There are a lot of storytelling shows doing the rounds at the Fringe – pieces that take inspiration from events on a large scale to draw comparison to the personal and political. Bryony Kimmings is tackling popular culture’s role models for children in Credible Likeable Superstar Rolemodel over at the Pleasance, and Christopher Dobrowolski’s All Roads Lead to Rome explores Mussolini and fascism channelled through a road-trip with an old family car.

At Northern Stage’s St Stephen’s, Kate Craddock is performing a solo show that takes inspiration from Gertrude Bell to draw insights into femininity and the complexity of being a strong woman in the public eye, the British Empire’s lasting effect on Iraq and the middle East, and how history defines us all.

I must admit I didn’t know much about Gertrude Bell upon arrival, something with Craddock acknowledges and immediately questions. Why is this woman not an iconic figure, someone whose life is celebrated and studied? This question seems ever more pertinent given the recent furore over Jane Austen’s image being used on British banknotes. Bell was a magnificently influential woman hailing from Durham, who was a writer, traveller, spy and archaeologist who helped to shape what Iraq has become as part of the British Empire’s administration after World War I. Interestingly, in a recent poll of school children’s heroes she came eighth out of eight possible icons. A footballer won…

Craddock’s play, written with Steve Gilroy, is crammed with information on Bell’s life, shared with us via Craddock’s engaging portrayal of Bell herself; Pat, a librarian and Bell expert; an American scholar called Lynn; and Melanie, who is studying for a PhD on women and travel. What could be cloying verbatim caricatures are delicately handled and utterly engaging in Craddock’s hands, and she is also extremely personable and gentle in telling her own journey of discovery along the way. We hear direct quotes from Bell’s extensive letters (her view on on women was an interesting one: ‘dreadful little minxes, I won’t tire of them anymore!’), see images of her in the desert surrounded by men projected onto a blackboard, and are served tea and biscuits in true British Empire style.

It’s the doubling of GB for Bell and Great Britain which makes the piece really take flight. Without us realising, Craddock and Gilroy submerge us into a deeply political debate on both GB (Bell) and GB (Britain)’s responsibility for creating the warring country of Iraq. Suddenly Craddock begins to regurgitate speeches from Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, two women at the heart of the Middle East struggle, just as Bell was. The piece is a complex exploration of women’s role in politics, what people expect a woman to be like no matter how important her job is, and how history has a way of showing the results of powerful people’s decisions. One of the final people Craddock inhabits is Yanar Mohammed, from the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. She speaks of women’s plight in Iraq: being sold to the sex slave trade, having no income, being illiterate. It’s a searing way to end this important piece of theatre: simply told, beautifully performed and with its heart on its sleeve.