Paul T Davies reviews Tending at Greenside Riddles Court at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Tending
Greenside Riddles Court, Edinburgh Fringe
4 Stars
A verbatim piece collating and performing the experiences of nurses working in the NHS. Beautifully structured, this is an emotionally powerful play that needs to be witnessed. Our NHS staff need to be listened to. Created from over 50 interviews by playwright El Blackwood, it's a piece that stays with you.
It's a classic Fringe play of plastic chairs and bare stages, the cast have the words and performances to convey to us. They are uniformly excellent, all three actors holding us in their words, sensitively directed by John Livesy. The pandemic sequence alone is devastating. We must never forget the trauma the staff went through.
The story of a 15-year-old patient is introduced and withdrawn a few times until delivered in full at the end. It has a devastating punch. Our nurses deserve and need so much more from the government and from us. A play of dignified strength.
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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