Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: She's Behind You | I Kissed Batman | Iphigenia: Dead/Alive + more

Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) until 24 August

Spotlights rain down like snow in Traverse 1. Even though it’s August, Johnny McKnight’s beloved, quintessentially Scottish pantomime dame, Dorothy, whether she’s Blawna-Gale or Ina-Storm-Floris, is seasonless.

It takes twenty years’ experience to get down stairs this steep in a froffy gingham dress, door-defying hair and age-defying glitter trainers.

“Summerhall, not for me”, she sings as she struts through the audience and into Kenny Miller’s delightful music box set, defiantly directed by John Tiffany and immersed in an an auditorium of thunderous applause.

With handfuls of glitter, music, callbacks and wordplay-based gags, what starts off feeling like pure panto is actually a panto-about-panto, in particular its ability to capture and, at its best, critique the ever-changing politics, attitudes and topics of its time.

From playing “sexless” Silly Billys to becoming a dame at the ancient age of 26, to a playwright determined to do things differently, Johnny is open about having written lines in the “toxic 2000s” that he wouldn’t now. Panto can be racist, homophobic, sexist, fattist, he observes, and the list goes on. The rules are archaic but also open for reinterpretation. Indeed, it’s expected.

Dorothy offers Johnny a way to come out on stage, as a gay man, which he can’t for years in his life outside.

“Wear the mask that allows you to be who you really are,” he says, simultaneously character and creator. But with changing times comes new challenges, as his sexual empowerment turns into an accusation of sexual assault and a gay kiss is tested out on a raucous group of primary school kids and Christian bible group.

“You don’t just see panto, it sees you,” Johnny/Dorothy reflects.

With 18 dames behind him, it’s a reminder that we’re all made up of past versions of ourselves, their successes and flaws, but also the power of shows (and reviews) to reflect, amplify and shape reality and turn it into whatever we want it to be.

Sally Stott

I Kissed Batman ★★★★

Just the Tonic at The Caves (Venue 88) until 11 August

Damian and Tim are finally a couple, but Damian’s nervous about coming out to his neurotic sister Steph - especially just before the Halloween fancy dress contest that she’s desperate to win (even though his rugby team will almost certainly be victorious).

In any case, boyfriend Jason has a big question for Steph - if he can pluck up the courage, and demonstrate it by standing up to towering rugby jock Duke, or (worse) team captain Dick, who both Damian and Steph seem strangely fascinated with. Cass, meanwhile, is just tagging along in the hope of a hook-up with a hotty from across the Channel.

If that sounds like the makings of an old-fashioned farce, then Lex Joyce’s breathless, joyful five-hander from Edinburgh-based Shark Bait Theatre is just that, albeit updated for the far freer and more fluid sexual identities of students in the 21st century.

Joyce’s dialogue crackles with one-liners and merciless put-downs, but it’s far from all gags: I Kissed Batman also manages to draw five thoroughly believable characters, each with their own back story, hopes and vulnerabilities, and propelled through the plot by Douglas Yannaghas’s assured, hugely detailed direction that finds a delicate balance between ringing clarity and glorious chaos.

Perhaps more could have been made of Jason’s evident climate worries, despite a show-stopping one-liner early on, but Ross Forbes-MacKenzie is all unconvincing blustering masculinity in any case, and Kit Laveri is achingly cool as Cass, with a nice line in withering sideways glances. Alex Paton conveys the anxiety behind Steph’s obsessions, and Michael Tominey and Tom Showell as on-off couple Damian and Tim are genuinely sweet, and the fitting focus of the show’s sentimental denouement.

I Kissed Batman might be a fast-paced, hard-edged, no-prisoners-taking snapshot of today’s student life and all its excesses, in a slightly clunky staging, but it’s got all the big-hearted warmth and sentiment of an old-fashioned romance.

David Kettle

Iphigenia: Dead/Alive ★★★★

Space 3 at theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 9 August

It is truly remarkable what the young people of The Fox Chase Players, all the way from Pennsylvania, USA, have brought to the stage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year.

Iphigenia: Dead/Alive is an epic performance that takes Euripides’ equally epic plays: Iphigenia in Aulis, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, and revives their central character, so she may finally reclaim her own story.

Iphigenia is a figure often forgotten from Greek mythology. Sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon, under Artemis’ instruction, her life usually ends here. Yet, in this radical reimagining, Iphigenia is rescued and defies her intended sacrifice to carve a life of her own, finding sisterhood as her true family.

The production is brilliantly conceived by director Kittson O’Neill, alongside the company’s exceptional young ensemble, as it weaves movement and song into its compelling story, which is brought forward by passionate writing and bold original music by Clellan Hirlinger.

It is the young ensemble, however, that must be ultimately commended for this production’s sharpness, handling dense Greek mythology with confidence and poise. Unsurprisingly, there is a range of quality among these performances, but within them, some are stellar.

Ruby Schumm, playing Agamemnon, and Madison Freeman-Bibbs, playing his wife, Clytemnestra, are surely young actors to look out for, whilst a bit more professionalism is still needed to silence the chatters from backstage.

This ancient tale of patriarchy echoes loudly in the ears of its contemporary audience, now amplified by the voices of our next generation. It is these young people that must reclaim their own story in the shadow of their brave hero, Iphigenia.

As we collectively look toward an uncertain future, Iphigenia: Dead/Alive provides a hopeful glimpse into the power, and resilience, of those that intend to shape it.

Roisin McMullan

Daniel Moore’s Definitive Guide to Failure-Free Living ★★★

Just the Tonic Legends (Venue 27) until 11 August

Daniel Moore is just moments away from 20,000 hours without a single failure - that’s twice what Malcolm Gladwell counts as expertise, so it must be more than enough for a book or seminar series. Or whatever.

But is there more to success than simply striking the big red button that lights up periodically but incessantly in his bare, grimy room?

Like something by Samuel Beckett on acid, writer/performer Matthew Edgar’s intense solo show is more a study of obsession and futility than it is a searing critique of self-appointed online success gurus.

Edgar delivers an unsettlingly passionate performance, prowling his confined space and evidently terrified of missing the button’s demands for attention, while offering homilies from his past that only serve to re-emphasise his loneliness and neediness. Putting a compulsion for success down to early neglect offers few new insights, and Edgar’s tales struggle to summon many emotions other than pity.

What emerges over the course of his 50 minutes, however, is something darker, more abstract and more interesting than Edgar’s initial strutting self-confidence suggests.

Taking that as a starting point might have allowed Edgar to stare more unflinchingly into the void. As it stands, Daniel Moore’s Definitive Guide… is promising and intriguing, but hardly revelatory.

David Kettle

Devil’s Point ★★

theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 16 August

Although it boasts an effective original score by Oliver Armstrong and illuminated by some decent shadow puppetry, Laura J Milton’s mix of folk horror and modern love is a bit less than the sum of its parts.

Set on an ill-advised jaunt up the titular Cairngorms hill, the relationship between the couple, Ailsa and Sean, never convinces and is played with a sub-breezy romcom brightness that the script can’t quite live up to.

It’s a bold stab at blending genres but it ends up feeling compromised because it can never fully commit to either of them.

Rory Ford