Day: 13 August, 2022

Sap, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Bisexual women are rarely represented in theatre, particularly in a way that doesn’t brush them off as indecisive, slutty or secretly straight or gay. Rafaella Marcus’ unnamed protagonist (played by Jessica Clark) is none of these things. The charity worker genuinely fancies and can fall in love with both women and men. The violence and biphobia she encounters is real, too. Using symbolic imagery, narration and dialogue, the fully-realised character captures the authentic complexities of living and loving as a bi woman.

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Half-Empty Glasses, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Toye is 16 and ready to change the world. But first, he has an audition for a music scholarship at a private school, all his coursework, his friends always want him to hang out, and his dad is ill. He also wants to while away the time reading up on the Black British people and history that’s left out of the inadequate school curriculum. In short, he’s very busy and trapped in a racist and inflexible education system that he wants to change but also exploit to his advantage, and the pressure is starting to get to him.

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Man of 100 Faces, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

The disaffected son of a clergyman, Sir Paul Dukes, ran away to Russia to work as a musician. While there, the Russian Revolution started and British intelligence recruited him to work as a secret agent. He was to smuggle prominent people and useful materials across the border to Finland, and otherwise do what spies do without getting himself killed. Reportedly a master of disguise, the so-called ‘man of a 100 faces’ is portrayed by the versatile and energetic Saul Boyer, though the story is so dense and frenetically told that it is difficult to keep track of the various subplots and characters.

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