 r/Conspiracy takes the chaotic sprawl of internet forums and channels it into something theatrical, intimate, and unnervingly funny.
At the centre is Alex (Ella Hällgren), who stumbles down the rabbit hole after spotting a Reddit thread about a machete-wielding stranger in her local park. What follows is a gradual descent into digital obsession, performed with wide-eyed intensity by Hällgren. Her slouched posture, oversized T-shirt, and baggy trousers signal a character more at home behind a glowing screen than the real world. Hällgren captures the restless, jittery energy of someone fuelled by energy drinks and adrenaline, unable to pull away from the siren call of the next post, the next DM, the next theory. It’s a performance that is both grounded in humour and edged with unease. Emma Ruse’s direction deftly shapes this digital world into something tangible on stage. The set design is particularly striking: digital-like trees with wires for leaves surround Alex, evoking both the tangle of the online world and a forest in which she is hopelessly wandering. It’s a clever visual metaphor for her state of mind that is caught between the safety of her desk and the vast, disorienting wilderness of conspiracy theories. Sound design plays a crucial role: a pulsing, understated beat hums in the background, evoking the ceaseless heartbeat of the internet, while the voices of usernames, threads, and DMs are delivered in a teasingly seductive tone, reminding us of the strange intimacy between user and screen. What emerges is more than a satire of Reddit culture; it’s an exploration of escapism, loneliness, and the way online spaces can both consume and connect us. Ruse directs with a sharp awareness of rhythm and tension, giving space for comedy while letting the darker undertones creep in. The play never mocks its protagonist, instead treating her fascination with conspiracies as a mirror to the hunger we all feel—for answers, for belonging, for stories bigger than ourselves. Lee Hutchison 4/5 This performance was watched on the final day of the run  One of the cornerstones of the British film industry has long been the cockney crime thriller - gritty, witty, and brimming with larger-than-life characters. Yet this genre is rarely given a stage treatment at the Edinburgh Fringe. Saving Sophie changes that, bringing the swagger and stylised chaos of British gangster cinema to the theatre with humour, knowing nods, and a committed cast.
Isaac Stamper’s script wears its influences proudly on its sleeve, echoing the brash confidence of the 90s and 2000s when Tarantino’s swagger and patter along with Guy Ritchie’s cockney gangster worlds dominated cinema screens with inspired films and pretenders. It revels in that heightened sense of spectacle with big soundtracks, bigger shootouts (why fire one gun when you can brandish two and make them gold?), and a parade of twists and double-crosses. What makes it work on stage, however, is the way it blends those cinematic tropes with something distinctly British and homegrown with the soap-like familiarity of EastEnders, complete with messy family drama, over-the-top betrayals, and comic absurdity that never lets the tension get too serious. At its centre is the strong, independent female assassin, Alex (Millie Hermann) who anchors the chaos, while around her orbit the familiar figures of cockney crime lords and bumbling sidekicks. The latter come to life in the hilarious duo of Jack and Jill, whose constant breaking of tension with their improvised antics and self-aware humour makes them amazing comic relief. Charles Page and Conrad Klappholz are a particular highlight, leaning into their roles with infectious energy, delighting in the absurdity. What Saving Sophie achieves is more than parody; it’s a celebration of a genre that shaped a generation of British cinema, refracted through the irreverence and playfulness of Fringe theatre. It has all the grit and glamour of its influences but never forgets to wink at the audience, reminding us that half the fun of a crime thriller lies in just how excessive and improbable it all really is. Lee Hutchison This performance was watched on the final day of the run  In their Edinburgh Fringe debut, Audaciously Tenacious present Perfect Dead Girls, a haunting and hypnotic two-hander that lingers long after the final moment. Two nameless girls, suspended in a strange limbo after their sudden deaths, must reckon not only with the fact of their passing, but also with the invisible figure who watches, judges, and decides who moves on and who is left behind.
The stage is set with little more than battered suitcases, walls plastered with magazines and newspaper cuttings, and an empty and timeless void that refuses to offer answers. In this deliberate sparseness lies the power of the writing where details of the girls’ lives are scarce, their stories fractured and obscured. The ambiguity draws us in, forcing the audience to project our own fears, grief, and private reckonings with mortality onto them. Why do young people die? What drives them to despair? The play resists easy answers, instead giving us fragments to piece together, fragments that feel all too familiar. What emerges, too, is a charged queer subtext that subtle, but undeniable. The girls’ fraught bond is written in coded gestures and unspoken glances, the longing buried beneath tension and hostility. It’s there in the ways they clash and console, where rebellion and conformity, femininity and anger, collide. The writing doesn’t underline this queerness in neon, but rather allows it to haunt the silences, mirroring the way so many young queer lives end in tragedy by their own hands or that of others. Elizabeth Robbins, in preppy pyjamas and a soft, moneyed American lilt, channels the pop princess with perfection. Her renditions of B*Witched and Britney Spears routines are dazzlingly performed, but also loaded as her immaculate choreography and cheerful veneer conceal a deeper sadness, a desperate attempt to project belonging in a world that has little space for imperfection and expect conformity. Robbins gives us the girl who is adored by all yet truly known by none, her brittle brightness cracking to reveal loneliness and pain. Opposite her, Chelsea Grace embodies raw defiance in Avril Lavigne-esque rebellion with black clothes, striped tie, venomous wit, and that cutting Highlands accent. Her fury is unfiltered, her barbs aimed at Robbins’ character and everything she represents: the glossy masks of girlhood, the conformity that can suffocate. Yet within the sharpness are moments of startling vulnerability, a sadness that surfaces in fleeting moments of tenderness. Grace’s performance captures the female rage that is partly protective and partly destructive. Together, Robbins and Grace form a fantastic duet. Their characters embody two poles of girlhood: conformity and rebellion, pop and punk, performance and refusal. They spar and wound, but also console one another in the strange intimacy that only comes in shared exile. The play’s strengths lies in how these archetypes are written and performed not as clichés, but as layered, gendered, and painfully real responses to the pressures that haunt young women and the queer community in particular. Lee Hutchison 4/5 Perfect Dead Girls Venue: Bedlam Theatre Dates: August 25 Time: 1100 Tickets: perfect-dead-girls  Set in Budapest at the height of the Cold War, this sharp and playful production follows two operatives - Comrade (Ella Sheree) and Agent (Charlie Turner) - who are tasked with a mission of seduction and espionage: the exchange of state secrets under the guise of intimacy.
From the outset, both characters are knowingly drawn from the archetypes of the era. Agent is the buttoned-up Brit, fretting over matters of class as much as matters of state, while Comrade is the archetypal Russian honey trap, trained in allure but carrying her own vulnerabilities beneath the surface. Overseeing them are their Wires, older agents who attempt, with varying degrees of success, to instill discipline, duty, and the cool detachment their protégés so conspicuously lack. The show’s great strength lies in how it reframes the familiar tropes of spycraft through the lens of romance. The comedy of espionage is filtered through the rhythms of dating: clandestine exchanges over cafés and park benches become first encounters, awkward in their formality yet charged with possibility. As the pair graduate to bedrooms, their physical entanglement mirrors the deepening complications of emotional connection. In the process, seduction gives way to genuine affection, and the game of intelligence sharing collapses into a confession booth of secrets with every classified scrap willingly handed over in the name of love. When their mutual betrayals leave them pursued by the very organisations that trained them, the central dilemma crystallises: where does loyalty lie, with flag or with heart? The show unfolds in distinct segments of the seduction with each scene punctuated by blackouts that, in a delightful surprise for a fringe production, drew applause every time. Written by Alex Macfarlane and Charlie Turner, the piece knowingly nods to the shadowy world of John le Carré, George Smiley, The Circus, and the weary tradecraft of Cold War duplicity but does so with a wry, comic eye. Rather than mire itself in grey trench coats and bureaucratic gloom, the writing revels in absurdity, highlighting the thin line between espionage and intimacy, deception and desire. This is a piece that understands its source material, pokes fun at it, and yet finds real emotional weight in the absurd stakes of Cold War romance. Performance is everything in a play so rooted in chemistry, and both leads deliver superbly. Sheree brings Russian wit, warmth, and a subversive edge to Comrade, turning what could have been a cliché into a character of depth. Turner balances dry humour with vulnerability, his Agent’s stiff-upper-lip exterior cracking in a way that is both hilarious and oddly touching. Together, their interplay has the audience leaning in and rooting for them even as their choices grow more reckless. Lee Hutchison 4.5/5 This performance was watched on the final day of the run  Caroline Dunn steps into the role of Sister Prudence with both humour and heartbreaking depth. On the surface, Prudence is a young nun, bound in habit - though the glittering, sequined dress beneath hints at a hidden, dazzling self, yearning to break free. The habit becomes more than costume; it is a cloak of Catholicism, a metaphor for all that has been repressed and concealed.
Prudence’s story is one of thwarted potential. Targeted at a young age and pushed toward religious devotion, she sacrifices her dreams of becoming a designer, an actor or an artist. Her queerness, supressed but never quite denied, is woven into the subtext of her faith as perhaps even the reason she fled into it. It is no accident that she is a nun who accepts evolution, or one who quietly admits that church ritual feels dull. She is a believer of sorts, but a restless, questioning one. Dunn infuses Prudence with remarkable warmth and humanity. You find yourself silently urging her to escape, to claim her identity, to step into the world as her true, gay self. What begins in broad comedy with sharp wit gradually deepens into something more profound. The play grows darker, more contemplative, as Prudence confronts the voices in her head. These voices are not from God but internal, echoing years of shame, repression, and self-doubt. Battling between faith and authenticity, between imposed identity and self-liberation. The comedy unfolds into a poignant portrait of a woman torn between the church’s quiet confines and the brilliant, queer self that longs to shine through. Dunn’s performance makes Prudence not just a character but a mirror to many queer people reflecting the painful cost of hiding, and the courage it takes to resist the voices that tell you to stay cloaked. Lee Hutchison 4/5 This performance was watched on the final day of the run |
|
