IN MID-JUNE, the brochure for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe drops through the letterbox. It’s the size of a telephone directory. (Remember those?) It’s the first indication of the themes that will recur among the three thousand shows seeking an audience during August this year. That in itself is interesting, because it is a sign of the concerns that have dominated the thinking of creatives during the past 12 months. This year, there are a lot of shows about neurodivergence, dementia, Palestine, science, and the climate emergency.
Perhaps the most surprising theme is people yearning after the unknown. Emma Howlett’s dizzyingly clever play Aether tells the stories of five women over 16 centuries — an ancient astronomer, a Victorian medium, a magician, a quantum physicist, and a contemporary student — who reached out beyond what was then known.
An impeccable ensemble of four women take us on an intellectual joyride: an ever-shifting production with old-school theatrical magic in a blue semicircle. What could be merely a cerebral theme is anchored in an emotional setting by the student, who sacrifices love for an endless fascination with the mysteries of the universe. This is a deeply satisfying play.
There are more young Christians at this year’s festival than I can ever remember. This may not be unexpected to anyone who is aware of the “quiet revival” documented in the Bible Society/YouGov research (News, 8 April), but their creativity in turning their search for meaning into art is life-enhancing. Outstanding among them is the comedian Sam Williams, whose show, Touch Me Not, is about how he came to London seeking to affirm his identity as a gay man, and discovered more than he bargained for. He found himself in a Taizé service, then in a welcoming community, and on a journey that led to his baptism at Easter.
It is an utterly joyous hour of faith, storytelling, and smut. He loses no time in revealing why his show has an age 18 advisory warning, and the eye-watering conclusion would catapult some churchgoers to a premature meeting with their Maker. But the young godless mob (his words!) that made up his audience roared their approval and were talking about it in the bar afterwards. For many reasons, Sam Williams is a name to watch.
ALICE-INDIA is also searching in her own way. In her debut stand-up hour, See You In Hell, despite being an unarguably lovely person, she tries to persuade us that she is totally evil. There are Bible texts, anecdotes, asides on moral relativism, and a fascinating fear that God cannot forgive her. A slightly self-conscious delivery means that her set is met with bubbles of laughter rather than belly laughs, but her final revelation is jaw-dropping, and she sweeps all before her.
Alongside “nudity” and “violence”, “discussion of faith” is now one of the trigger warnings posted outside venues to protect over-sensitive audience members from unintentionally exposing themselves to danger. It is well worth the risk to see the provocatively titled God is Dead . . . And I Killed Him. Callum Patrick Hughes tells his story of rebellion against unbelieving parents by converting to Christianity. Over time, alcohol, bereavement, and a secular group of 12 “disciples” became more urgent in his life, but never fully took its place. He tells his story extremely entertainingly, underscored by guitar and punctuated by folksongs and hymns. It is funny and uplifting, yearning for something to believe in. His final words as he considers his mortality are “Bring me your ghosts, bring me your witches, bring me your God.” It’s really moving, and it could be the motto of this year’s festival.
Gabe Seplow is also on an uneasy quest. The Lost Priest is a still and serious meditation on what it means to be ethnically Jewish, the rituals remaining, but the religious conviction diminishing. It has fascinating ideas that take us via Shylock’s Venice and 1930s Germany into his own churning head. But it isn’t very theatrical, and moments like the lighting of candles and the singing of prayers call out for a greater dramatic richness.
This year, the Hong Kong theatre-maker Cathy Lam has brought a tiny tale of great loss to the festival. Ah-Ma is a Mandarin name for grandmother, and actor Kasen Tsui tells the story of a life that begins in tragedy and ends with memory slipping away. It is told in a simple and sprightly way and the plea “If you remember nothing else, remember that God loves you” is a thread of hope which sweetens a sad story.
XHLOE AND NATASHA have been award-winning favourites of the Fringe for some years. And Then the Rodeo Burned Down is typical of their style: impeccably drilled physical comedy and relationships explored through razor-sharp wordplay. This playful show is set in the swaggering world of the rodeo, where the cowboys, clowns, and cleaners struggle to climb a ladder to success — or, in reality, just to get by. The duo swap roles, fight, flirt, and try to outwit each other. It is colourful and clever, and always has an undercurrent of melancholy.
Em Tambree’s play Altar features the most unlikely conversation of the Fringe. During her wedding, Sutton slips away unnoticed for an hour (an hour!) to talk to her first girlfriend, Dana. During the intervening years, Dana has transitioned to Dan, which is a challenge to Sutton’s Christian beliefs. The acting is splendidly committed, and there is no doubting the sincerity of the writing in trying to find an accommodation between a fundamentalist faith and the reality of gender fluidity. But both characters are difficult to like, and so the show is not a good advert for conservatism, marriage, or, for that matter, growing up.
Xhloe and Natasha in And Then the Rodeo Burned Down
Should we need a reminder that homophobia is pervasive, Tom at the Farm (by Cena Brasilia Internacional) has arrived from Brazil laden with awards and with an ugly, visceral power. Tom’s boyfriend has died, and he travels miles into the country to attend the funeral, near the grieving mother’s farm. The dead man’s brother understands the circumstances immediately, but insists that his mother must believe him to be merely a work colleague. Revelations emerge explosively on a vast stage in pools of blood-red light and viscid mud. The men are respectively humanised and brutalised. The climax is shockingly sad. The drama is unforgettable.
AND now the bad news! In a theological college somewhere in England, four young people are trying to untangle complex romantic relationships. It is one of those colleges previously unknown to the Church of England which is staffed entirely by bishops and where the ordinands dress as curates. Playing Love, by People You Know TC, bills itself as an episcopal sex comedy. The sex is frustrated, the comedy is sporadic, and I don’t think the author really knows what episcopal means. It aspires to be one of those trouser-dropping farces that theatre left behind in the 1970s. But it suggests that the painstaking research that found a “quiet revival” in Britain failed to notice that there was a section of Generation Z whose spirituality stretched no further than finding something hilarious about seeing a vicar in his pants.
Shortly after the Fringe brochure arrives in June, emails from artists wanting reviewers to see their show begin to arrive. Within a week, they number 20 a day, and it becomes impossible to reply to them all. Within a month, they number 50 a day, and it becomes impossible to read them all. Most of them are generic and take seconds to deal with. Some of them give specific reasons that Church Times readers would be interested in the show, and earn attention.
And then there’s Dru Cripps. He is an improvisatory comedian and will not take no for an answer — either in his communications or in his show. His final offer was to lead the entire audience in a hymn of praise which they would create and sing together. What could I say?
Having been coerced into attending, I am pleased to tell you that the show was magnificent. He finds out information about members of the audience, including their favourite genres of music. He records a bass line, then loops it. He persuades someone to sing a string of notes, which he samples and mixes in. Then he improvises a lyric that refers to the life of the person he interviewed with near-perfect rhymes. It is ludicrously inventive and very, very funny. Did I get my hymn? Yes, I did. It was hilarious and life-affirming — and the last word of the show was “Alleluia!”
After 32 shows, I sat down beside the castle just after midnight for one last beer with a friend before going home. Four young women dressed as cats purred by and invited us to their comedy, which was about to begin. Right in front of us, a street performer started juggling fire. Ye gods, I love this place.