Five of the best solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe
The Crush Bar is back, with a pick of the festival's one-person productions.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a weekly newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
This issue is one of twelve specials I will be sending out during July and August, all focused on shows performing at the Edinburgh Fringe. Each issue will highlight five shows worth watching - three picked by me, plus a couple of promotional ones, too.
Some issues will be themed like this one, some won’t be. Some shows I will have seen and loved myself, some I will just have heard good things about. All of them, though, will be made by exciting, mostly emerging/early-career artists.
You can read more about the thinking behind The Crush Bar here, and you can subscribe to get it sent straight into your inbox - go on! - using the button below…
Please, Feel Free To Share - Pleasance Courtyard, 12.50pm
Scatterjam, the company co-founded by Mountview graduates Rachel Causer and Roisin Bevan, makes socially engaged, structurally explorative, female led work. It was supposed to present two shows at VAULT Festival earlier this year, but the festival got cancelled and the shows along with it.
You can finally catch one of them in Edinburgh this August. Please Feel Free To Share is a darkly comic one-woman play about social media, the pressure to share everything online, and the dangers of presenting highly edited versions of ourselves to others.
Written by Causer, performed by Bevan and directed by Liam Blain, the play was a finalist for the 2021 Popcorn Writing Prize. It sees Bevan play Alex, a seemingly successful social media star, whose addiction to online attention starts to infiltrate her everyday life.
Ruckus - Summerhall, 3.30pm
Wildcard was the company behind the hit 2018 gig-theatre show Electrolyte and it returns to the Edinburgh Fringe this year with Ruckus, a thrilling and thought-provoking one-woman play about coercive control, written and performed by the company’s co-executive director Jenna Fincken.
Fincken plays Lou, a 28-year-old-primary school teacher who recounts her experience of being in an increasingly coercive relationship to the audience, from the establishment of love and trust at its outset, to the cycle of threats, humiliation, and intimidation it became. Content warnings attached.
Fincken’s writing process involved researching real stories of real women to ensure her depiction of coercive control was entirely accurate. Direction comes from Stage Debut Award nominee Georgia Green, while sound design and lighting come from former Crush Bar interviewees Tingying Dong and Simeon Miller.
Fanboy- Pleasance Dome, 12.15pm
Writer and performer Joe Sellman-Leava has scored hits at the Edinburgh Fringe in previous years with his two hard-hitting but hugely engaging solo shows, 2015’s Fringe First-winning Labels and 2017’s critically acclaimed Monster. This August, he returns with his third, Fanboy.
The show sees Sellman-Leava – a thirty-something who still nerds out over Nintendo, Star Wars and A Muppet’s Christmas Carol – examine our relationship with fandom. Why do we obsess of certain shows, or certain games, or certain people? What are we really doing? What happens if that obsession goes too far?
Directed by Yaz Al-Shaater with dramaturgy from Lauren Mooney, Fanboy uses drama, storytelling and video to explore the way in which we process emotions through pop culture and form connections through fandom – and to ask whether that is ultimately useful or not.
Ryan Lane Will Be There Now In A Minute - Assembly Roxy, 3.10pm
Actor and comedian Ryan Lane grew up in mid-Wales, trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, and has subsequently made a name for himself in the world of fringe theatre, performing in acclaimed productions with Told By An Idiot and Christopher Bliss. His new solo show, Ryan Lane Will Be There Now In A Minute, sees him return to his roots to explore what it means to be Welsh and queer.
A satirical and silly character comedy, it involves Lane inventively inhabiting the colourful characters he was raised around – from raucous Rugby teachers to homophobic grandparents – over the course of an hour, with some figures from Welsh mythology thrown in as well. “Think The League of Gentlemen meets Under Milk Wood and Clueless,” says Lane.
Ryan Lane Will Be There Now In A Minute first appeared as a work-in-progress at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, then had a successful run at VAULT Festival in 2020 and was a recipient of The Soho Rising Award for up and coming performers. After this full fringe run, Lane is keen for the show – and his character comedy – to have a future life. “I’d love to tour to other venues, of course,” he says. “I’d also love to be invited and supported to create more shows and collaborate with more people."
This is promotional content.
Joshua (And Me) - Pleasance Dome, 10.55am
Actor-musician Rachel Hammond’s new solo show Joshua (and Me) is inspired by her personal experiences caring for a family member with additional needs. “My brother is autistic, but I didn’t meet anyone in a similar situation to me until I was 21,” Hammond explains. “Talking about it together and listening to each other was so freeing. I wanted to provide that for other people, too.”
Joshua (and Me) is a fictional story, Hammond adds, but one that is heavily based on her own life. Directed by the acclaimed Lucy Jane Atkinson, it follows a girl, Hannah, from the age of seven to the age of eighteen, and explores what it means to be a sibling to someone who is autistic. It is also stuffed with hits by The Beatles, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Lego, adds Hammond.
It also marks Hammond’s debut as a writer. She graduated from Mountview in 2018, then spent two years as a professional actor-musician before she turned to writing her own work. She already has two more plays in the pipeline, and is keen to connect with as many producers, programmers and theatres as possible during the fringe. “I really want to kickstart that side of my career,” she says.
This is promotional content.
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Fergus Morgan