Theatre review: Hear All About It
Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Two earnest young men, clear-voiced and fresh-faced tell us the facts: a suicidal teenager known only as X is in danger of taking her own life if a hospital bed can't be found for her.
theSpace@Jury’s Inn (Venue 260)
SpaceTriplex (Venue 38) from today.
***
The show is part of a series of new plays which the young company write, direct and produce in response to recent news. Each week they will stage a new one.
Today’s piece is an old-fashioned, unabashed piece of political theatre in which performers George Brooker and Rishi Soneji also wryly question whether they have any right, as men, to tell an unnamed woman’s story.
Ava Davies has written a smart and creative script that may initially feel like an on-the-nose retelling of the facts, but then questions its own legitimacy through a far more interesting exploration of liberal values. Didactic but charming, literal but self-aware, the piece calls for us to remember the unseen people affected by cuts to mental health services and the NHS.
At the end a clearly emotional Brooker hugs Soneji – a touching moment that hints at the intense but inspiring process creating a piece this quickly must involve.
Until 26 August. Today 11:45am.