and artmaking to explore one’s experience of personhood.

Photographs of historical, inspirational figures flash in a moving gallery behind, and the audience can add to this for future performances.

The script and movement sequences, however, are meandering and only semi-impactful in comparison to the drawings that are chalked onto the stage, relayed via video projection, and washed away in a small but significant ritual.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Going ★★

theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9) until 23 August

The lives of two passengers intertwine in Going, a play set on a London train that comes to a halt on the longest, hottest day of the year.

Inspired by the works of Anton Chekov, Going contains themes of existentialism and climate consciousness, and the two characters – who apparently have nothing in common – swing between states of nihilism, cynicism, realism, and optimism.

The actors do well with the story that connects them, which is unfortunately both predictable and stereotypical. Scenes featuring high emotion and anxiety regarding the climate crisis are stimulating, however, holding the focus, and enriching the overarching narrative.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Elon Musk: Lost in Space ★★

theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53) until 23 August

This misfiring comedy by David Morley starts brightly enough with Ben Whitehead successfully evoking — rather than imitating — Tesla’s tiresome tech bro; high fiving the audience and enthusing about retro video games.

However, what little plot this has is all in the title. Elon has little to do on his way to Mars other than field calls from a none-too-convincing Donald Trump and others.

His only companions are a stray fly and Sarah Lawrie as the convincingly robotic, “Mother” — a clear nod to Psycho, but if anything this is content to gently rib its subject rather than go for the jugular.

Shorn of 30 minutes this might make a halfway promising sitcom pilot, but Lawrie’s android is the only character you’d look forward to seeing again.

Rory Ford

Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here.