Yew trees, giants, wassailing, and witches’ lore. The Inside Out Festival 2025 stretches across Dorset and beyond, and digs deep into the county’s folklore and landscape to bring great works of outdoor arts to life. Dorothy Max Prior reports

Arriving to the quayside at Christchurch on a breezy late-summer Friday evening, I see that there are flags everywhere, fluttering madly. 

No, not Union flags or St George flags, but 60 beautifully-designed multi-coloured flags depicting birds, butterflies, fish, flowers, and humanoid figures composed of a multitude of faces. Some are very clean-cut and graphic; some bear texts in cut-out lettering; some are quite abstracted, so that the colours and patterns become more immediate than the figures depicted. Collectively, all seem to convey the message that we are one united world, animal vegetable and mineral – the natural world bearing no regard to political boundaries of state or allegiance.      

This is River of Hope, created by artist Heidi Steller and poet Matt West who, inspired by three local rivers – the Stour, the Avon and the Allen – have worked with local young people to respond to those rivers with poetry and visual imagery. The Christchurch iteration of River of Hope, presented as part of the Inside Out Festival 2025, is the culmination of a project run by Thames Festival Trust, which has taken place in seven UK locations; the programme focusing on young people’s reflections on climate change, with concurrent projects taking place in France and Ethiopia.

Immediately before the outing to see the installation, there is a reception to launch this year’s Inside Out Festival, held in a lovely garden that is rather bizarrely populated by models of dinosaurs – a kind of miniature Crystal Palace Park! Here, we gather to drink Pimms; to listen to teenage rapper DJ Lola, whose song ‘What’s the Dream?’ celebrates love and optimism; and to hear co-directors Bill Gee and Kate Wood speak. 

Bill notes that it is twenty years since he and Kate first started the conversation about what would become the inaugural Inside Out Festival, founded 18 years ago as a biennial event. He highlighted the international aspects of the Festival, which this year has a strong Catalonian contingent included in the programme; and also flags up (excuse the pun) the three national projects that had a Dorset iteration: River of Hope, Nature Calling, and Beach of Dreams (this last another flag-creating project that I saw last May at Out There Festival in Great Yarmouth, now heading to Corfe Castle for its Inside Out iteration). 

For her part, Kate reminds us of Activate’s motto, which is that ‘anything’s possible and everyone’s invited’ telling us that the organisation’s aim is to break down barriers and reach the widest possible audiences, connecting people to the arts whilst celebrating Dorset’s natural landscape.

Speeches done, Pimms drunk, it’s time to head of down to the quay, just a short walk away…

The following morning my companions and I gather at breakfast to compare notes on the storm that raged through the night – which I somehow managed to sleep through. The ground is damp and it is still a little windy, but gathering raincoats and sturdy boots, we set off to Moors Valley Country Park and Forest for the opening day of Canopy: 24 ideas about trees, the brand new immersive sound-work from Lorna Rees (of Gobbledegook Theatre), in which the audience is invited to follow a trail though the forest where we will encounter twenty-four ‘pods’, each housing its own sound world. We arrive dead on 10am, the start time, and the production team are just putting the final touches in place. Luckily nothing has been damaged by the night’s rain and wind, and we are all set to start.

In previous commissions for Inside Out, Lorna has given us artistic explorations of, and guides to, rock forms and to clouds. Now she has turned her attention to trees, working with arborists, earth scientists, artists, writers, folk musicians, and members of the local community.

‘The work is actually about seven years in the making,’ says Lorna. ‘I realised that I very much love trees, but don’t know much about them, even some of the basic identification knowledge. I’m really good at identifying clouds and not too shabby at rocks, but living things have really eluded me. As an environmentalist I wanted to know more about the science of trees, and their role in our planet and ecosystems. I always start my making process with a notion and Canopy was inspired by the idea of who a British forest is for, and what our psycho-geographical forests are. There was just so much to say! I realised that I wanted a collective of voices – different perspectives and communities to respond with their ideas about trees. All of these perspectives and ideas go through my curatorial lens, and some conversations became songs instead of people just talking to me.’  

So, what’s the end result? We head off to find out. We are given a map and invited to follow a trail though the forest to discover and experience these 24 different ‘pods’ of various colours and sizes, each suspended in the forest.

‘I’ve worked with some amazing folk to create the pods themselves,’ says Lorna. ‘Liam O’Brien is a product designer and forager, and Amanda Moore is an artist and architect, and together we’ve worked on the special design universe of Canopy, one of slime moulds and fungus and seeds. We’ve worked really hard to be as environmentally careful as possible, and to work with people who really make things. The sonic acorns in the domes [that deliver the soundscapes] were specially made in Birmingham by a team of craftsmen, out of beech and oak. And artist and designer Sophie Fretwell has collaborated with me on costume and design. I love fungi and slime moulds and the seed pods – the idea was to look retro-futuristic – slightly sci-fi – but also to be clearly of the place it’s sprung from’.

In the very first pod, artist, philosopher and clown (great combination, that!) Remi Oriogun-Williams tackles the key issue: ‘What is a Tree?’ Later, we get more specific musings on, or odes to, different tree species. There’s ‘Oak’ by folklorist Lally Macbeth; a song called ‘Yew Tree’, dedicated to ‘the oldest living beings in Europe’, with one yew racking up a lifespan of 4,000 years; a wassailing ditty celebrating the ‘Old Apple Tree’, sung by Lorna and members of the community in Chettle, North Dorset; another song called ‘Blossom Queens’ about the cherry blossom that heralds the arrival of spring; and a lament called ‘Oh Magnolia’, inspired by a conversation with ecologist Professor Adrian Newton.

I notice that a lot of these songs are co-written by Lorna and her son Rufus Rusic, and ask her about working with him and other family members.

‘My son Rufus – who for most of this project was just 17 – worked incredibly closely on the music with me. A couple of years ago we performed as mother and son with a Dutch company called Collectief Walden on Songs For A Shifting Soil. It was a real revelation to me that so many people loved seeing our relationship on a stage like that. And, him being fairly immersed in folk music and us having sung together since he was tiny, we have a real shorthand when creating music together. He’s been dragged to countless wassails and cloud-gazings and maypole dances! We have played with so many ideas with the music. One song is based on an old German folk canon, which the 90-strong choir (run by Sandie Wood) I’ve sung with for nearly 20 years sings; another is a song Rufus and I recorded whilst sitting under a yew tree in a graveyard in North Dorset. I think our voices have a sort of unique blend which I don’t think it’s possible to replicate with anyone else. And I love that a young person has been so involved in making the work.’

One of their excellent collaborations is on a piece called ‘Trees Are People Too’ which reminds us that ‘Nature’s not just there for you – the trees are people too’.

Lorna has more to add on ‘the family tree’ collaborations:

‘On reflection, I think it’s quite a feminist act – acknowledging and working with the family I’ve worked so hard to create – and four generations of my family have been involved in the creation of this piece, from my granddad to my parents to my sons and nephews. And they are my family tree after all! I make things at my kitchen table. It’s very – domestic. I hope that this is reflected in the things I make, I hope they’re connecting and on a human scale.’

I will also add that for me, one of the most moving pieces in Canopy is ‘The Trees of my Father’, a personal reminiscence by Lorna’s husband Adam Coshan reflecting on his Anglo-Indian heritage, and his father’s encountering of cobras on forest walks!

‘It was inspired by my partner Adam’s father’s forest from where he grew up in India – the jungle is part of my family’s British forest too!’

Another favourite pod of mine is ‘In the Neighbourhood of Trees’ in which author John Grindrod sings the praises of city trees and nature in the urban environment: conkers bouncing on bus shelters, plane trees pushing up paving stones, and tree roots knitting underneath our streets. Being a city girl, and someone who has made work exploring the relationship between the natural world and the urban environment, I very much appreciated and identified with this particular piece of writing.

I experience and enjoy all the pods, but I find myself most drawn to those with the poetic, literary, musical and meditative content. The music and sound art that underscore the spoken or sung text is excellent, with much created (as discussed earlier) by Rufus, but with additional sound design work by Jo Tyler, in beautiful pieces such as ‘The Forests That Were’, recorded on location in the petrified forest of Portland, Dorset. Less engaging – although I know this is down to personal taste and interest – are the pods that discuss climate change and endangered species. Perhaps because I feel I know these things are occurring, but I want to focus on being in the present moment in this beautiful forest, listening to the rustling trees and singing birds in tandem with the pod sound recordings. But the beauty of having twenty-four pods to listen in to is that there is something for everyone.

When we finally reach the end of the trail, we come across the vintage horse trailer that has been lovingly transformed by Lorna and her granddad into a little hub for books and research materials – also providing the opportunity for trail participants to talk to Lorna or producer Natalie Querol or one of the other team members. 

Such an ambitious and engaging project, beautifully realised – Canopy is a great addition to this year’s Inside Out Festival, and will hopefully live on in other locations.

‘The shows I’ve premiered at Inside Out Dorset (Ear Trumpet, Cloudscapes and GEOPHONIC) have all had successful touring lives far beyond their first outings. So I’m incredibly grateful for the Festival’s belief in me and the continued relationship. I’m keen to take Canopy to urban parklands as well as woodland and forested places – we have the most extraordinary treescapes and parks in the UK. I’d like to explore them more.’

Our next stop is a hefty 70-minute drive away. We are off to Yeovil to see Becca Gill of environmental art collective Radical Ritual, here with their project Consequences.

Fascinated by the enduring mystery of the Cerne Abbas giant, Radical Ritual have created a vast temporary artwork, conjuring up a monumental new mythical creature. Consequences, a large-scale participatory project, draws on folk traditions, surrealist art-making, and collaborative storytelling ‘to create a new myth that reflects contemporary communities and their connection to the land’. The end result comprises the large-scale visual art piece, displayed on a hillside; together with workshops, parades, and a very lovely sound installation set alongside it.

‘I’m inspired by how myths shape our connection to place and to each other – how we have lost many of these connections, and how we might create new ones together,’ says Becca. ‘Consequences is an act of reclaiming belonging – to land, to shared histories, to each other – and is a symbol of what we can achieve when we embrace our differences and create together. I love that it is a great big game that breaks down the barriers to creating, that there is surprise in what others do, and that it taps into the subconscious at the same time as allowing people to co-create simultaneously.’

Now, geography is not my strongest subject, but even I know that Yeovil is in Somerset not Dorset – if only just over the border! But we are in Yeovil because it has played a key role in the development of the piece, as Becca explains:

‘Consequences started in conversation with Nick Hayes (Right to Roam) who was really inspired by the issue of access to land. We worked with over 200 people from Yeovil to create a new giant in Cerne Abbas, collecting plants to make inks and charcoal and pigments to create the body parts of the new giant. We worked with them in the landscape – played games of Consequences on a smaller scale, and then had a huge canvas outside which they could collage onto, working collectively and then individually to make their section. The flora and fauna you see in the giant is all from the hillside.  They felt that they belonged in that landscape although none of them had ever been there before, even though they only lived 20 minutes down the road.’

The new Consequences giant made its first appearance alongside the legendary Cerne Giant, an ancient land art work depicting an enormous male figure carved on to the hillside. Now it has moved to Yeovil, giving locals a chance to see the artwork that was created in collaboration with members of their community.

So here we now are, on Summerhouse Hill above Yeovil. At the foot of the hill is the workshop tent, featuring a wonderful array of natural materials, from chalk to charcoal to wool and dyes made from local plants. There’s also a small orchard where the sound installation is sited. This has been created by Douglas Dare, and is a beautiful piece, merging folk instruments and electronics with a compelling spoken text full of witches’ lore that tells of houses where ox hearts studded with nails are found under the floorboards, and mummified cats are found bricked up behind the walls.

‘Douglas is an incredible musician who grew up near to the Cerne Giant in Dorset on a farm and when we first met we realised we both had a postcard of it on our fridges!’ says Becca. ‘His music is evocative and beautiful and I was keen to work with him. The soundtrack was created using found sounds from the hillside.  He also incorporated the poem ‘This Patch of Land’ written by Louisa Adjoa Parker for Nature Calling, and we reached out to the people she interviewed when writing this so that their voices are featured in the composition.’

Moving on up the hill track: we can’t clearly see the whole piece from where we are, and thus trek right up the hillside, walking the circumference of the 30 x 40 metre ‘canvas’ (in fact, a specially constructed breathable material that, whilst being environmentally sound for the ground beneath it, can withstand the vagaries of the British weather). The images on it have been  digitally created from the participants’ original drawings, using chalks coloured with inks and dyes taken from local plants.

We see heads, hands, torsos, legs and feet of very many different creatures, real and mythical. There are beady eyes and beaks, scales and wings and tails, in many different hues. Just as in the parlour game Consequences, each team working on their section didn’t get to see what others had drawn until the end reveal.

Becca tells me that Fairmead School for neurodiverse teenagers worked on the Head section. The Heart group was made with Global Majority, an organisation for refugees and asylum seekers. ‘Some of the kids wanted to paint the flags of their countries of origin and have these as petals at the centre of the heart, so we have Syrian and Palestinian flags at the heart centre,’ says Becca. The Legs were tasked to able2achieve: ‘a non-verbal boy took a stick and started to draw an elephant,’ says Becca. ‘We later discovered that there have been findings that show that elephants may have walked on this hillside in prehistoric times’. The Feet section was created by a group of local Year 4 primary school children, who loved mixing and creating with the paints and charcoal, enjoying how messy they got, and saying that they had only ever thought paint came from a plastic pot. One of the key elements of the project was making and using art materials created from the raw materials foraged from the local landscape.  

‘I’ve been a long-time fan of ancient monuments, stone circles, chalk land art, and the ambiguity and power that these hold,’ says Becca. ‘I’m also a fan of the folklore around giants especially here in UK and the intangible pre-history which has been lost through many years of capitalism and colonialism. I’m excited by the resonance that these places hold and the imagination that they spark as we try to work out how and why they are there. This is an exciting starting point for working with many people to co-create new myths.’

Becca’s team of collaborators include the acclaimed author Sita Brahmachari and artist Grace Emily Manning, both of whom ran and continue to run the project workshops. They were also key to the parade that took place in Yeovil on the morning of Saturday 2o September. Sita had this to say about the parade:

‘On the day that there were marches seeding unrest and discord in our capital, I was proud to be part of a radical ritual here in Yeovil – a beautiful parade. The parade brought together people from each of the groups we had worked with. It was a gentle parade in keeping with the bright, beautiful, gentle new giant. What a joy to see the people of Yeovil with local and global roots and branches, from across generations, gather to see the giant they had helped to make. We held up our banners and sang. The sun shone as people living in the same town met – some for the first time, others  reunited – and carried flags, making the sentence: ‘Together. We. Are. Giant.’

Leaving Yeovil, I take a train to Clapham Junction. As I cross the station, I’m moving through crowds of people wearing flags and waving flags – Union flags, the St George cross. There are beer cans thrown on the ground, and a lot of loud jeering. I remember that there has been a big far-right rally in London today, called Unite the Kingdom, organised by Tommy Robinson and addressed by Elon Musk.

I hurry on by, glad to have experienced a very different sort of flag flying at Inside Out Dorset. 

Featured image (top): Lorna Rees: Canopy. Photo Poppy Joy.

Dorothy Max Prior attended Inside Out Dorset 2025 on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th September as a guest of Activate and Martha Oakes PR. 

The Inside Out 2025 programme ran Friday 12th to Sunday 21st September, with installations, artworks, performances and events across Dorset and into Somerset, with sites including Christchurch Quay, Forestry England’s Moors Valley Country Park and Forest, Corfe Castle, the beach in Weymouth, and Summerhouse Hill in Yeovil. 

Inside Out Dorset is an international biennial outdoor arts festival. It presents live performance in unexpected places – in town centres, by the sea, in fields and in woodland – for everyone to enjoy. Some of Dorset’s most remarkable urban and rural spots are transformed with experiences that touch hearts and minds like nothing else. Inside Out Dorset is produced by Activate Performing Arts.  www.insideoutdorset.co.uk 

Activate exists to promote, support and produce performing arts projects in its communities. It brings world-class events to unexpected places, like town centres, village squares, beaches and hilltops. Supporting its performing arts community is at the heart of everything it does. It brings people together, offers advice, and provides access to learning and resources. It’s there to help creatives at all levels on their journey towards creating outstanding, inspiring work. As one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations, it receives regular funding to initiate, develop and sustain a range of dance, theatre and outdoor arts opportunities for the people of Dorset and the South West. It is also core funded by Dorset Council and BCP Council. As a not-for-profit organisation, it works in many ways and with many partners.  www.activateperformingarts.org.uk 

Lorna Rees Company: Canopy: 24 ideas about trees was presented at Forestry England’s Moors Valley Country Park and Forest in Dorset, 13 to 21 September 2025, as part of Inside Out Festival. It was commissioned by The National Memorial Arboretum, Activate/Inside Out Dorset and Forestry England, with funding from Arts Council England National Lottery and Cultural Hub.

Radical Ritual: Consequences was presented in Yeovil 13–14 September and at Corfe Castle 20–21 September 2025 as part of Inside Out Festival. It was commissioned by Dorset National Landscape for the project Nature Calling, with executive producers the National Landscapes Association and Activate Performing Arts. It is supported by Arts Council England, Defra and Imaginators.

Thames Festival Trust with Heidi Stellar and Matt West: River of Hope was presented at Christchurch Quay 13–15 September 2025 as part of Inside Out Festival. It is delivered in partnership with Thames Festival Trust, and supported by Arts Council England (as part of the National Lottery Creative People and Places programme) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.    

“Welcome to Nowhere. I’m going to share with you how I got here. And what ‘here’ actually means to me.”Bianca Mastrominico reports on Khalid Abdalla’s powerful solo show Nowhere, seen at the Traverse, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 

When Khalid Abdalla walks on stage and begins speaking about the title of his performance, Nowhere, he does so with a gentle voice and an unassuming, soft presence, marking the difference between the ‘somewhere’ we all are right now – at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 – and a ‘nowhere’ which is a space built by absences, memories of personal struggles, and collective crisis. For somebody like Abdalla, belonging to two cultures and two nations – Egypt and Great Britain – ‘nowhere’ embodies an inner place of contradictions and the painful recognition of having to always negotiate the feeling of being estranged at home. 

On stage, behind the performer, a big set-screen (conceived by the production’s costume and set designer Ti Green) becomes a window into the world of history that shaped the life journey of Abdalla and his family from Egypt to the UK. 

The slick video design by Sarah Readman, including screening of raw footage of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 shot with a mobile phone and images of the counterrevolution that followed, signal the moment when Abdalla, eager to reconnect with his Egyptian roots, finds himself involved in the wave of rebellion known as the Arab Spring. 

Emotionally charged stories of friendship, loss and grief are visualised together with family heirlooms, such as the portrait of Abdalla’s grandfather passed down through generations, symbolically reminding the family of the political activism that runs in the blood. 

The projected images not only conjure a visual memoir but create a liminal space between past and present which Abdalla uses to question and expose in picture (which sometimes are physical polaroids projected onto the screen) – the colonial history which has shaped his path in life and that of his family. 

Defining himself as both an actor and an activist (beside being a writer and a well-know filmmaker and producer), Abdalla’s dramaturgical process (working with Ruth Little and Chris Thorpe) and embodiment seems to be continuously split between these two dimensions: the desire to tell a story; and re-enacting what he calls an anti-biography through which he connects the historical, economic and geopolitical circumstances that laid the path for his grandfather and father to become political prisoners in Egypt, and the ethical drive to make sense of his own experiences of xeno-racism and micro aggressions in Britain, particularly as an actor during casting calls and interviews for films in which he is inevitably offered the part of an Arab character – be it playing one of the hijackers in Paul Greengrass’s feature United 93 or Dodi Al Fayed in The Crown on Netflix. 

Born in Scotland and raised in London, the first impression of Abdalla’s stage voice is that of a well-educated and well-mannered British man. However, this register is actively and consciously put to the test throughout the performance when Abdalla comes out as Glaswegian, or speaks Arabic to recall conversations with family and friends. 

Abdalla is candid and fully aware of how his life path was affected by the choice of his parents to stay in Britain, to not risk that the father would be put into prison back in Egypt due to his political views, and there are many beautiful and raw moments in the performance where bitterness hits, such as in the remark ‘the darkness of the world creates the frame for so much joy…’ 

Merging physical performance and atmospheric soundtrack with strong visual storytelling – all brilliantly directed by Omar Elerian, an Italian director, dramaturg, and theatre maker of Palestinian descent – this is an exceptional, heartfelt and transformative show because it never lets us forget our shared humanity behind the political stance. 

Before the ending, Abdalla asks us to draw a blind self-portrait on a square piece of paper which we have been handed in an envelope together with a pencil and a tiny mirror, while queuing in the foyer. Is it an act of acceptance of who we are or a way of reminding us of our own identity and privilege in Western society? 

At the very end of the performance Abdalla makes an origami dove and the process is projected onto the screen where the dove appears huge and almost threatening. He then tells us that he feels uneasy talking about peace in a way that doesn’t recognise the complexity of cultural as well as political forces shaping our world, which include neoliberalism, capitalism and colonisation. These are the forces that lead to greed, violence and war. 

However, while in this ‘nowhere’ it is difficult to reconcile with the idea of global peace, in this somewhere – the theatre – Abdalla hopes we might find resolution because we can still play, and all is possible. 

And so, for the epilogue, he reverts to the soft presence and compassionate quiet voice of the beginning to talk candidly about Gaza, war, genocide, and the injustice of conflicts. Tears start to pour down the actor’s face – honest, felt, human tears – and our collective heart melts. As an activist he leaves a recommendation with us, to bring that feeling of freedom and understanding we gained from being somewhere (in the theatre) out into the nowhere of our shared lives. 

I see audience members pausing at the exit. I see them crying – and I want to cry too. As Abdalla appears in the foyer, I go to greet him and ask him how he manages the shift between two very diverse cultural mindsets while continuing to be so honest and critical, yet compassionate, towards both his Egyptian cultural roots and British upbringings, and he candidly answer that it is always a tension. In Nowhere Abdalla recognises these tensions with compelling urgency and an outstanding presence, warmly inviting us to reconsider and reconcile with what it means to be human. 

Featured image (top) Khalid Abdalla: Nowhere, photo Manuel Vasson.

Nowhere is produced by Fuel and plays at The Traverse, Edinburgh, 12 – 24 August 2025. For further information and to book, see www.edfringe.com 

Nowhere is part of the Here and Now Showcase 2025. Here & Now – Performance Created in England  is delivered by Battersea Arts Centre, FABRIC and GIFT, and is  funded by  Arts Council England. The show premiered at Battersea Arts Centre in October 2024.

Further dates in 2025:

Scènes du Grütli, Geneva, 11 – 13 September 2025. Part of La Bâtie, Festival de Genève.

Project Arts Centre (Space Upstairs), Dublin, 10 – 12 October 2025. Tickets available via the Dublin Theatre Festival. Part of Dublin Theatre Festival.

Three different true-life stories, three very different styles of storytelling, as witnessed by Dorothy Max Prior at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

Shows in storytelling mode are very much a thing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which is awash with one-person performances of one sort or another. Here, I’m sticking to three shows that tell true-life stories – albeit with very different subjects, and told in very different ways.

First up, Victory Melody with Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, which has been directed by Mark Thomas. Victoria’s modus operandi is to immerse herself fully in something or-other – in the past, it’s been pigeon-fanciers, beauty pageants, Cruft’s dog show, funeral directors, wig-makers, stand-up comedians and maybe others I’ve forgotten – and after a long phase of deep research to then create installations or theatre pieces that result from that research. But it’s crucial to note that she doesn’t just observe the thing – she gets in there and does it. The resulting shows are always a charming mix of investigation into the subject at hand and autobiographical confession.

When she got divorced, she tells us, she Googled ‘the world turned upside down’ expecting a bit of cosy self-help advice. Instead, her search brought up the Christopher Hill book of the same name, and she found herself immersed in the 17th century world of radical movements such as The Levellers and The Diggers. From here – with perfect Vic logic – this led to her joining an English Civil War re-enactment society, finding herself kitted out in an authentic red wool suit and shoes that have neither a right nor a left foot, but point straight ahead. Perfect for my long toes, says Vic. She then twigged that she’d accidentally joined the wrong side, becoming a Royalist rather than a Roundhead. Never mind!

Settling in to her research, The Diggers become the anti-Royalist movement she most admires – thus called because of their insistence on the right to farm on common land.  Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak takes us on a dizzying journey that draws parallels between the Diggers and contemporary land protectors, ecologists, and food bank heroes; and relays how she became involved in a community centre called The Crew on a deprived council estate in Whitehawk, in which she joined forces with the locals in turning a neglected area overgrown with brambles in to a community vegetable garden. 

Victoria is performing alone – although she has a set of life-sized cardboard cut-outs of her heroes with her to keep her company. There’s Diggers co-founder Gerrard Winstanley (whose mantra was ‘the earth is a shared treasure’); Brighton local legend Dave (a naturalist, not a naturist – Vic says she keeps getting it wrong) who has discovered a new type of insect, the soldier beetle, on Whitehawk Hill; Brian who runs the food bank and manages to access £50,000 worth of cheese to distribute; and Lacey, the lady who runs the Crew Club, and welcomes Vic into the fold. When Vic first moots the idea of the locals playing the Diggers in a re-enactment battle with the Royalists, they are at first sceptical but eventually rally round, and a great time is had by all – including the off-piste battle victory for the Diggers (‘Er, this isn’t historically correct,’ says one of the re-enactment chaps – but never mind, it happens!) – plus, the consumption of vast vats of genuine-recipe 17th century stew. And unlike those busy-bodies from arts orgs who descend on Whitehawk with their ‘pushy, unwanted origami’, Vic is in it for long haul. The current phase of her project ends with Brighton Council turning a blind eye to the JCB used illegally to dig up the brambles, and grants them a 25-year lease on the new community garden… Another victory for our Vic. Who knows who she’ll next embrace! 

A very lovely show, full of tenderness, feisty political suss, and fabulous comic moments.

Also based on historical data comes The Burns Project, in which writer and actor James Clements gives us the story of Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, a production directed by Cora Bissett that uses Burns’ private letters, papers and other recently-archived documents as its source material.   

The piece is set in a room in The Georgian House, a Robert Adam-designed townhouse run by the National Trust for Scotland. One of the bonuses of going to see the show is the chance to look round this grand house if you arrive early, which is a fabulous treat. When it is time, a group of twenty of us are led upstairs and seated around a table. We are told not to touch anything! All is a creamy white: the calico-covered tabletop, which has a winding gash carved in to it; the platters and goblets; the cutlery and condiments; the ornaments, which include farm animals, trinket boxes and flowers.  

At one end of the room, a musician sits – this is Lisa Rigby, who gives us re-workings of Burns’ songs on acoustic guitar and a beautiful drone-y shruti box. James Clements, in character as Robert Burns, bright eyed and bushy tailed, enters at the other end of the room, and we’re away. 

The following hour is a clever mix of fictional first-person storytelling – ‘Rabbie’ charming us with his own version of his life – interspersed with contemporary commentary delivered through hidden speakers on the table that give us short reflections on the man and his life; and the additionally live commentary through song delivered by the musician. Then, there’s

the fabulous visual storytelling enacted through that long table (designed by Jenny Booth) and those various objects: The gash in the table is lit up with red light as lightning strikes, and with blue as a tiny ship sails along it, on its way to the West Indies. Rabbie’s head appears on a platter, full of remorse, appealing for understanding. The tiny animals tell the tale of the farmer’s son turned poet. Cruets or tiny boxes reveal rings and coins that play a part in the story.

Clements as Burns weaves around the audience, serenading and appealing for love and appreciation – mostly targeting the women in the audience. He holds hands, locks eyes, passes tiny notes, and smiles that beguiling smile. It is very easy to believe that here is Burns, brought back to life to delight and charm us.

But it’s not all red, red roses – the production doesn’t pass over the difficult aspects of Burns’ biography. There’s the maid he impregnates as a teenager and is not permitted to marry, and later (almost as a counterpoint) the pregnant lover he abandons. There’s the relationship with Jean Amour, who he at first is not permitted to marry, but eventually does. There’s the fact that it was only the unexpected success of the publication of his early writings that stopped him sailing off on that boat to Jamaica to work for the enslavers.  There’s the babies who die. The farms that he struggles to keep. And the odd fact that, when his early publishing success peters out, this unconventional Socialist and anti-establishment hero becomes a tax collector in order to pay his bills and keep his family afloat!  

A complicated man, who did so much in a short lifetime – poet, songwriter, collector and cataloguer of Scottish folk songs, farmer, family man and more. It is astonishing to think that that he died at just 37 years of age. 

As we are told early in the production, apart from ‘Happy Birthday’, Burns’ ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is probably the most sung song in the world, compulsory on New Year’s Eve right across the world. ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?’ No, no – never. ‘We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.’ Good to make your acquaintance, Rabbie! I won’t forget you… and I still have my secret letter from you.

Another Scottish production, and more storytelling, this time a bona fide one-man show, although he stands on the shoulders of giants. Or maybe that’s giantesses. For it is Johnny McKnight aka Widow McTwanky – Scotland’s most famous Pantomime Dame. The lights are flashing, the entrance music blasting out, but where is she? She’s behind you! No, really she is – entering from the back of the auditorium in a blue gingham dress, fright-wig and a ‘hideous yet age-appropriate leisure shoe’ – comfy, but red and sparkly, of course. This particular McKnight alter-ego is Dorothy Blawna-Gale – fresh from the Land of Oz. There follows a thrilling hour’s worth of caustic humour, sizzling storytelling, song, dance, and audience participation – which ranges from the gentle engagement of catching packets of sweeties thrown out to the crowd, to the snogging of a gentleman called Alan (‘They’re always called Alan’), and the invitation given to a young woman volunteering to come up on stage and be a Silly Billy – the red-rouged, gormless character usually played by the youngest male member of the company. And yes, we learn, this is how Johnny started out: as a Silly Billy. Later, these interactions all becomes material for reflections on safeguarding, consent and onstage representation.   

All the interactive fun and games was to be expected – but there’s also a good dose of pantomime history woven into the evening; plus a poignant coming out story, documenting Johnny’s personal journey as a young gay man from Silly Billy to Dame, in  the surprisingly heterosexual world of traditional Panto; and concurrently the story of Scottish Panto’s evolution from tabloid-pandering racial caricatures and dodgy jokes to something (under McKnight’s watch as writer, director and performer) far more inclusive and diversified. 

With a costume change from Dorothy’s gingham to fabulous flouncy swan feathers, we get the culmination of the story of Panto’s first full-blown gay kiss, in a reworked version of Jack and the Beanstalk premiered (successfully!) to an audience of infant school children and a Christian bible group.. This is all both jolly good fun, and proper edu-tainment.

Johnny McKnight is a legend in Scotland –and it is great to see She’s Behind You – presented at the Traverse, and directed by John Tiffany – becoming such a big hit of the Edinburgh Fringe 2025.

Featured image (top) James Clements: The Burns Project

Victoria Melody: Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, Pleasance Courtyard, 14:15

James Clements: The Burns Project, The Georgian House, 18:30 (until 16 August)

Johnny McKnight: She’s Behind You, Traverse Theatre, 21.15 or 21.30

For further information or to book tickets see www.edfringe.co.uk  

A ghost house, a Wheel of Death, a pack of wolves, and a 17-strong ensemble of acrobats from 13 different countries. Four circus shows seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 by Dorothy Max Prior

Circus Hub on the Meadows is always the first port of call for anyone attending the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a yen for world-class circus; and for 2025 they are back with a programme of 11 shows – not only circus but also cabaret, comedy, and variety – presented in their two venues, the Lafayette Big Top and Beauty Spiegeltent.

This year, I saw three shows on the programme, all strictly circus, and all in Lafayette. 

Québec’s Flip Fabrique bring us Six° – a show previously presented online for the Edinburgh Fringe 2021, that odd Covid-ish year when the Fringe returned, but in a reduced hybrid form, with much online. I gave that a miss then, so was very pleased to see it back for real.

It starts with the sound of a thunderstorm, the rain lashing down. Which is ironic as the performance I’d originally been booked in to see the day before had been cancelled due to the massive storms, with 85mph winds sweeping Scotland, and making shows in a circus tent out of the question. So some of us are looking up anxiously – but no, it’s definitely on the soundtrack, not for real. ‘Storms make the flowers fresh again’ we are told.

This is an ensemble show with a cast of five – six if we include the house in which the action takes place, which most definitely has a personality of its own: talking to the occupants, issuing instructions, and sometimes taking the electronic controls into its own hands. There have been numerous sci-fi stories about houses that are seemingly alive, often malevolent, and Ray Bradbury’s HappyLife Home (in short story The Veld) comes to mind at a point in the narrative when a door opens to reveal a red-lit space animated by the roar of lions.

I say ‘narrative’ but this one is very much of the fractured variety. We meet five different occupants, who it would seem have received a mysterious invitation that leads them, on a stormy night, to an old abandoned building deep in the forest. But the house doesn’t look deserted; it is cosily furnished and seems to have a soul. Oddly, the five seem be in residence at different times, or perhaps in different multiverse strands – one in the 1950s, one the 1970s, one the 1990s etc. They are all there, but rarely seem to see each other: to each, the others are more like ghosts than real flesh-and-blood people. 

As for the set: the ‘house’ is a three-walled structure that is tugged around into different permutations throughout the show. There are doors and windows and picture frames and tables and bookshelves – all of which are animated throughout the piece. Frames get pulled off to be used as hoops; a small table become the site for a balancing act; book leaves fly around the space. There’s most definitely an Alice in Wonderland vibe: not least because one of the female performers is dressed in a puff-sleeved frock, Mary-Jane shoes and a large satin hair bow.  

We are given scenes of everyday at-home life that take on a surreal dream-like quality – a way of bringing the circus acts in to the equation. Often, one person is presenting their act – Robert with his deft book/brick-juggling, say – whilst others are interacting with him more as witnesses or silent partners than as co-performers. It’s an interesting dynamic. As far as the circus acts go, we get top-notch juggling, smoothly sensuous hooping, a great female Cyr wheel turn, a lovely two-man acrobalance and tumbling routine, and of course – this is Flip Fabrique, after all – some fantastic trampolining by the boys that’s nicely merged with a female hand-balancing and contortion act, performed on the ‘roof’ of the house. Sonically, there’s a palate of recognisable pre-existing tunes driving the piece forward. We veer from Harry Nilsson’s cheery ‘Coconut’ to Leonard Cohen’s gloriously moving ‘Happens to the Heart’ and on to The Commodores anthemic ‘Brick House’. 

It is no surprise that the show was made during Covid – addressing how we deal with loneliness and isolation, whilst also staying connected to others by remote. It also seems to be portraying the power of the imagination to overcome humdrum realities when stuck indoors. Six° is a very different sort of show to Flip Fabrique’s usual non-stop hi-energy work: slower, more thoughtful, but still thrilling. Most highly recommended!

 
Next up was Nose Dive Assembly, described as ‘big-top circus with heart and spectacle’ from the UK’s Revel Puck Circus. I’d missed this at Brighton Fringe earlier this year, so was glad to catch it in Edinburgh. It’s a hi-energy fun-for-all-the-family spectacle. It’s contemporary circus in its aesthetic – for example, the performers are dressed not in spangly leotards but in unisex jumpsuits or colourfully patterned trousers and shirts – but with much of the structure and good-time vibe of a traditional tented circus. 

That trad structure and vibe is clear in the show’s use of the clown as the communicator with the audience; the person who reminds us with their actions that acrobats are fallible human creatures. The clown also traditionally keeps the audience entertained whilst the riggers and stagehands (or, as is the case in contemporary circus, the other performers) move the kit in to place for the next act. Most of the cast are British trained (I learn from the legendary Charlie Holland that seven are graduates from the National Centre for Circus Arts, aka Circus Space) – with Canadian clown and acrobat Arielle Lauzon the exception. 

Although traditional in function, the fabulous Arielle Lauzon is very much of the contemporary world: a former competitive gymnast who trained at the École de Cirque de Québec. She appears first at the rear of the big top, harnessed and desperate to fly ‘on the wings of a butterfly’. This becomes a thread developed throughout the show – at one point moving through us with a ludicrous contraption of electric fans strapped to her body that she hopes will help her take off; at another point, sporting a giant balloon that covers her whole head. (I’m one of numerous audience members roped in to pump up the balloon.) Eventually, towards the end of the show, she makes do with a butterfly costume and gives us a spectacular mat-based acrobatics routine, proving that she is more than a funny face.

After Arielle’s entrance, we go to Annie Zita on the cloudswing – a fabulously thrilling opening act. The show whizzes by, with many traditional favourites given a contemporary twist, including a great aerial straps act from Imani Vital (I love the performer’s oddly flexed feet, and the moment when she holds hands with her counter-balancer). We get a neat hand-balancing turn from Becky Robins, and a great teeterboard act from Sebastian Parker and Emily Lannigan, to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. There’s also the much-touted Revel Puck USP: a circular stage that rises, with Thorne Bailey and Fiona Thornhill presenting a skilfully synchronised Cyr Wheel routine. Bailey is raised into the air on the platform, whilst Thornhill spins below, the lighting design highlighting each performer in turn. Later, they switch roles, so she is now on the raised platform, and he is below. This is one of numerous shows I see at this year’s Fringe that feature a female Cyr wheel performer: something that used to be a rare occurrence. The times they are a-changing.  

The final act of the show sees Fiona Thornhill and Emily Lannigan back, this time on the Wheel of Death, that most traditional of circus acts, although this is the only one in the UK (perhaps in the world, I don’t know!) that is performed by two women. If you don’t know what this is, imagine two giant hamster wheels on a pivoting metal structure, one performer inside each wheel, walking then twisting and turning as the wheel turns at a faster and faster pace, reversing direction now and then. The choice of music – Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’ – is great. The mesmeric, repetitive loop of the song suits the act perfectly. The complicity between the performers, the timing and the sensitive response to the music makes this act more than a traditional circus spectacle. It’s a great finale to a lovely show that is daring, funny, and totally entertaining. Bravo Revel Puck – it feels that British circus is flying off with flair into new dizzying heights, occupying territories previously claimed by the traditional tented circus companies, and infusing them with a funky feminist vibe. 

Finally, Circa: Wolf is my third show of the day at the Circus Hub, again in the Lafayette big top tent – although this is a predominantly floor-based acrobatic show, so height is rarely needed. 

Hardly surprising with Wolf as the title, the show features a lot of hunting and stalking movements; and a lot of pack work. Dressed in sleek, tight-fitting black and fawn costumes (designed by Libby McDonnell), the ten-strong company arrive on stage with a ferocious energy, within minutes creating three-high towers or staggering stacks of six people on one base.  The pack runs in circles, spreads out into straight lines, huddles in big or small groups – with a breathtaking move from one complex acrobalance or hand-to-hand tableau to another, human towers rising and falling (often sideways, which is terrifying), people swung or thrown to other people; and links of fast-paced solo acrobatics into and out of position.

At one point the group moves into a capoeira-style roda or inward facing circle, different partnerships of men with men, men with women, and women with women, playing out battles to be leader of the wolf pack. This being Circa, female bases are a given – the women here are strong and fierce. There’s a lovely scene where the wolf theme seems to be taken into the domain of the gay male nightclub; an all-male tussle for intimacy and the role of top dog.

There are just two breaks in the ferociously fast floor action, one for a female aerial straps performer who acts out what seems to be a twisted marionette motif, although perhaps it is intended as a captured animal. But this is me constructing narrative: it is robotic and staccato, and feels quite different in tone to the rest of the show. There’s also a male rope act – like the straps act, top-notch of course (there wouldn’t be anything less in a Circa show) but again I can’t quite decide if it is really needed. Perhaps if everything were floor-based I might be craving something else, but both times the arrival of aerial equipment feels slightly out of kilter. 

As for the scenography and sound design: Circa have commissioned a hardcore techno score for Wolf from DJ Ori Lichtik. And it is pretty relentless! At times the bass really works its way into your guts, adding to the edginess of the piece. There is no set, and no equipment other than the aforementioned aerial straps and corde lisse rope. The lighting design gives us scenes lit with a tooth-and-claw blood red, and an eery jungle green. There is sometimes smoke haze. But the main impression is of a tabula rasa, on which director Yaron Lifschitz has written a thrilling physical story  – animal magic meets stupendous human achievement. As ever, Circa are the crowing glory of the Circus Hub programme.

Away from The Meadows and over at the grandiose indoor venue Assembly at the Mound, we find The Genesis from Copenhagen Collective – a 17-strong ensemble based in Scandinavia but drawn from all over the world, with artists from Denmark, Australia, Peru, Canada, UK, Uruguay, Chile, Portugal, USA, Germany, Ireland, France and Guinea. Phew, that is indeed an international line-up!

There are many crossovers with Circa, and I think it would be fair to say that without Circa, The Genesis (and very many other contemporary circus shows) would never have existed. Dressed like gymnasts, not entertainers, in unisex dark lycra? Check. Amazing ensemble skills, with phenomenal complicity, super-precise timing, and a breathtaking move from one ‘picture’ to another? Check. Female strength and power highlighted, with women bases the norm throughout the show rather than the exception? Check. This is no criticism: the Copenhagen Collective are a newly-formed ensemble, and Circa have been going for 20-plus years. I remember seeing Circa’s first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe, and like everyone else was astonished at witnessing the role that the women performers played, the focus on power not prettiness. We hadn’t seen anything like it! Two decades on, this is routine in much contemporary circus worldwide – younger artists probably think nothing of it.  Which can only be a good thing.

The Genesis, like Circa’s Wolf, is less a narrative show than a themed show, and on similar territory. We seem to be witnessing the exploration of the human soul versus the animal spirit. It is purely floor-based: there is no aerial or other non-acrobatic acts. No equipment, no set. Everything is down to the human body – and mostly the 17-strong ensemble are all on stage at once, morphing from one extraordinary grouping to another. Thus, we have at one point early in the show a five triple towers, which makes for a fantastic stage image. There’s a lot of hero-and-chorus work – solo performers emerging from circles or huddles. I love the strange tower of bodies that grows from a heap on the floor, people standing on the shoulders or chests of others. There’s a fabulous ‘resurrection’ scene where 16 bodies are lying prone on the floor and one person animates them by tugging on a body part, each revived person going on to revive another. There’s also a great party scene, with waves of performers progressing forward in different combos, vogueing and reaching out to the audience – one of the few points when the fourth wall is broken. Another occurs when a lone man is thrown out of an upstage huddle of bodies, rights himself, and says ‘hi’ to us slightly sheepishly. I enjoy these theatrical moments – the first half of the piece is full of fabulously skilled acrobatics, but rather dense in its relentless onslaught of astonishing tricks and turns, with towers rising and falling, three- or four- or five-way acrobalance ‘sculptures’ developing and dissolving – but with a feeling that the performers are behind a glass wall. When that wall is shattered, the show becomes stronger.

The stage set-up is simple – looking quite a bit like a school gymnasium, in fact. The lighting is minimal, mostly blue and white; and the music a good mix, interspersing relentlessly beat-driven scenes with more moody string sections, and including a few pre-recorded autobiographical-confessional texts about control and vulnerability, reminding me of Les 7 Doigts’ show Traces. So yes – echoes of other company’s work – but it’s own thing too. What is most extraordinary is to see so many fabulously skilled human bodies working together so harmoniously. And really – how often do you see a four-high tower? As they take their bow, the full house at the Mound go wild in their appreciation. It’s not my favourite Fringe circus show this year, but it is one of the best – predictably, a sure-fire hit.

Featured image (top): Revel Puck Circus: Nose Dive Assembly

Flip Fabrique: Six°, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette), 14:05

Revel Puck Circus: Nose Dive Assembly, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette) | 16:10

Circa:Wolf, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette), 18:20

Copenhagen Collective: The Genesis, Assembly at the Mound, 12:30

For more information or to book tickets, see www.edfringe.com

A trio of physical theatre shows that reference or usurp variety, vaudeville and cabaret traditions, as seen by Dorothy Max Prior at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 

A&E Comedy have been blazing a trail these past few years, making feisty feminist physical comedy that’s not afraid to address topics that most shy away from, not least the fear of the crone, and the delights and terrors of the ageing female body, in shows such as Enter the Dragons and Witch Hunt. Their latest show, Do All the Things, presented at Assembly Checkpoint, is a slightly different beast – in some ways more mainstream and Ed Fringe friendly – although their trademark mix of caustic humour, clowning suss, ludicrous costumes, and general silliness is still upfront. 

At the start of the show we meet a pair of end-of-the-pier comedians, Cyril Suckit and Sammy See. (Collectively known as Suck it and See, see?) With their sparkly tuxedos, toupés, and protruding rubber teeth, they are a fair parody of your friendly neighbourhood avuncular entertainer of yore. They sing the show’s theme tune ‘Do All the Things’ to the tune of ‘It’s Raining Men’ and introduce the special guests and fun-for-all-the-family participatory games, the highlight of which is the special version of bingo with interactive tasks such as swearing in foreign languages, drawing portraits of your neighbour without looking at the page, and muff-spotting. As for the guests – who are (of course) all played by our trusty clowns Emma Edwards and Abigail Dooley – we meet an endocrinologist who tells terrible jokes (‘How do make a hor-mone? Refuse to pay her’), a dementedly-dancing glam rocker clad in silver foil, and a naturist who invites us to come and hug a tree, all the while confiscating all our unnecessary worldly possessions (jackets, iphones, bags), reassuring us that we’ll feel a lot lighter without all this materialist baggage. Then comes a very silly send up of the Marina Abramović  piece Rhythm 0, in which audience members are invited to take any object from the table to use in any way they like on the artist’s body. Thus, our intrepid artists find themselves wearing bunny ears, daubed in lipstick, and with custard pies splattered on their chests. Is nothing sacred? No, thank goodness.

There’s a clever device to allow for costume changes, with a film shown to us between skits purporting to be a live feed from the dressing room, the two squabbling about what sketch to do next, and deconstructing the content of the show with mock-academic seriousness. There’s also, less successfully, a series of parody TV ads that fall a little flat. 

Emma and Abigail are seasoned clowns, and the show feels well-held, with the copious quantity of audience participation moments managed with great aplomb (and hats off also to the pair’s glamorous assistants, playing trees, bears etc.) For me, a veteran appreciator of the company’s work, the core content of Do All The Things wasn’t quite as strong as their previous two creations, but this is nevertheless a very good Edinburgh Fringe show, and audiences new to their work were clearly delighted not only with what they witnessed but with what they were drawn in to so expertly. Do suck it and see!

There’s a connection to the next show, Rabbits Out of the Hat, that I didn’t know until I found myself in the queue for it at Pleasance Dome with both Abigail and Emma – it turns out that Abigail directed it. 

Norvill and Josephine are our hosts, purportedly a brother and sister variety act. He’s a Master Magician with ‘a cape, courage and cojones’. She’s his glamorous assistant, sawn in half in the Cabinet of Swords, performing the elegant dance routines created by her mother. But it’s 1905 and the Suffragettes are in town – soon the tables are turned and the rabbit is indeed pulled out of the hat…

The show is not a pastiche: it features bona fide magic tricks (levitation, escapology, transformation) from Magic Circle member Christopher * playing Norvill; and fabulous contortion and acrobatic dance from Desiree, plus vaudevillian panache, and a great rapport with the audience. The story of the siblings who realise (she first, then he) that they are not content to have their identities defined by what they have inherited from their parents progresses in a breathless, whirlwind mix of circus-and-magic rich cabaret acts and narrative that quietly and lovingly deconstructs assigned gender roles in society, proving that identity politics can be fun. An uplifting and inspiring show. Plus, we get to take home an origami rabbit!

Over at Assembly Roxy, there’s a fabulous demonstration of physical theatre and cabaret skills from Luciano Rosso, one half of the team that created the Total Theatre Award winning show Un Poyo Rojo. His solo piece, Apocalipsync, is a magnificent melée of diva dancing, contortionism, bone-cracking (with a comical twist), lip syncing.

There’s a simple set of a stage-wide plastic shower curtain – peeked through, flounced through, transformed into an odd kind of ballgown – plus, used as a screen to project onto. There’s an excellent lighting and a sound design that incorporates romantic Boleros, banging house tunes, barking dogs, fighting neighbours, clanging pots, and soundbites from world leaders (Trump, Boris Johnson, and numerous other foreign ones I don’t recognise) reminding us that we have a pandemic on our hand. ‘Stay indoors’ says Boris, inviting a titter from the audience. For yes, this is 2020 – and Apocalipsync is the show that Luciano devised whilst in solitary confinement, his lockdown nightmare morphing into a moonage daydream of disco dancing, lone karaoke, ostrich impersonations, and playing flamenco air guitar. The plastic curtain is a clever choice as once we realise the context it evokes the protection measures in hospitals, taxis and shops that become so normalised so quickly. Had I known this was a ‘lockdown’ show I might not have come, but as it is, I was very glad I did. It’s probably the only show about the lockdown that I’d want to see, though – a joyful celebration of the pleasures of a solo life. 

A&E Comedy: Do All The Things, Assembly Checkpoint, 14.45

Norvill & Josephine: Rabbits Out of the Hat, Pleasance Dome / King Dome,11.35

Luciano Rosso: Apocalipsync, Assembly Roxy, 17:25

For further information and to book tickets, see edfringe.com