We Will Hear The Angels, Edinburgh review: 'short but beautiful'

At the Fruitmarket Gallery, director Nicholas Bone’s Magnetic North company presents a finished version of their short and beautiful total theatre piece We Will Hear The Angels, about what happens when the magic of life fails to materialise, and what becomes of the broken-hearted.

Heartbreak is not a hugely popular subject, in a 21st century culture obsessed with “moving on”; but here, Bone and four other musician-performers - Apphia Campbell, Caitlin Forbes, Greg Sinclair and Marie-Gabrielle Koumenda - weave together music, movement, the spoken word, and subtle elements of lighting and design, to conjure up the absolute reality of heartbreak, as it has been understood by great writers and composers, from Anton Chekhov onwards.

And towards the end, the performers sing songs of sadness - from Rip It Up And Start Again to I Would Rather Go Blind - that have helped them live with the agony of loss and grief; in a mature and beautiful theatrical acknowledgement of those emotions, that seems like a vital first step in learning to live with them at all.

We Will Hear The Angels is at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 6 February