Fringe theatre reviews: HAM | The Crimes of Pete | 15 Minutes Of Shame | I Am Johnny | Justice | The Misfortunes of a Spy and Her Mystic

HAM | Holly Revell

THEATRE

HAM ★★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 30 August

“To be or not to be vegan – that is the question,” especially when, as well as reducing the number of animals killed, often through gruesome and elongated processes, it could also help to save the planet. In this reworking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in case you hadn’t guessed it, Mary Higgins and Ell Potter debate the issue with an arresting combination of humour and horror.

It’s a concept that might fill any meat eaters with fear, but in true Shakespearian style, both sides of the argument are debated with equal flair, at least until the end, with the two likable performers – real-life best friends – presenting themselves as a po-faced vegan (Mary) and “sausage queen” (El), as well as all the cute little pig pals on their way to being massacred.

From the opening shocking scene to reimagining Hamlet’s play-within-a-play, it reworks the original text and its themes in wild, hilarious and horrifying ways, eliciting gasps of joy and shock from the audience in a way that reanimates Shakespere’s tragedy, plugs these into a 21st-century mains electricity board and turns on the switch.

An interactive pet funeral (“join in!”) veers exhilaratingly between tragedy and farce. Never has being confronted by your own hypocrisy been such a full body experience – edgy and live in a way that its original author would surely have appreciated.

The impossibly of being strictly ethical is paired with the comedy of desperately trying and failing to achieve this ideal, which largely stops it from feeling like you’re being harangued – before finally, the curtain drops and you’re very much being harangued, accompanied by floods, fires and final slaughter.

Like Hamlet, the ending has an earnestness that, here, is refreshingly absent from the start. For anyone who eats meat and doesn’t want to see the killing it involves, it’s a play that denies you the right to look away. Sally Stott

THEATRE

The Crimes of Pete ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August

As unlikely as it seems, you too will come to accept that the subject of forced disappearance and artistic purges under dictatorial rule can be a subject for the darkest of comedy, in this extremely silly but frankly bitingly funny new comic play from Hughie Shepherd-Cross, who’s no stranger to the Fringe.

Doors are knocked on, round-ups are made, and three writers find themselves imprisoned in a gulag on the orders of the Great Leader. They are the intellectual Natasha Litchfield (Honor Santa Barnes), who basks in literary acclaim but sells a miniscule amount; arrogant bestseller Norman Black (Omar Ibrahim), who’s pretty disappointed with the quality of purge he’s been lumped in with; and the apolitical Pete Miller of the title (Freddie Cohen), a writer so terrible that the Great Leader just wants him executed for crimes against literature.

What follows is a savage go at the literary industry and the characters who inhabit it, made even funnier by taking on the brutal language of dictatorships from Stalin’s Russia on. Besides this, Shepherd-Cross is just so good with a sharp one-liner. “Say what you like about the Great Leader…” begins one character. “Well, you can't,” comes back another, indicating the situation they’re in.

Gormless, workmanlike Pete, author of the frankly incompetent Mozart Spaniel, mugs that his agent put him up for this, which is code for her having informed on him because even she wants him dead. Ibrahim, however, lands most of the best lines as preening alpha-luvvie Norman, who writes “precisely 3000 words, no adjectives” before noon. The others lobby for his release until they discover he’s in for murdering his wife (possibly a trumped-up charge, but Norman would rather not comment).

It all gets frantically farcical towards the end, as Gregor Roach’s ex-librarian prison guard offers Pete an escape route for two and the trio bicker about who should go, purging one another from the plan. Yet if the play wobbles on the rails a little by this point, the rest has been so relentlessly precise in pitch and tone that it’s hard not to thoroughly recommend it. David Pollock

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THEATRE

15 Minutes Of Shame ★★★

ZOO Playground (Venue 186) until 30 August

This propulsive debut drama from investigative journalist Sean Stillmaker focuses on a young couple hustling and side-hustling to escape a cycle of zero-hours contracts, rising energy bills, and extortionate landlords. They try everything – lifestyle influencing, crypto, Deliveroo – but nothing works. He takes good photos, though, and she has nice feet, so they turn to OnlyFans.

Skipping quickly through brief sections of dialogue, direct address, flashbacks and dream sequences, Stillmaker’s play smartly and coherently dramatises what it takes – and what it costs – to find success on the pornography platform. There are big gains if they can figure out the right formula, but the pressure of satisfying subscribers puts strain on their relationship, and there is the constant threat of being exposed, jeopardising both safety and future prospects. Then there are the ethical concerns: is it right to be anonymous indulging misogyny?

The drama has a bit too much of an informative, educational vibe, but the portrait it sketches of the burdensome treadmill of contemporary life, of the complex world of social media strategy, and of the challenges that come with creating content feels thoroughly authentic. Director Adébayo Bolaji’s deft, busy production features two strong performances from Anton Bibby and Ellen Pallant, too, animating this modern-day survival story with fluidity and physicality. Fergus Morgan

THEATRE

I Am Johnny ★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 31 August

In this quirky character comedy, Tessa Parr transforms into Johnny the Biblical Rapper, a swaggering spoken-word poet who delivers truly terrible verses with a comical blend of bravado and vulnerability.

Parr enters as Johnny, fresh from a workout, with heavy eyebrows, a towel around his shoulders, and low-slung jeans. He poses. He beatboxes a bit. He offers the audience mints, chats to them earnestly, and challenges them provocatively. Do you know what dextrose is? Would you like to see a picture of a dog dressed as a crab? Would you like a gherkin?

Mostly, though, Johnny recites a series of strange, shaggy poems full of syncopated rhymes and trippy rhythms. One is about attempting to return a bumbag with a broken zip. Another is about an emasculating encounter in an Apple Shop. A third is about his mother eating a handbag.

Johnny is an oddly compelling creation – a caricature of a working-class punk-poet that is simultaneously abrasive, absurd and endearing, and who sits on a rich and interesting intersection of gender, class and art. The show does not have much shape or drive, though, and nor does it do enough to distil its satirical themes. Parr is an entertainingly eccentric performer, but this feels more like a surreal sketch than a fully-fledge Fringe show at present. Fergus Morgan

THEATRE

Justice ★★★

PBH’s Free Fringe @ Carbon (Venue 180) until 30 August

An excellent performance from American writer Tiffany Esteb really distinguishes this one-woman show which is, for much of its running time at least, a compelling legal thriller. Ignore the disappointingly generic title for the moment; what we’re initially presented with is an interesting case study in the limits of free expression in the age of A.I. Esteb plays a civil liberties lawyer who has just won a big case defending a tech company against charges of hosting revenge porn. Born into a free speech absolutist family — her mother is a card carrying member of the A.C.L.U. —Esteb’s corporate lawyer is buoyed by her recent victory but still harbours nagging doubts about the ethics of her work; she recalls attending a talk by Noam Chomsky and being disturbed by his insistence that even holocaust deniers deserve their right to a legal defence.

Esteb’s commanding performance, as directed by Katie Coull, really sells what is in, it’s first half, a very well-written piece. The set-up is engaging but the turnabout fails to convince and there’s a rather hurried rush in the final stretch that suggests this piece may not have found it’s natural conclusion yet as it’s rather more concerned with changing hearts and minds than with drawing the story to a satisfying close. Rory Ford

THEATRE

The Misfortunes of a Spy and Her Mystic ★★

Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 29 August

This play blurs the line between security and mental health services, performing distrust of psychiatric care. Eve, part spy, part health worker, asks what the recovery plan is “if there is no diagnosis,” a line that seems to suggest diagnosis is a prerequisite for recovery, which is not the case. Meda, her new client, is framed as gifted or ill, rather than simply eccentric or agentic, leaning on familiar tropes. The dynamic between provider and client lacks clear boundaries, examined without nuance, while the show’s treatment of compassion fatigue is underdeveloped. These are important subjects, requiring greater care. Josephine Balfour-Oatts

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