Fringe theatre reviews: The Quiet Earth Beneath | Dots | A Highly Suspect Murder Mystery

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 25 August

Writer and performer Casey Jay Andrews has carved out a niche on the Fringe for thoughtful, poetic storytelling, and this year occupies the larger space of the Summerhall Dissection Room, which she makes cavernous by the addition of a single ghost light.

That’s appropriate because The Quiet Earth Beneath is preoccupied with caves, in general and in particular. The specific caves in question are Porth Yr Ogof in the Brecon Beacons, which manage to be both popular with beginner cavers and one of the most dangerous cave systems in the UK. Caves in the show come to represent what lies beneath, from buried emotions to the Underworld itself.

Andrews’ narrative shifts between anecdotes from her own experience of caving and the story of a woman named Sienna, travelling to a Bed & Breakfast near Porth Yr Ogof where she and her former lover stayed regularly. Returning is a kind of ritual, an attempt both to make her loss feel real and get some closure from it. As Andrews speaks, musician and composer Jack Brett creates a live soundscape, a kind of concept album for the show.

How do we get closure, these days, she ponders, in a society where there is so little ritual? What happens if you need to gather up the broken pieces of something, put them together and understand them before you can let them go? Generally wise and thoughtful, here she does occasionally sound like a self-help book.

Structurally, the show feels a little uneven. There’s a long preamble about rituals and why we need them before the story takes over. A segment about people who go to the Underworld to attempt to bring someone back doesn’t feel fully realised. Yet this is still vintage Andrews: beguiling, empathetic, insightful, and with the bonus of a genuinely nail-biting finish.

Susan Mansfield

Dots ★★★★

Studio at theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9) until 19 August

Of the abundance of one-woman shows on offer to watch at this year’s Fringe, Dots by Annie Cheung is not one to miss. Vulnerable, honest, yet also hilariously funny, Cheung skilfully takes her audience through the traumatic experience that is becoming an adult, as she recalls her journey on Earth so far.

Moving from Hong Kong to London, abandoning her law degree to study acting, and maintaining her chastity until marriage, Annie Cheung has navigated many challenges. On stage, she speaks back to her internal thoughts, trying to find the source of her current depression and thoughts of suicide, and subsequently leaves loving herself a lot more.

Annie’s depression is high functioning, in which often, she is able to push on through everyday life, ignoring her unwell state of mind although occasionally, it does come back to bite her. Dots is a journey of self-discovery, uncovering the personal causes of depression to cast them aside, and finally uncover selfhood.

The performance is immersive and intelligent, utilising only a chair and a collection of balloons to construct palpable worlds, from evacuations at Kings Cross tube station, to promiscuous nights spent with men after divorce. This, of course, is made possible by Cheung’s invigorated performance; she is loveable, and carries great stage presence, yet often, her delivery of speech to an unknown presence, likely her depression, or depressive thoughts, does become arbitrary.

The best theatre inspires its audience to reflect on their own life, in response to what is presented before them. As Annie Cheung’s Dots gives insight into one woman’s challenging experience of life thus far, an audience may join her reflection to consider the challenges of their own lives, and even leave feeling a bit better off, as we’ve all successfully made it this far alive.

Róisin McMullan

A Highly Suspect Murder Mystery: The Betray-tors ★★★

theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53) until 23 August

You’re best advised to take friends or make friends in this interactive mastery where you have to identify the murderer. A contestant in a very thinly disguised version of The Traitors has been found hung, drawn and quartered. The gameshow’s remaining participants are all possible perps — and with names Trey Torous and Hugh Dunnit they’re Highly Suspect, a Cumbrian company who have finessed this format into a series of popular shows. The character’s names give you an indication of the script’s humour — a catalogue of groan-worthy puns — while the real invention is saved for the clues.

Splitting the audience off into teams, the proficient cast present you with a folder of evidence, predicated on codes, clues, crosswords, and puzzles. It’s murder as a parlour table-top game where kids have just as much of a shot at finding the culprit as criminologists. The team element is key as no individual has enough time to study — so if you’re expecting to be passively entertained, you’re out of luck. The cast do well interacting with the audience to ensure no-one is ever truly stuck and it’s good, fun change of pace even if the correct solution ultimately eludes you.

Rory Ford

King Arthur’s Body ★★★

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16) until 23 August

Part mystical healing ritual, part over-the-top sex pantomime (if that’s even a thing), King Arthur’s Body is - let’s dare to suggest - an experience unlike any other you’re likely to have had. Gandalf-like Merlin raises the young Arthur in the ancient ways, but when the time comes to withdraw a sword from a stone and produce a progeny, the newly crowned King finds himself unable to choose between luscious Guinevere and hot knight Lancelot. So - well, you can guess the rest.

Not that US-based Faerietale Theatre’s production leaves much to the imagination, as clothes are shed and fantasies indulged. It’s a show of high camp, unapologetic double entendres and also deep belief, as sexual and gender fluidity are celebrated and held up as practical means of healing the world - whether ancient or modern-day.

Writer Mountaine Jonas provides stentorian alliterative declamations as a string-bearded Merlin, while Jacob Reid is an eager, athletic and increasingly free-thinking Arthur, and Jenna Emilie Jaffe as Guinevere knows exactly what she wants. Don’t expect fresh revelations about one of England’s historical heroes, but for a provocatively queer and deeply silly rethink of age-old legend, King Arthur’s Body offers plenty to stimulate and excite.

David Kettle

Tell Me Where Home Is (I’m Starting to Forget) ★★★

theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53) until 23 August

It’s quite fascinating the sway that The Wizard of Oz continues to hold over queer culture. It’s inspired any number of solo autobiographical shows (both straight and gay) and while New York actor Michael DeBartolo happily only refers to it sparingly, it doesn’t seem wholly necessary.

That said, DeBartolo does look quite fetching in his sparkling ruby sneakers and it’s perhaps a useful comforting touchstone in this “comic monodrama” — an autobiographical piece that addresses some darker aspects of the gay experience. It’s particularly unfortunate that DeBartolo’s first encounter with a gay man on film is Dylan Baker’s pedophile character in Todd Solondz’s movie Happiness.

If there’s trauma here, it’s lightly — but not insensitively — handled and you’re never too far away from the next laugh. DeBartolo is an engaging storyteller, charting his development from the first inklings that he might be gay to a series of “unhealthy infatuations” with men — often straight —that have a tendency to turn either abusive or tragic.

The Oz references seem a vestigial trace of an earlier draft that haven’t quite fallen away yet but DeBartolo still holds your attention.

Rory Ford

Supermarket 86 ★★★

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 23 August

The year is 2007, and when a blizzard hits upstate New York, five teens are trapped in a supermarket overnight. In this lovable locked-room comedy, Supermarket 86, they discover they are connected to one another in ways they had not expected. “Maybe we can bond?” quips one, and sure enough, after the store generator goes down, a bottle of vodka and red party cups appear, and they begin a game of Truth or Dare.

The script impresses with its self-referential humour – “Who are you clarifying this for?” “Give the people what they want.” “You couldn’t make this up.” – and its sharp yet wholesome characters, who are simultaneously capable of quick-witted comebacks, and singing Puff the Magic Dragon by heart. Each of them is experiencing growth and change differently, and this allows for a range of emotionally complex perspectives onstage, with the space holding multiple, often conflicting, viewpoints at once.

Themes of queer love and heartbreak are especially powerful, as the five become increasingly trusting and willing to tolerate vulnerable truths. However, while its circular narrative structure provides a satisfying conclusion, the play’s final moments require an injection of energy to sustain each character’s individual storyline, particularly as tensions are spotlit and resolved.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts