Paul T Davies reviews One Life Stand at Roundabout at Summerhall at Edinburgh Fringe.
Photo: Sarah Beth One Life Stand Roundabout at Summerhall, Edinburgh Fringe
20 August 2018
3 Stars
Middle Child created one of the hits of the Fringe last year with All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and the team return with this new show written by Eve Nicol with music by James Frewer and Honeyblood. The journey across a late night urban landscape is a now established genre, as is the fusion of poetry, music and text. Kate Tempest and her play Wasted continues to be the high water mark for me.
Kat is going into town, but the constant kitten videos texted to her by her boyfriend Kit are an irritant. She has a more exciting possibility, an illicit lover. He too, cycling around the city, meets the possibility of new encounters with a girl, internet famous for posting a video of her having sex with her teacher.
Tanya Loretta Dee, Edward Cole and Anna Michelson perform this gig theatre well, but ultimately it goes a long way to travel very little. Dialogue of adverts, emocions and text speak zing around, but mean little. However, there is some beautiful poetry, and Cole in particular drives the piece with fizzing energy. But, for me, it feels too cool for its own good, and would benefit from breaking free from its constrained structure.
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Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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