Fringe theatre reviews: The Plot | My Beautiful Brain! | Pews at Ten | Love Did a Number on Me | Good Enough? | The Colour of Water

THEATRE

The Plot ★★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 31 August

ON A bare stage, a great mound of filth and ash. Above it, massive chains hanging in loops; across it all, shafts of brilliant light, oblique, clear, dramatic. The sheer look of The Plot at Summerhall - created by designer Ellie Wintour and lighting man Ed Saunders, and backed by Sarah Spencer’s impressive, brooding soundscape - promises a significant piece of drama; and in many ways the show that emerges, over the next 70 minutes, does not disappoint.

In Emma Howlett’s play, which she also directs, two characters appear, consciously echoing Tom Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern; like them, they play silly games to pass the time, and are trapped in some kind of limbo or purgatory. They wear Jacobean costume, black velvet puffy breeches slashed with white satin; they are the brothers Robert and Thomas Wintour, Gunpowder Plotters of 1605, awaiting their fate - heaven or hell - after being hanged, drawn and quartered for treason.

As they wait, they tell the tale of their failed plot, transforming themselves into characters ranging from King James VI and I to Robert Wintour’s own wife; actors Abby McCann and Sophie Kean handle these transitions with varying dramatic success. The fact that they are both young women, though, adds a further dream-like layer to the drama; and the emotional stakes rise, as we learn that their beloved younger half-brother John is now undergoing the same terrible fate as them.

The question finally raised, in The Plot, concerns the morality of their rebellion, and the real motives behind it; after his death, John does not join our two characters in purgatory, suggesting that the motives of the plotters varied in purity.

It’s a question, though, that echoes down through English history, through the work of the Jacobean playwrights, and the bloody Civil War of the 1640’s; still unresolved, it was eventually submerged for centuries in the great British imperial enterprise. And as this ambitious and fascinating play ends, Emma Howlett’s two characters remain in limbo - perhaps a little like England itself. Joyce McMillan

THEATRE

My Beautiful Brain! ★★★

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

Hannah Rose Curtis’s autobiographical show follows her dyslexia from childhood – low spelling test scores, being pulled out of class to learn away from her year group in cupboards and sheds, unable to spell her own name until sixteen – through to a diagnosis and a career in theatre, where she began to find freedom.

The show is zany and high-energy, using a rail of costumes and props to shift between characters, and delivers its best lines with wit: reading, with dyslexia, is like someone has “picked up a book, shaken it, put it in the washing machine, and spat it back out onto the page again.”

Curtis is an endearing, engaging performer, and the show is perhaps at its funniest when navigating adult-life obstacles – online dating, a punishing UCAS application, an eye-watering £550 retest after university deemed her “not dyslexic enough.” Audience participation is used well but sparingly; there’s room for more.

One closing device – reading aloud, unrehearsed, from one of several letters chosen at random by the stage manager – is a bold, deliberately uncomfortable choice that risks alienating the audience in the moment, but ultimately pays off, concluding this heartfelt and illuminating hour as an act of reclamation. Josephine Balfour-Oatts

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THEATRE

Pews at Ten ★★★

Paradise in Augustine’s (Venue 152) until 29 August

Set among the pews of St David’s Cathedral, Pews at Ten follows three elderly, nosy local women – played with excellent cross-gender casting and physical precision, evident from the opening scenes where a church service is run at fast-forward – as they’re tasked with organising a surprise visit from national treasure Tom Jones. Chaos, naturally, ensues.

The cast’s character work is phenomenal, particularly a running telephone exchange dissecting every detail of their days, and a gleeful, tightly choreographed descent into pandemonium as event planning falls apart. There are several highlights along the way, including a Tom Jones impersonation met with barely contained delight from the actors and audience, and the show’s comic timing is notable throughout.

Beneath the farce sits an important point about first impressions and unfair suspicion, particularly toward newcomers and outsiders, resolving warmly as the women discover more common ground than they expected. The script is nicely observed, laced with Welsh language and cultural detail, though the production carries a rawer edge that doesn’t quite match the skill of its cast. Infectious, joyful, and full of energy, it closes with a number lively enough to get the whole audience out of their seats. Josephine Balfour-Oatts

THEATRE

Love Did a Number on Me ★★★

Downstairs Room at PBH’s Free Fringe @ Greek Gyros Grill (605) until 30 August

Eve Mumford thought her poems would tell the story of her journey from rock bottom to rock middle, but life just kept getting harder. Following her divorce from a deadbeat husband, Mumford just about juggles motherhood, a full-time job, and a debilitating need to please. But through the medium of witty and self-deprecating spoken word on these experiences, she learns to relinquish some control.

Mumford’s slam poetry is punchy and buzzword-y, promising relatability if you are of the “generation of the lad mag,” who “didn’t know about the red flag,” in her own words. She tempers her more difficult experiences with some uplifting messages on self love. Her final poem, in which she embodies an older version of herself at the tail end of an illustrious career on the stage, is a standout. Some of her verse is delivered as unaccompanied song, disrupting the easy flow of the performance somewhat, particularly in the case of the song unexplainably performed in an accent somewhere between French and Transylvanian. But Mumford’s warmth and vulnerability undoubtedly make this a delightful debut. Lilia Foster

DANCE, PHYSICAL THEATRE & CIRCUS

Good Enough? ★★★

Main Hall at Summerhall (Venue 26) until 30 August

The performers in Good Enough? are sure to greet everyone in the room before beginning. A warm welcome initiates their physical theatre offering about, well, being good enough.

Aris Papadopoulos, Paola Drera and Théo Marion-Wuillemin begin to dance with blown up photos of themselves throughout the years before moving into a series of vignettes about visibility and validation. They explore their journeys through the harsh worlds of dance and theatre, insisting that in this piece, connection – not perfection – is their priority.

The trio uses swells of cacophony to illustrate the noise of critics. While effective, funny and even shocking at first, this device becomes the show’s worn vehicle to get their point across. After two rounds of rousing and calming, we wonder what else we might get.

At times, the show nearly reads as amateur experimental theatre in its bare bones, on the nose presentation of simple themes. Where it saves itself is its exploration of queer community as an antidote to oppressive performing arts environments.

The show finds its stride at the very end, culminating in a beautiful exploration of the trio’s personal relationships – even if it isn’t entirely earned by what comes before. Mika Morava

THEATRE

The Colour of Water ★★

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 29 August

Metaphors lose their meaning and a mysterious beast stalks the corridors in this surreal play set in a university in Zurich. One academic seems to be suffering a breakdown while another speaks online to his formidable grandmother in a nursing home in England. There are some moments of poetry in Brian Alkire’s play, directed by Lara Czernecki, but the overly elaborate, stylised language drains its energy and, while abandoning realism is an interesting experiment, it lacks the structure or plot which would keep the audience invested. Susan Mansfield

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