Five shows to see at the Edinburgh Fringe, vol. 5
The fifth special issue recommending shows at the festival, feat. a two-hander about male violence, a solo show from a Muslim-Malay theatremaker, a poetry performance, and more...
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a Substack newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This issue is the fifth in a series of specials I am sending out during late July and August, all focused on shows performing at the festival, which officially kicked off yesterday. Each issue will highlight five shows worth seeing. Three will be picked by me, and a couple will be paid promotions. Hope that is okay.
Some issues will be themed. Most will not be. Some I will have seen and loved. Some I will just have heard good things about. Some artists I will know and admire. Others I will just like the sound of. Please feel free to get in touch if you want to let me know about a show you love.
One last thing: you can support this newsletter in a couple of ways. Firstly, you can share it with anyone that might be interested. And secondly, you can become a paid supporter for the cost of a cup-and-a-half of coffee a month using the button below. That’d be just great.
Stuntman - Summerhall, 17.50
I saw my first two shows of the Edinburgh Festivals on Thursday, and they were both Scottish: Thrown, Nat McCleary’s National Theatre of Scotland show about five female backhold wrestlers, which is running at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, and Stuntman, a two-hander from Glasgow-based company Superfan. You can read my reviews of them for The Stage here and here.
I would recommend catching them both - but I was particularly impressed by Stuntman. Devised by director Pete Lannon and performers David Banks and Sadiq Ali - readers of this newsletter might remember me recommending Ali’s own elegantly acrobatic, mightily moving show The Chosen Haram previously - Stuntman is an entertaining exploration of male violence, its origins, influences, and impacts.
Over an hour, Banks and Ali take it in turns to mime murdering each other in various cartoonish ways, using pistols, shotguns, machetes and more. In between these skits are passages of movement and sections of storytelling, based on their own lives and their own experiences of violence. It is, paradoxically, a friendly show about fighting. It went on a brief Scottish tour last Autumn, and now runs in Summerhall’s TechCube all month, and deserves a future life after, too. You can get tickets via the button below.
Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? - Summerhall, 16.20
Faizal Abdullah’s solo show Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? - or Who Took My Malay Away? - began as a ten-minute monologue created while Abdullah was studying at Goldsmiths, was developed via work-in-progress performances at Camden People’s Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, and elsewhere, and finally made its debut at VAULT Festival earlier this year.
The show is an hour-long lecture-performance, following Abdullah’s own journey as a Muslim-Malay-Singaporean theatremaker, born and raised in Singapore, now living and working in London. It is a love letter to Singapore, an exploration of identity, and an investigation into what it means to be Malay in the modern world.
Siapa Yang Bawa Melayu Aku Pergi? was nominated for Show Of The Week at VAULT Festival, and arrives in Edinburgh as one of six recipients of the Eclipse Award, Eclipse Theatre Company’s initiative to support stories told by Black and global-majority communities. It also runs in Summerhall’s TechCube, but only until August 13. You can get tickets via the button below.
Luke Wright’s Silver Jubilee - Pleasance Dome, 14:55
I have made a point of seeing Luke Wright perform at every Edinburgh Fringe for the last decade or so. The Essex-born, Suffolk-based poet has written and performed a string of perceptive, poignant and political hour-long epic poems, beginning with What I Learned From Johnny Bevan in 2015, continuing with Frankie Vah in 2017, and concluding with The Remains Of Logan Dankworth in 2020.
In between and alongside those, Wright has also performed straightforward poetry shows - Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads in 2011, Stay-At-Home Dandy in 2015, Luke Wright, Poet Laureate in 2018. He is back in Edinburgh with another of those this year: Luke Wright’s Silver Jubilee, marking his 25th year as a professional poet.
Wright’s poetry is muscular and moving, playful and punchy by turns. It is best listened to live - he is a charismatic on-stage presence - but you can get a taste of it by listening to his stuff on Spotify. The Ballad Of Edward Dando, One Trick Bishop, Embrace the Wank, and Houses That Used To Be Boozers are all great, but The Lay-Bys and Bypasses might be my favourite of Wright’s work. It might be my favourite poem ever, in fact. Anyway, you can read my 2020 interview with Wright in The Stage here, and you can book tickets for his show - it is on at Pleasance Dome, but only for the first half of the festival - below.
Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith - Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 12.10
Thanks to Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel Hamnet – and its recent stage adaptation – plenty of people are now familiar with the fact that Shakespeare had a son, who died at the age of eleven. Few, though, are aware that Hamnet had a twin sister, Judith. American playwright Mary Jane Schaefer’s play Upstart! introduces audiences to Judith, and imagines her rebellious, remarkable life.
“From what we know about her, Judith seems to have been a bit of a chip off the old block,” says producer Maddy Mutch. “She stood by the love of her life, in quite shocking circumstances, and was disinherited as a result. Upstart! digs into her biography and tells the story of Shakespeare’s rebellious, punky, proto-feminist daughter. It is a beautiful, fascinating piece.”
Directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones, artistic director of acclaimed company Action To The Word, and featuring an eight-strong cast of actors and actor-musicians led by LAMDA graduate Rachel Kitts, Upstart! runs at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose for the entire festival. It is the play’s UK premiere, and the debut of Mutch’s new company Maddy Mutch Productions. “We are planning on touring the show after Edinburgh,” Mutch says. “And we are passionate about telling stories that deserve a platform.”
This is promotional content.
The Life Sporadic Of Jess Wildgoose - Pleasance Courtyard, 14.25
International physical ensemble Voloz Collective burst onto the scene at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe with their acclaimed, multi-award-winning debut show The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much - a fast-paced piece of highly visual theatre inspired by the company’s shared love of classic cinema. This year, Voloz Collective return to the festival with that show – it is on at Pleasance Courtyard at 12.10 – but the company is also bringing a new show to Edinburgh: The Life Sporadic Of Jess Wildgoose.
The show is a psychological thriller, asking what risks Jess Wildgoose - a young woman from Kansas - is willing to take to make her name on Wall Street. Like all of Voloz’s work, the show is cinematically inspired - this time particularly by Pixar, Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson. “It’s a quirky, cynical, visual feast,” explains co-artistic director Sam Rayner. “Like Pixar, our physical style gives us the freedom to depict situations that are beyond realistic representation, and to ask questions that are beyond language.”
“And like Scorsese, we interrogate how power is co-opted and what drives the dark side of ambition, especially in female-identifying people,” continues co-artistic director Olivia Zerphy. “It’s a mad show, but it is also going to move people, and engage with ideas that reflect who we are a company and perhaps where we are as a society.”
This is promotional content.
Thanks for reading
That is it for this issue. I will be back in your inboxes in a few days with five more shows to see at the Edinburgh Fringe. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this email. Or you can find me on Twitter, where I am @FergusMorgan.
A quick reminder of the various ways you can support The Crush Bar. You can share it. You can use it for promotional purposes. And you can subscribe and support. There are currently 1889 subscribers. If you would like to join them, you can do so via the button below.
Right. See you again in a few days.
Fergus