Katie is 15, and has diabetes. Katie also has Pip. Pip is a dog. Pip can smell when Katie’s blood sugar is either too high or too low. Katie and Pip are in the show, and the show is about them. It’s also about type 1 diabetes (which Katie was diagnosed with age 2, and for which there is currently no cure), and provides the audience with an insight into how the illness affects people’s lives daily.

There are also two other performers  called Rob and Charlotte, who collectively are Tin Can People, the makers of this, their first show. (Rob is Katie’s older brother.)

Delivered with a deadpan style and a stripped-down aesthetic, Katie and Pip is minimal throughout, and seems to use this low-key minimal style to reflect Katie’s outlook on life. There are brief intervals in the show where Katie checks her blood sugar levels, and Rob and Charlotte eat some Kit Kats. More visually impactful sections are carried out in a similarly matter-of-fact way, such as a bucket of tennis balls being launched across the space, sending Pip flying after them in ecstasy, and a sudden lighting change as all light leaves the room apart from two emergency flashing beacons. There’s no agony or angst brought into the space, they just crack on with what needs to be done, in the here and now. ‘I’m happy performing in Rob and Charlotte’s show’ Katie reads from a script..

It’s touching to have non-performers onstage letting the audience into their lives (particularly when one is a border collie),  but the integration of the heartfelt true-life stories and the theatrical presentation of those stories needs more work.

As Pip bounces around the room, her excitement for her squeaky dog toy is palpable, but the consideration of the dog’s role seems to stop at her inclusion as a visual referencing point, and the three humans’ interactions with her often feel secondary.

Other aspects of show are puzzling. The humans put on dog masks and stand in stillness at the back of the space before carrying out training routines previously performed by Pip the dog. It’s not really clear why this and many other things are happening, but it’s as if Crofts have gone a bit mad and are covertly invading the fringe theatre scene.

It’s likely that this piece needs to be watched with a softer, more patient type of engagement…

A pair of headphones and an iPhone are all the audience are given when inside the Jeelie Piece café. Once instructed to wear them, the background noise of a different café comes through – or is it this café? Who’s in this café? Are they actors? – along with a voice: ‘Listen… I could be anybody.’ The café slowly comes to life as the lights dim and the voice is revealed to be coming from a man in the real cafe. Terry. We learn that Terry is grieving the death of his ex-boyfriend, Luka. In this semi-black mirror reality, Terry must decide what happens to Luka’s online presence and history after his death.

This premise is not entirely fictional, in 2013 Facebook created an option for people to either remove or memorialise their deceased loved ones’ accounts. Similarly, Twitter will now close or archive accounts of the deceased. The inheritance of digital assets that comes along with this is a pressing matter which has not been fully explored, as it surely will be, within theatre. This one-man show, created by Dante or Die, and performed by the company’s co-director Terry O’Donovan (smudging boundaries between fictional character and real-life person), sets the trend…

User Not Found delves into these themes using headphones to blur the lines between social and private space in the café, just as they’re blurred in contemporary life by the access to fake news and madness inducing, Facebook-stalking habits that our little black slabs allow (as Terry explores). The iPhones dished out to the audience are synchronised with Terry’s so we get a real-time display of him receiving text messages of condolence and scrolling through old pictures of Luka, blurred out as he struggles to process the fallout of his passing.

The interactive design of the phone interfaces are acutely observational to how we engage with our phones and work as a fantastic device (aha) for involving the audience in the plot progression. The orientation of the phones’ display will move to landscape when Terry watches music videos, forcing the audience to pick up the phone; although, some of the subtler interactive functions of the phones go amiss (which shan’t be revealed for spoiler purposes). Facilitating the sense of exploration needed for an interactive theatrical experience is a tad more difficult when the audience are sitting in a dimly-lit café, as opposed to running around a maze.

User Not Found is a clever piece of new writing that incorporates immersive sound design and interactive digital media. It not only explores a topic that is prevalent, but also breaks new ground in how technology can be utilised in immersive theatrical landscapes, and does so to provokingly explore individual experiences of those bereaved and  grieving. Much like the presence of technology in our daily lives, User Not Found is both humanising in its unifying nature, yet also unrelenting in its pervasiveness.

Under the direction of Theatre Re’s Guillaume Pigé, students of Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company have created a high energy piece of physical theatre that is both polished and captivating. Being the only professional production at Edinburgh Fringe this year to feature performers in training, The Woman and the Canvas is a good example of how student performers can flourish in a devising process led by an experienced director.

Inspired by the films 8½ by Federico Fellini, and Hour of the Wolf by Ingmar Bergman, the performance follows an artist seeking inspiration; an artist who, as is the case in both of these films, uncovers elements of the gothic and grotesque. In her mental searching, the memories of the eponymous Woman are dished out as a smorgasbord and brought to life by an ensemble of 25+ physical performers. Like waves undulating on a beach, images appear and disappear from the ensemble: art critics with pen and paper in hand chase after a canvas like flies while a sequin-covered matador clings to a spinning table. With rarely one fixed point of focus for the audience, this constantly moving piece always provides something to engage with.

The plot bleeds through the fragmented barrage of action in the same way that meaning bleeds through the layers of strikes and splashes in abstract expressionism. The intensely precise characterisations delivered by all of the performers are instantly recognisable as societal or archetypal figures and carry with them a hallucinatory presence. The energy emitted from the performers makes the piece engaging in a visceral way where nothing is referenced but instead, everything is brought into an amped-up, adrenaline-spiked view. The inundation of movement is successful not only as an aesthetic achievement but is cleverly woven into the piece as a tool for transitions and solving logistical tasks. A whirlwind of housemaids, school bullies and clowns materialise in motion around a murder victim, who is swiftly caught up in the crowd and carried offstage, with the audience being none the wiser, as the victim appears to vanish in plain sight.

All aspects of the movement and the dramaturgy are solid but occasionally lose their impact when delivering more nuanced parts of the piece. This isn’t down to what the performers bring to the table but is instead the result of a mismatch between the lighting design and the performance space. When working with softer palettes and less contrasting levels of light for toned-down scenes, the lighting isn’t received well by the natural light bleed and architecture of theSpace’s Triplex venue, and merely colour the performers’ faces while failing to extend the theatrical space. These sections are sparse throughout the performance and the remainder of the show is supported by harsher, immediately disorienting lights that emulate the protagonist’s internal journey.

The Woman and the Canvas refreshingly utilises the full potential of an ensemble-driven process. All performers support each other throughout the show and present a balanced and well-rounded piece which has clearly been cared for with passion throughout all stages of its creation. The sense of care and complicity between the cast extends into the audience as they scatter and flurry across the room, facilitating a unifying audience experience that operates fully in the here and now.

Featured image (top): Michael Wharley