Archive for Theatre

PUTTANA – Q&A with Mirko Corradini

September 19, 2026 at 5:14 pm · Filed under Interviews, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PUTTANA was one of the most talked‑about international productions at this year’s Fringe: intimate, unsettling, and formally daring. It confronts prejudice, judgement, sex work, and the quiet violence of how society enters other people’s lives. Ahead of its wider international run, Counter Culture presents this in‑depth conversation with director Mirko Corradini, exploring the dramaturgy, ethics, sound design and collaborative process behind the production.

What first compelled you to create PUTTANA, a piece that confronts sex work, judgement, violence, and shared responsibility?

“PUTTANA began above all with a question about prejudice.”

He describes reading an article about a porn performer refused housing because of her job, and the question that stayed with him: why do we feel entitled to judge someone whose choices do not harm us? “I was not interested in saying that prostitution is right or wrong. I wanted to stop one step earlier.”

The show uses fragmentation rather than linear storytelling. What dramaturgical purpose does that structure serve?

“Our thoughts are never completely linear… In PUTTANA, different people speak… sometimes they seem to be in dialogue but are not really listening.”

Corradini explains that the structure mirrors the spectator’s slowly forming judgement rather than a traditional plot.

How did you approach directing a one‑woman performance that requires the actor to embody multiple characters around Laura?

“The main rule was to create together.” He recounts a rehearsal mistake that became a breakthrough, revealing how characters emerged collaboratively through experimentation

Why binaural audio and headphones?

“I realised that the real strength of the piece was that proximity… The headphones were the answer.”

The immersive sound design recreates intimacy even in larger spaces.

How do sound, proximity and moral tension interact?

“Sound does not accompany the performance. It is part of the direction.” Much of the audio is “dirty, unsettling sound” that becomes music.

Why was Beatrice Elena Festi chosen as your collaborator?

“I felt an artistic connection… elegance and precision in the transitions.”

Her subtle physical shifts made her ideal for a piece where technology completes the transformation.

How much emerged from her interpretation?

“A generous actor can create a new possibility simply through a mistake, a breath, a posture.”

How can theatre explore judgement and violence ethically?

“I can bring someone into a very intense situation as long as I continue to respect them.” He avoids literal nudity or violence to keep focus on meaning, not shock.

How did you see your responsibilities when dealing with emotional risk?

“Artistic availability must never become coercion.”

What did you hope Fringe audiences would confront?

“I wanted the spectator to ask themselves: Do I judge? Do I have prejudices?”

What surprised you in Edinburgh?

“Can this show speak to… someone from a culture completely different from ours? Edinburgh gave me an answer. Yes.”

What was the impact of the SoHo Playhouse Encore Series selection

“The New York selection gave me the confidence that PUTTANA could find an international audience precisely without giving up its willingness to take risks.”

How does PUTTANA relate to your wider work?

“I am interested in investigating what we do not say… the shadows we carry inside ourselves.”

What did this production teach you?

“That I enjoy myself more when I experiment.”

Where next?

“I can fall in love with a piece for a single actress… but also with a much larger project.”

What should spectators carry with them?

“Do I judge? Do I have prejudices? Will I look at someone differently tomorrow?”

Read our review of Puttana here
Read our interview with Beatrice Elena Festi here

 

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BOXEUR – Dundee Fringe 2026

September 17, 2026 at 8:15 am · Filed under Boxing, Politics, Solo show, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

★★★★★ Before the narrative settles, before the politics sharpen, before the audience fully understands what it’s being asked to witness, Stefano Pietro Detassis is already skipping, already boxing, already pushing his lungs to the edge while delivering lines with absolute clarity. Anyone who has ever sparred — even lightly — knows how quickly breath becomes unruly, how speech collapses under exertion. Detassis keeps control. It’s not a trick; it’s a statement. The body is part of the story, and he tells it without compromise.

Plot Summary

The piece (written by Maura Pettorruso and translated by Stefano Pradel) follows two immigrant boxers in France on the eve of the Second World War. Eugenio, an Italian socialist worker fleeing Fascism, and Victor, a Tunisian Jewish man fleeing poverty, arrive in Paris hoping to carve out better futures. A boxing match is scheduled — the moment their paths are meant to cross — but war postpones it indefinitely. As Europe fractures, their personal ambitions are overtaken by the political violence around them. Eugenio becomes a worker‑boxer fighting for exploited labourers; Victor becomes a symbol of resistance against Nazi‑fascism. Their private hopes also represent a collective struggle for dignity, identity and survival.

The Performance

Stefano Pietro Detassis

Detassis carries the entire production, and he does so with a physical intensity that never feels ornamental. The skipping, the footwork, the bursts of movement — they’re not flourishes. They’re the pulse of the show. He speaks through exertion, and the exertion becomes part of the meaning. Breath is political here: who gets to breathe freely, who doesn’t, who has to fight for the right to exist.

The set is deliberately sparse: a chair, a clothes stand, and a reflex punch bag — the freestanding kind mounted on a flexible pole, the type that swings back at you when struck. That minimalism forces the focus onto the performer. No visual distractions, no scenic cushioning. Music is used sparingly but effectively, shaping mood without dictating it.

Whether the absence of visual projections is a creative choice or a limitation is open to debate. On one hand, the starkness suits the piece: two men stripped of nation, home, safety, reduced to their bodies and their will. On the other, a shifting visual backdrop — archival imagery, abstract projections, even simple colour washes — could have deepened the sense of historical pressure. There’s an argument both ways. For me, the minimalism worked, but I could see how a more dynamic visual language might have expanded the emotional palette.

Themes and Resonance

At its core, Boxeur is about choices — the ones forced upon you, the ones you make anyway, and the ones you refuse to surrender. Boxing becomes a metaphor for life, not in the clichéd sense of “fighting spirit,” but in the way the show frames endurance, breath, stance, and refusal. You keep your guard up. You take hits. You decide when to strike. You decide when not to bow your head.

There’s a moment where Detassis describes the local fascists: petty, middle‑class, petit bourgeois bullies who “had always been bastards like that,” looking down on others while hiding behind ideology. It’s delivered with a sharp comic edge, and the follow‑up — knocking one of their teeth out so they can no longer pronounce Duce properly — is a brilliant piece of antifascist humour. It lands because it’s rooted in character, not caricature.

The comedy throughout is well‑judged. It doesn’t soften the politics; it sharpens them. Laughter becomes another form of resistance, another way of refusing to be cowed.

Conclusion

Boxeur is a disciplined, urgent, and deeply human piece of theatre. Detassis’ ability to merge physical exertion with narrative clarity is genuinely impressive, and the production’s political spine is unmistakable without ever becoming didactic. The minimal staging keeps the focus where it belongs: on the performer, on the story, on the breath.

Pequod Compagnia have brought a work to Dundee Fringe that understands the past not as a distant archive but as a living pressure. It asks what you believe, yes — but more importantly, it asks what you will refuse to give in to.

A powerful, lean, and resonant hour of theatre.

By Patrick Harrington

Performances on 17th and 18th of September 2026 available at the Little Theatre. Find out more about the Dundee Fringe 11-20 September

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Interview with Beatrice Elena Festi

September 14, 2026 at 3:52 pm · Filed under Drama, Interviews, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Puttana traps you in its intimacy from the first moment. Festi describes how the headphones collapse the space until she’s performing inside the audience’s heads as much as her own, navigating that strange mix of control and vulnerability. Her shifts between identities carry the same charge — especially the moment she steps into the middle‑aged man, a voice that still hits her with anger, pleasure, and a kind of unsettling satisfaction. The rapid transitions work because she’s interpreted her role line by line, each character anchored in its own emotional image and mental room.

What gives the piece its force is her refusal to soften anything. She leans into the ethical weight, the complicity, the silences that pin everyone in place. The collaboration with Corradini let her work without armour, drawing on her twenty‑year‑old self to shape Laura as someone who never collapses into victimhood. Summerhall sharpened the political edge, New York confirmed the universality, and performing it night after night turned the role into a meditation. Across the interview, one thread keeps surfacing: vulnerability as a deliberate act of power, and a commitment to reaching something stripped‑back and honest on stage. Here’s our interview with Beatrice Elena Festi.

Performance, embodiment, technique

Puttana places you inside a binaural, three‑dimensional soundscape. How did performing inside headphones change your physical and emotional approach to Laura?

“Performing while wearing wireless headphones definitely changed the way I inhabit the stage… The distance between me and the audience — who are also wearing headphones — shrinks, making the experience intimate and personal… By wearing headphones myself, I also become a spectator of my own voice: this gives me control, but it also makes me vulnerable… Thanks to the headphones, a kind of short circuit occurs: Laura becomes a tangible presence in my ears and in my head.”

You embody several characters around Laura — student, sex worker, husband, wife, young man. Which identity demanded the biggest shift in your internal state?

“The first time I heard my own voice as a man it was a shock… Being able to play a middle-aged man by ‘wearing’ his voice is an incredibly powerful experience… Playing him brings on a mix of anger and pleasure… he always gives me a sense of satisfaction while I play him.”

The show’s fragmented structure requires rapid transitions. How do you keep emotional coherence while moving between characters so quickly?

“I associate a specific image and a specific feeling with every line of the text… It’s a long process — it took three years — in which I worked to build automatic reactions… Each character has their own mental space that I can enter and leave quickly, helped along by their different voices.”

Themes & ethics

The piece confronts judgement, violence, and the commodification of women’s bodies. How do you navigate the ethical weight of representing these realities on stage?

“I believe that engaging with uncomfortable subjects is at the heart of what I do… questioning yourself, examining social and political issues, is an essential part of any real artistic exchange… If art isn’t uncomfortable… then what’s the point? What’s the point of being reassured?”

Puttana deliberately places the audience in a position of complicity. What does it feel like to perform a work that refuses moral reassurance?

“In our show the audience becomes complicit… We’re all implicated, always… From the moment I step on stage I make eye contact with every member of the audience… The audience has no way out… it’s vital to put ourselves on the line, to sit with the discomfort and confront our own dark sides.”

There are moments where silence becomes confrontational. What is the most difficult silence in the show for you to hold?

“The hardest moment is definitely the direct exchange with the audience… Physical closeness, the gaze and the silences let me dig into people’s souls… I feel vulnerable and powerful at the same time… There’s no escape route for anyone; we’re in it together.”

Process & collaboration

You’ve worked with director Mirko Corradini on multiple TeatroE projects. What aspects of his direction made this collaboration particularly effective for such an intimate piece?

“Four years ago… I understood straight away how much Mirko Corradini cared about the project… There has never been any arrogance or superficiality… Mirko is a director who creates a performance bit by bit… and he’s very careful to create a safe space where I can feel at ease.”

How did the rehearsal process shape the emotional core of Laura’s story? Were there moments where the material felt too close or too exposing?

“To find Laura, I drew on my twenty-year-old self… I put my own personal vulnerability at Laura’s service: in a show like this you can’t hide… humanity has to seep out of every gesture, every word.”

What discoveries did you make about Laura during rehearsal that changed how you performed her?

“Laura is never a victim… Even when she momentarily loses control, she finds a way to regain it… The ending, however brutal, shows this resolution… Acting in another language was also illuminating… In English, Laura is more brazen and more self-assured.”

Fringe experience

Summerhall is known for politically charged work. How did performing Puttana in that environment influence your relationship to the piece?

“Performing at Summerhall was an honour… they always engage with topical, hot-button and uncomfortable subjects… On stage I felt at ease, because I knew I was in an environment that would protect me.”

What surprised you most about how Edinburgh Fringe audiences responded to the show?

“The Summerhall audience was a mixed one… far more men came to see us… They proved more receptive to the rawness of the performance… The audience’s reactions were positive and open to engagement.”

Did performing the show daily at the Fringe change your understanding of Laura or the characters orbiting her?

“Going on stage every night… becomes a kind of meditation… Every night Laura is different… I always tried to be as honest as possible… Laura is a very human character… she doesn’t conform to a prejudice.”

International recognition

Puttana’s Off‑Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse happened before Edinburgh. How did that New York experience shape your sense of the work’s impact?

“Performing in New York before Edinburgh was an excellent training ground… The American audience… very engaged and warm… It was the New York audience that convinced us Laura’s story was universal.”

Artistic development

How does Puttana connect to your broader artistic interests in vulnerability, power, and spectatorship?

“Puttana has allowed me to grow enormously… It’s a show that has taught me… about limits, about letting go on stage, about reaching a naked truth… I’ve always been drawn to realism and social themes… multifaceted, even ambiguous characters — ones that dig deep — appeal to me.”

Future direction

After a role this demanding, what kind of work do you feel drawn toward next? What are your plans?

“With TeatroE… we’re working on various ideas for a new production… Another show that, through technology, will let us close the distance with the audience… I’d like my work to always speak to people’s humanity… I do believe art can change the world, and in my own small way I try to do my part.”

Our review of Puttana is here

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Hard Truths and Real Change in An Audience with Marvin Herbert

August 28, 2026 at 7:28 pm · Filed under Biographical, Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Solo, Spoken Word, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

★★★★★ Marvin Herbert walks onto the stage with the calm assurance of someone who has lived several lives and survived all of them. What follows is not a performance in the theatrical sense, but a raw, unfiltered account of a man who refuses to hide from his past. He takes the audience through his childhood, teenage years, and adulthood with a level of honesty that is both disarming and compelling.

There is no glamour in the way Marvin describes the criminal underworld. He speaks plainly, almost clinically, about violence, loyalty, and the brutal logic of the life he once led. When he says he “loved violence,” the room tightens. It is not a boast; it is a confession. And it is this candour that makes his story land with such force. He never pretends to be anything other than what he was, and that truthfulness gives weight to everything that follows.

The turning point in Marvin’s life—his shift from gangster to crime‑prevention activist—is where the evening becomes genuinely powerful. He talks about working with young people, visiting prisons, and speaking in schools with a sense of purpose that feels entirely authentic. He knows the mindset of offenders because he lived it. He knows the excuses, the bravado, the fear. And because he does not sanitise his past, he has the credibility to reach those who trust no one.

Marvin’s tenacity is unmistakable. He speaks with conviction, but also with humility. There is no self‑pity, no attempt to rewrite history. Instead, he presents himself as a man determined to use his experiences to stop others from repeating them. His passion for reducing re‑offending is not theoretical—it is lived, urgent, and deeply personal.

By the end of the event, it is clear why audiences respond to him. Marvin Herbert is remarkable not because of the life he once led, but because of the life he is building now. Meeting him feels less like encountering a former gangster and more like witnessing a man who has fought his way into a new purpose and intends to drag as many people with him as he can.

A gripping, honest, and unexpectedly inspiring Fringe event.

Reviewed by Jacqueline Sharp

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A Poster of the Cosmos and Breakfast at the Track: A Sharp, Resonant Study of Human Connection

August 28, 2026 at 1:01 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, LGBT+interest, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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★★★★★ Lanford Wilson’s work has always thrived in the margins—those quiet, unguarded moments where people reveal themselves without meaning to. Deep Flight Productions lean into that instinct with real clarity in this alternating double‑bill, pairing the absurd domestic rupture of Breakfast at the Track with the tense, slow‑unfolding confession of A Poster of the Cosmos. Seen together, they form a compact but surprisingly resonant study of human connection under pressure.

Breakfast at the Track

Publicity material describes this as an “absurdist dark comedy” about a couple at domestic breaking point, and that’s accurate—but it undersells the strange, brittle charm of the piece. Wilson’s script is a ten‑minute pressure cooker: repetitive, circular, and deliberately trivial, yet shot through with the unmistakable ache of two people who no longer know how to speak to one another.

Geoff Stoner and Margaret Curry play the unnamed couple with a taut, lived‑in chemistry — Stoner simmering under the weight of unspoken frustration, Curry matching him beat for beat with a performance that turns quiet resignation into something quietly explosive.

Geoff Stoner and Margaret Curry

Performed here as a two‑hander—a pre‑dawn hotel‑room encounter between a couple —the play works because the performers refuse to soften it. The rhythm is sharp, almost mechanical, but never robotic. There’s humour, yes, but it’s the kind that comes from desperation rather than levity. You feel the weight of the ritual, the way repetition becomes a shield against the truth neither wants to name.

It’s a miniature, but a well‑judged one: a quick, jagged inhale before the longer, darker exhale that follows.

A Poster of the Cosmos

If Breakfast at the Track is all surface tension, A Poster of the Cosmos is the slow reveal of what happens when that tension finally breaks. Set in a Manhattan police station, where a man recounts events under interrogation , the play begins in a register of defensiveness and agitation. The character pushes the audience away, almost daring us to misunderstand him.

It’s an alienating start—but deliberately so. Wilson’s writing is built on deferred exposition, and Deep Flight’s staging honours that. The monologue gradually shifts from hostility to something far more fragile, as the man’s long‑term relationship comes into focus and the emotional logic of his behaviour begins to make sense. What initially reads as anger reveals itself as fear; what looks like self‑absorption becomes grief.

Geoff Stoner delivers A Poster of the Cosmos as a tightly coiled, quietly devastating monologue — a man circling his own memories like unstable orbit, letting the cracks show only when he can no longer hold the centre.

The production handles the AIDS‑era context with restraint. Nothing is sensationalised, nothing is framed as a twist. It’s simply the truth the character has been circling, unable to articulate it cleanly. The performance is tightly controlled—no melodrama, no pleading for sympathy. The contradictions are allowed to stand: shame, tenderness, panic, devotion. It’s a portrayal that understands grief as something jagged and unresolved.

This is a piece that improves in retrospect. During the performance, the emotional distance can feel like a flaw; afterwards, it feels like part of the design. The monologue lingers because it quietly rearranges your understanding of the man at its centre. That’s certainly how it worked for me. 

Together as a Programme

The two plays are distinct in tone yet thematically linked, tracing “moments when ordinary lives are tested and reshaped” . The pairing works because it creates an emotional arc: the brittle absurdity of Breakfast at the Track primes you for the deeper rupture of A Poster of the Cosmos.

The second play is unquestionably the stronger, but the first is essential. Without it, Cosmos might feel too stark; with it, the evening becomes a study in contrast—light and heavy, immediate and reflective, comic surface and emotional depth.

Deep Flight Productions continue to show why Wilson’s work still resonates: minimalism, honesty, and a willingness to trust the audience. This is Fringe theatre doing exactly what Fringe theatre should—small stories, told with care, that open into something unexpectedly large.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

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Poetry Amid Ruin: The Story of Philomena McGuiness

August 27, 2026 at 6:38 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

★★★★ Philomena McGuiness arrives onstage as if stepping out of a half‑remembered photograph: a young nurse on the cusp of war, clutching her poetry like a talisman. Jasmin Gleeson gives her shape, breath, and a pulse that never falters. She moves with the brisk efficiency of someone trained to keep going even when the world is falling apart, yet she lets us see the cracks—those tiny fractures where fear, hope, and humour seep through.

Josh King’s script is quick on its feet, darting between memory and confession, and Gleeson matches it beat for beat. She has that rare ability to shift tempo without ever losing the thread. One moment she’s recounting the chaos of a London ward in 1939, the next she’s reciting a scrap of verse with a wry smile, letting poetry soften the edges of brutality. Her face does much of the heavy lifting: a tightening of the jaw, a flicker of doubt, the kind of weary half‑smile nurses wear when they’ve seen too much and still have to carry on.

The bleakness of wartime nursing is never overstated. Instead, it’s etched quietly into her posture, her pauses, the way she holds her breath before describing the wounded men she tended. Gleeson’s performance is grounded, unshowy, and deeply human. She gives Philomena dignity without sanding down her rougher corners.

If there’s a gap, it’s the absence of any real Irish cultural texture. Philomena leaves Dublin, yet Dublin never quite leaves her. The script doesn’t explore that heritage, nor the cultural weight of an Irish woman stepping into the machinery of Britain’s war effort. A few touches—a memory, a song, a phrase—would have enriched the character’s roots and sharpened her sense of displacement.

But even with that missing thread, the production holds fast. It’s intimate, tightly paced, and carried by a performer who understands how to make a solo show feel full. Gleeson keeps the audience close, never letting the energy sag, and by the end Philomena feels less like a character and more like someone you’ve genuinely met.

A quietly compelling piece of wartime storytelling, lifted by a strong central performance. 

By Jacqueline Sharp

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Inside Mandelson’s Mind: ‘Mandy: Prince of Darkness’ Delivers Precision and Irony

August 27, 2026 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Comedy‑drama, Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Politics, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

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★★★★★ A sharply observed, meticulously researched and often darkly funny portrait of Peter Mandelson, delivered through a performance of such precision that it becomes less an impersonation and more an act of political possession. Richard Stirling doesn’t just play Mandelson — he inhabits him.

Mandy: Prince of Darkness is a one‑man political biography told from inside the mind of one of the most enigmatic figures in modern British politics. Stirling structures the piece around Mandelson’s own recollections, justifications and rhetorical flourishes, anchoring each chapter of his career with projected headlines and dates behind him. It’s a simple device, but an extremely effective one: the audience is never left drifting. Every scandal, every comeback, every resignation is pinned to a moment in time.
The effect is cumulative. You begin to realise just how many times Mandelson fell, rose, fell again, and rose again — until finally, as the show concludes, he meets the one scandal he cannot return from.
Performance: A Masterclass in Political Mannerism
Richard Stirling’s performance is the engine of the show, and it is extraordinary. He captures Mandelson’s mannerisms with forensic accuracy: the sly, fox‑like half‑smile; the careful modulation of tone; the way he leans into a phrase as if it were a tool he’s about to use.
But the real brilliance lies in the switches. When Mandelson quotes Tony Blair, Stirling shifts instantly — a recognisable Blair arm‑and‑hand gesture, the slight lift in vocal timbre, the earnestness that borders on sermonising. It’s subtle, funny, and deeply effective. He doesn’t break character; he folds Blair into Mandelson, showing how the two men lived inside each other’s political space.
This is mimicry at its highest level: not caricature, but observation.
Language, Manipulation & the Limits of Persuasion
One of the show’s most interesting threads — and one that came through strongly in your reflections — is the tension between Mandelson’s linguistic brilliance and the public’s instinctive scepticism.
Stirling presents Mandelson as a master manipulator of language: elegant phrasing, polished argument, the kind of rhetorical charm that can make nonsense sound like strategy. But even at his most persuasive, there’s a sense that ordinary people can smell when something isn’t quite right. The show captures that beautifully. You hear the justification, you admire the craft, but you don’t buy the conclusion.
It’s a portrait of a man whose intelligence was both his greatest asset and his greatest blind spot.
The Epstein Irony
The final act of the show deals with the Epstein scandal — the moment that ends Mandelson’s long cycle of comebacks. Stirling plays it with a deliberate irony: the arch‑strategist suddenly presenting himself as naïve, manipulated, unaware.
The email exchanges shown on screen undermine that claim. They hint at a man who knew exactly what he was doing, or at least knew enough not to pretend innocence convincingly. It’s a quietly devastating moment, and Stirling lets the audience draw its own conclusions.
Private Life, Public Persona
Stirling also touches on Mandelson’s approach to his private life. He didn’t hide being gay, but he didn’t foreground it either. It was simply part of who he was, not a political tool nor a public performance. The show treats this with sensitivity, acknowledging the complexity without sensationalising it.
Verdict
Mandy: Prince of Darkness is a superb piece of political theatre: sharp, intelligent, and anchored by a performance of remarkable skill. Richard Stirling gives us a Mandelson who is manipulative, charming, brilliant, flawed, hardworking, private, and ultimately undone by the one scandal he could not outmanoeuvre.
It’s a portrait of a complicated man, delivered by an actor who understands that complexity down to the smallest gesture.
A compelling, thoughtful and thoroughly engaging show.
Reviewed by Pat Harrington
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Structure vs. Chaos: Momme Domme’s Ambitious but Unruly Fringe Performance

August 26, 2026 at 9:14 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Kink, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

★★★★ Momme Domme is one of those Fringe experiences that doesn’t politely knock — it kicks the door in, drags you inside, and dares you to keep up. It’s chaotic, surreal, occasionally baffling, and absolutely determined to make you part of the spectacle whether you’re ready or not.

The show’s creator, Peggy Mitchell (Blemme Fatale), stalks the space in a white‑blonde wig, setting the tone as the unhinged architect of this strange universe . Around her, a rotating cast of characters orbit like planets in a system held together by sheer audacity. There’s SUB (Sam Hackney‑Ring), the man in the dog mask gleefully distributing tasks to unsuspecting audience members . CURATOR (Abby Witchalls) oversees the voting rituals with the calm menace of someone who knows exactly how much power she has in the room .

The ensemble is a Fringe microcosm of oddballs and archetypes:

  • NELLY (Rachel Jackson), the football‑mad romantic who seems one bad decision away from disaster .
  • EVE (Fern Russell), the posh blonde with lip‑sync skills sharp enough to cut glass .
  • YARA (Natalie Punter), who snatches a wig, storms out, and returns like she’s in her own personal soap‑opera arc .
  • XENA (Revathi Eswaran), the masked entrepreneur plotting her own party empire from behind a sparkly disguise .

Left: Revathi Eswaran. Right: Fern Russell

It’s a lot — intentionally. The show thrives on overstimulation, on the feeling that you’re watching a Fringe fever dream unfold in real time. But that ambition comes with rough edges. The script is dense, sometimes too clever for its own good, and could use tightening to help the audience follow the emotional through‑line. The sound system struggles under the weight of the chaos, and clarity occasionally gets sacrificed in favour of volume.

I also think the performance would have benefited from a clearer overall structure. With so many characters, tasks, and shifting dynamics happening at once, the show often felt like it was relying on chaos rather than guiding the audience through a deliberate arc. Even a loose framework built around recognisable categories — for example power‑exchange moments, sensation‑based segments, psychological or emotional beats, or audience‑driven decision phases — would have helped anchor the experience. These aren’t about making the show safer or tamer; they’re simply organisational tools that would let the audience understand what mode the performance is in at any given moment. A few defined transitions or thematic “chapters” would give the more experimental elements room to land with greater impact.

One thing that does shine is the backstage graft. Annabel Pearson, the sole stagehand, stage manager, and tech operator, is effectively holding the entire production together with grit and tape . You can feel the live‑wire energy of a show that’s still evolving — and that’s part of the Fringe charm. They’re clearly listening, adjusting, and shaping the piece night by night.

Momme Domme isn’t polished. It isn’t tidy. It isn’t trying to be. It’s a messy, loud, participatory experiment that will either delight you or leave you blinking in confusion — but you won’t forget it. If you’re up for something bold, bizarre, and proudly unrefined, step inside and let the madness wash over you.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

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A Forgotten Woman: Mrs Oscar Wilde – A Powerful, Humane Solo Show at Edinburgh Fringe

August 26, 2026 at 8:21 am · Filed under Biographical, Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, History, LGBT+interest, Solo, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

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★★★★★ History has never been kind to Constance Lloyd. She appears in the margins of Oscar Wilde’s story — a footnote, a casualty, a name occasionally invoked but rarely explored. A Forgotten Woman: Mrs Oscar Wilde sets out to correct that imbalance, and in Lexi Wolfe’s hands, Constance finally steps out of the shadows with a voice that feels fully, fiercely her own. As the press release puts it, Wolfe “brings Constance Lloyd vividly to life in a powerful solo performance told through her letters” .

This is a one‑woman show, but it never feels small. Through Constance’s letters — intimate, witty, and edged with quiet defiance — Wolfe constructs a portrait of a woman navigating love, intellect, motherhood, and public scandal. The production’s description notes that her voice “emerges from the margins of history to reclaim her place in a story that has long overlooked her” , and that is precisely what the performance achieves. It is not an act of historical correction; it is an act of reclamation.

Wolfe’s performance is the anchor. She plays Constance not as a tragic adjunct to Wilde but as a woman of her own convictions — politically engaged, artistically curious, and emotionally complex. The show traces her life with clarity: the early promise, the marriage, the children, the intellectual pursuits, and the devastating public fallout of Wilde’s trial. What could have been a familiar narrative of suffering becomes instead a study in resilience. Constance’s wit is sharp, her warmth genuine, and her refusal to disappear quietly is rendered with understated power.

The production’s history adds weight. First developed at the Buxton Fringe, Wolfe earned Best Actor nominations in 2016 and 2017, and the show now arrives in Edinburgh “in a newly reimagined form” . Her track record — including Best Actress wins for After Shakespeare (2021) and Baker Street Ladies (2025) — shows an artist who thrives in character‑driven work. This piece feels like the conrinuation of that trajectory.

The staging is simple but effective. A solo show about letters demands intimacy, and theSpace @ Symposium Hall provides it. The 17:05 slot suits the tone: a reflective hour at the end of the afternoon, where audiences can sink into the quiet emotional resonance of the piece.  The show is bold not in spectacle but in its insistence on centring a woman history tried to erase.

Even more affecting is the quiet sadness that runs through Constance’s recollections. When she speaks of her love for Oscar, there’s a sincerity and gentleness that makes the tragedy sharper; she talks about him with hope, with loyalty, with the assumption that their shared life will endure. We, of course, know it won’t. That inevitability hangs over the hour, turning even her happiest memories into something fragile. And in the final moments, when she wonders how she will be remembered — or whether she will be remembered at all — the piece lands with unexpected force. It becomes not just a story of a woman overshadowed by scandal, but a meditation on legacy itself: what survives, what is lost, and who history chooses to forget.

Wolfe never overplays the tragedy; she lets the audience feel its weight through the words themselves. The result is quietly devastating. 

A Forgotten Woman is not just a biographical monologue. It is a reclamation. It reminds us that history is often written by those who survive scandal, not those who endure it. Constance Lloyd deserves better than the footnote she was given. Wolfe gives her the dignity of a full story.

A moving, intelligent, and quietly powerful hour — one of the most humane solo performances at this year’s Fringe.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

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Edinburgh Fringe Review: The Pitch Finds Humanity and Humour in Belfast’s Divides

August 26, 2026 at 7:47 am · Filed under Comedy‑drama, Edinburgh Fringe 2026, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, LGBT+interest, Politics, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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★★★★★ Set in East Belfast, The Pitch centres on three teenagers whose lives intersect on a contested local football field. Robbie, a soccer‑mad loyalist kid, has spent his whole life practising on the same patch of grass. His sister Melissa is curious, open‑minded, and still figuring out where she fits. Deren, a GAA player raised in the same streets, has never had a home pitch of his own. When plans emerge to convert Robbie’s football field into a Gaelic pitch, the trio collide over sport, culture, identity, and the shifting political landscape around them — all against the backdrop of a looming United Ireland referendum.

Northern Irish theatre has always excelled at interrogating identity through the everyday, but The Pitch arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe with a particular urgency. As one of only five productions selected nationwide for the Pleasance Edinburgh National Partnerships programme, it stands as a flagship example of regional work that speaks directly to the realities of young people in a changing Belfast. This is not a play about “the past”; it is about the present — and the future that is rapidly approaching.

Philip Catherwood’s writing is sharp, funny, and politically literate without ever becoming didactic. The central dispute — whether the pitch should remain a soccer field or become a GAA ground — is not a contrivance. It is a precise metaphor for the cultural shifts happening in East Belfast today. The expansion of Gaelic games into traditionally Protestant areas has become a genuine flashpoint, and the play captures that tension with clarity and nuance.

Robbie’s fear of cultural displacement is rooted in lived experience. He is not a caricature of unionist defensiveness; he is a teenager terrified of losing the one place that feels like his. Deren’s frustration at being treated as an outsider in the community he grew up in is equally grounded. Melissa, caught between the two, embodies the emerging generation — less doctrinaire, more fluid, but still shaped by the legacies around her. The play avoids the tired “two tribes” framing and instead shows how identity is negotiated in mixed communities where lines blur and loyalties shift.

The humour is quintessentially Northern Irish: dry, sharp, and often deployed at moments of tension. Jokes about Tayto crisp packets, Irish street signs, and the semantics of “soccer” are not throwaway gags; they are cultural markers, reminders of how the smallest details become battlegrounds in contested spaces. The comedy never undermines the seriousness of the themes — it humanises them.

The emotional arc is clean and convincing. The characters begin in conflict, move through misunderstanding, and arrive at a fragile but genuine recognition of each other’s fears. The subplot involving Deren’s feelings for Robbie could easily have felt tacked on, but instead it deepens the stakes. It shows how personal vulnerability sits alongside political anxiety, and how the two often inform each other.

The production craft is strong across the board. Director Thea Mayeux keeps the 70‑minute running time tight, with pacing that mirrors the shifting emotional terrain. The staging makes clever use of the pitch as both literal and symbolic space — a place where lines are drawn, erased, and redrawn. Danae Crawford’s technical design supports the transitions without overwhelming them, and Rebekah Fitch’s sound work adds texture, particularly in moments where humour gives way to tension. The ensemble chemistry is exceptional; the three actors feel like real teenagers negotiating real stakes.

James Grimm’s Robbie is all brittle loyalty and jittery defensiveness. Jake Douglas brings warmth and quiet resilience to Deren, grounding the character’s frustrations in something deeply human. Dión Di Maio’s Melissa is a standout — perceptive, funny, and entirely believable as someone navigating mixed loyalties with more maturity than the boys around her. Their dynamic is lived‑in, messy, and convincing.

What ultimately makes The Pitch so effective is its understanding that constitutional debates are not abstract. They filter down into friendships, families, and the small patches of grass where young people define themselves. The play recognises that fear is not irrational when it has precedent, and that hope is not naïve when it is grounded in shared humanity. It offers a vision of common ground that feels earned rather than sentimental.

A witty, moving, and politically intelligent piece of theatre — one of the most thoughtful Northern Irish productions at this year’s Fringe, and a deserved flagship for the Pleasance National Partnerships.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

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