Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Shell | Batty! | K Mak at the Planetarium | A Most Pressing Issue + more

ZOO Southside (Venue 82) until 24 August

Shell, created by Ana Evans and Linnea Scott, will likely figure among – if not top – the most unforgettable shows of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Evans, who also performs, captivates as the pioneering ‘hockey bro’ Andy, leader of a new, inclusive sex ed club to Break Reproductive Oppression (B.R.O).

Part play, part interactive workshop, Evans also assumes the role of Peanut, a cute yet deadly embodiment of their childhood nickname, who asks the audience to consider honestly their relationship with desire.

How this question is answered, and who answers it, will depend entirely on the audience, who can engage in as much or as little detail as they want.

The narrative behaves like a peanut – one must first crack it open – and this intertwines with the focus of Andy’s sex ed sessions, which examine the common pitfalls that arise when talking about gender, sex and identity, a knowledge form with a glossary that is growing by the day.

“I’m here to change my life,” we chant. “What I don’t know, I have the power to learn.”

The piece satirises lad culture in the most exciting and endearing of ways, turning it over like a stone in the light, it becomes exactly what it is: a mutable category with the fear at its core transformed. The sword is pulled from its centre; the peanut coaxed from its shell.

The action shifts from character to character, class to Anonymous Safe Space (A.S.S), safe space to outer space, and finally to a concert, where we enact Evans’s deepest fantasy – to be a famous rockstar.

One thing is for certain: one day, wherever you may be, the song Sweet Child o’ Mine will come on, and suddenly, you will be reminded of them and the shell that you shared, that time in 2025.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Batty! ★★★

Zoo Playground (Venue 186) until 16 August

You have to look long and hard in theatre for a frank but positive representation of women’s mid-life experience. For that reason alone Batty!, by writer and performer Victoria Firth, is a gift.

Batty is coming round to the idea that she might be a witch, especially if she could pick the bits of witchiness she likes rather than take the whole package.

In Emma Williams’ charming witches’ cottage set, Firth and her accomplice Kathryn Hanke bicker and banter, sing raucously, and howl along to Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. There’s an odd scene where she tries to eat a plastic bottle, but we won’t dwell on that

At times, the show feels like a sequence of sketches, as if Batty represents a number of different characters. In one scene she mentions a girlfriend. In another she seems to live alone with a dog and work in a stressful job. Does Hanke play her partner? Alter-ego? Inner witch?

Not knowing the answers to these questions leaves one a little unmoored, but Batty! is still a gift, sincere, frequently funny, and a reminder that there is much more to mid-life than the hot flushes.

Susan Mansfield

K Mak at the Planetarium ★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 24 August

This year, the blank canvas of Summerhall’s Demonstration Room has been taken on by K Mak, aka Brisbane-based singer and multi-instrumentalist Kathryn McKee, for rolling daily concerts which offer some soothing respite from the usual Fringe hustle.

McKee mans the keyboards, accompanied by drummer, cellist and violinist, for a wouldbe cosmic mini-concerto embellished by projections of macro and micro images which take up the entire wall behind them. The mostly ambient suite begins with gentle bowing and the tap of drums before layering on vocoder effects and twinkly arpeggios, pizzicato strings and beefier beats.

Over the course of an hour, McKee offers more texture than tuneage. Her budget Bjork/punky Enya vocal style is clipped, rhythmic and somewhat mannered, while the vanilla chill-out vibes and mellow electro-pop mantras can’t compete with the graceful footage of timelapse flora or neon deep sea creatures as it bleeds out round the room.

The music picks up pace and a touch of drama towards the end of the set but, for all the intention to provide an immersive experience, this is a really just a calming concert with some mesmeric visuals.

Fiona Shepherd

A Most Pressing Issue ★★★

Theatre 3 and Stephenson Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall (53) until 16 August

Prison Warden Penton and his lackey Orly are panicking. Not only are they about to undergo an inspection, but they’ve also just received a call that the cell block they’re standing in is currently aflame.

As the minutes tick by and the fire creeps ever closer, we watch the pair become paralysed by indecision - will they ever call for help? Or will they be consumed in an avoidable tragedy entirely of their own making?

Given that A Most Pressing Issue bills itself as a political farce, you can probably guess the answer from the get-go - but that doesn’t make the journey any less enjoyable.

Despite the accomplished clownery, however, the performance doesn’t quite achieve its emotional denouement; after 40 minutes of viewing Penton as nothing more than a cardboard cutout for the incompetence of bureaucracy, it’s difficult to have much sympathy for him as his (self-inflicted) end draws near.

The tonal shift may have felt less incongruous if the show were less invested in its own sincerity, or more committed to fleshing out its characters from the start - fundamentally, though, A Most Pressing Issue is still a humorous and prescient satire about political accountability (or the lack thereof).

Ariane Branigan

A Poem and a Mistake ★★★

Assembly Rooms (Venue 20) until 24 August

Modern-day sexism meets Metamorphosis in this intergalactic melting pot in which the experiences of Myrrha, a committed first-year classics student, are paired with those of female characters from Greek mythology.

Sharply written by Cheri Magid and punchily performed by Sarah Baskin, who shifts between genders and realities in playing all the many characters, it explodes the theme of metamorphosis to demonstrate how sexual violence is minimised by the narratives of its time and driven by a quest for power.

As Myrrha’s male professor is turned into his female student before being turned into cow, from the comfort of an ‘all gender’ bathroom, it’s humorous as well as thought provoking, pummelling through time, space, identity, myth and modernity.

“When something shrinks you, you want to experience something epic,” Myrrha says. And it’s the grandiosity of the piece that is both its appeal and, eventually, challenge as it expands through a myriad of mythical characters, drawing in evermore references to Ovid and denying the opportunity for a more singular development of Myrrha and her story.

The construction shifts between impressive and self-conscious, but as a constellation of insights shaped around a thoughtfully explored theme, it’s a refreshing, bold and enlightening experiment in theatrical form.

Sally Stott

Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story ★★

theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 16 August

This curious two-hander is best seen as a showcase for its writers and performers Dylan Kaueper and Will Grice, but what they’re aiming for isn’t entirely clear.

Cody and Beau are two teenagers in 1889 Texas who dream of becoming cowboys, but what begins as an ostensible comedy (albeit one without much in the way of decent gags) veers sharply into tragedy.

Kauper and Grice are very capable physical performers but their characters are thinly drawn (Cody is a bit more intelligent than Beau and that’s all). It’s admirable that they don’t undercut their own dark ending, but it just makes what precedes it even more puzzling.

Rory Ford

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