Fringe theatre reviews: The End of the World | The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much | A Ghost Among The Living | An American (Not) In Paris | Operation Market Garden | 1918: The Last Salome

THEATRE

The End of the World ★★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24) until 31 August

For many young people, living in our dangerously divided times is starting to feel like the end of the world. For Desiree, it will be the end of her world, as she has decided to commit suicide and she’s going to livestream her preparations. Destiny Faith Nelson gives an unrelenting performance in a solo show that fuses comedy with poetry to dissect the anxiety of young Black American women, who are watching their painstakingly fought-for rights erode with every day.

It is the show’s writing that ultimately awards its merit, as its everyday colloquial language is often interrupted by sections of spoken word that are equal parts evocative and rhythmic. We come to interpret Desiree’s emotional baggage in these moments. She creatively communicates the pressures of our modern world, yet simultaneously reveals that she feels the weight of history pushing down on her. Mediating on her desire to kill herself, Desiree expresses that it feels wrong to do so, as her ancestors were burdened as slaves to assert her place in America. The confinement created from this melting pot of anxieties is made palpable by Nelson’s performance. Incorporating movement and rhythm, her surrendering is no longer descriptive, but felt, and Destiny Faith Nelson is no doubt an actor with a bright future ahead of her.

The End of the World has a confusing plot, and Nelson might need to exaggerate further the farce of livestreaming a suicide, as at this moment it seems that Desiree happens to be an influencer rather than alluding to any social media critique. Yet, Nelson has commendably dedicated a huge personal effort to this performance, and it pays off. As she bravely shares her whole self with us on stage, it is enough for the world to feel a little less daunting. Roisin McMullan

THEATRE

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. UK/US/French physical theatre company Voloz Collective first brought The Man Who… to the Fringe back in 2022, came back the following year, and have revived the show for 2026. But there’s no laurels-resting or phoning-in going on here: The Man Who… remains a breathtakingly energetic, jaw-droppingly inventive, gut-hurtingly funny show that deserves all the international awards it’s won in the past four years.

And it’s clearly a show that’s set deep in the bones and muscles of its four apparently indefatigable performers (make that five, including multi-instrumentalist Jonny Venvell). Roger (a magnificently athletic Paul Lofferon) is a French advertising guy working in 1960s New York who unknowingly (though often quite literally) throws himself into an international plot that takes him deep into the ocean, high into the Russian steppes and even far into the cosmos in an attempt to foil… well that would be telling.

In truth, the noirish storyline hurtles by at such speed that it’s not always easy to follow - but sit back and wonder at Voloz’s delivery instead. Their uncanny knack for setting scenes and showing actions physically is as joyful as it is playful - and it’s often hard to tell whether you’re laughing at the story’s absurdities or the ingenious ways they’re being conveyed. Lofferon’s three co-conspirators multi-task gleefully across several roles: Emily Wheatman is gloriously grotesque as Roger’s PA Gretchen, and Sam Rayner’s droll closing monologue finds yet another level of humour.

Okay, in focusing so forensically (and successfully) on physical comedy, the foursome maybe sideline the show’s emotional depths, and don’t think too hard about the female characters, who are very much of their times. But this is about as good as physical theatre gets: it’s cunningly conceived, meticulously crafted, and lovingly delivered. David Kettle

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THEATRE

A Ghost Among The Living ★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 23) until 31 August

This two-hander from festival regulars Box Tale Soup offers renditions of four classic horror tales by Edgar Allan Poe, all wrapped up in a spooky metatheatrical story of the company’s own.

Noel Byrne plays an old-timey storyteller – waistcoat, lectern, elaborate hand-gestures – and Poe scholar, plagued, like so many of his favourite writers’ protagonists, by a buried guilt that will not allow him to rest, which manifests in the spectral presence of Antonia Christophers.

Over an hour, Byrne’s storyteller acts out four of Poe’s stories: The Tell-Tale Heart (a vulture-eyed old man is calculatedly murdered), The Cask Of Amontillado (an Italian nobleman gets buried alive in a crypt), Ligeia (two dead wives, one of whom returns as a zombie), and The Masque Of The Red Death (partying aristocrats get their comeuppance during a plague). As he tells these grim tales, Christophers balefully stalks around the stage, assisting him, haunting him.

All this plays out via Box Tale Soup’s trademark homespun theatricality, which involves them using reclaimed materials to build puppets, props and sets, while Dan Melrose’s doomy, fidgety score adds atmosphere. The production loses its eerie energy as it progresses, though, and grows soporific. Poe fans will enjoy it. Others, like the spirits in his stories, might grow restless. Fergus Morgan

THEATRE

An American (Not) In Paris ★★★

Just the Tonic at the Mash House (Venue 288) until 30 August

Musical comedian Liv Rocklin stars in a show about her. Well if you can’t do it at the Fringe, where can you? One suspects that Rocklin would find a way no matter what obstacles were placed in her way. She is a compulsive planner and has been in training for this kind of look-at-me schtick since her mum sent her to Broadway for Toddlers. Pause for some family photos of pre-school Liv ready for her close-up. Or rather don’t pause. Rattle through everything at top speed as if you have two hours of material to cram in to one.

Rocklin has been diagnosed with ADHD and OCD and can probably think of ten remarkable things before her alarm goes off. She loves Lizzie McGuire and Taylor Swift (arguably too much) and is big on rhyming couplets and quickfire quips though these are sometimes lost in her garbled delivery. Her story is relatively thin gruel: she fulfils her tweenage dream to study in Paris but then Covid hits and thwarts her life plan. How does she respond? By making a song and dance about it with rubber baguette props (rhymed with “threat” because she’s also gluten-free). Rocklin is fun, if slightly exhausting company, super-confident but also self-aware, lonely but getting on with it. You could do worse than hearing her out. Fiona Shepherd

THEATRE

Operation Market Garden ★★

theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53) until 29 August

There’s no faulting the ambition of this true WWII tale taken directly from the diary of the man who lived it but it proves just beyond the reach of a very game cast and production. Welsh paratrooper Neville Neads parachuted into Arnhem in the Netherlands as part of the titular operation — famously, one of the allied troops largest failures. The play is constructed from Neville’s original diary by his great-granddaughter Izzy Lane and although full of incident (captured by the Germans, Neads spent almost a year as a P.OW.) it oddly proves dramatically rather inert. While the dialogue is taken verbatim from the diary, it doesn’t’t necessarily mean it’s interesting and although the production makes a good fist of trying to capture the chaos and clamour of battle it can prove hard to follow and something that may well test the resources of the most experienced company. An honorable attempt. Rory Ford

THEATRE

1918: The Last Salome ★★

Greenside @ George St (Venue 236) until 29 August

There’s no mistaking the ambition of Oxford-based Carfax Productions and writer/director Lily Zhang in tackling the post-First World War reputation of Oscar Wilde, and the enduring effects of his trial, incarceration and death on those close to him who outlive him. But despite its striking theme and little-known characters, narrative tangents make this wordy five-hander tough to follow, and performances are very variable (though Peregrine Neger is excellent as Wilde’s literary executor - and possibly first love - Robbie Ross). The play’s aims are admirable and impressive, but its execution still needs significant work. David Kettle

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