Fringe theatre reviews: Steak Out | Mr Bergmann of Deadman’s Point | Sobremesa | The Understudy + more

Steak Out | Daniel Holden

Steak Out ★★★★

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) until 31 August

Plays about Edinburgh are rare on the Fringe, and working-class Edinburgh even rarer. However playwright and actor Ruaraidh Murray has earned a reputation for making work which reflects the grittier side of life in the city.

In Steak Out, a Muirhouse family - Archie (Murray), a butcher whose business is failing, his partner Karen (Reanne Farley) and Karen’s son Thomas (Sean Langtree), a resting actor - set out to restore their failing fortunes by robbing a butchers shop in Stockbridge two days before Christmas.

Fast-paced, frequently funny dialogue sets the tone, and the three actors dive straight into their roles establishing the fault lines of the family dynamic. With the unexpected addition to the heist of Karen’s baby grandson, a mishap with a Taser gun and a walk-in freezer with a faulty lock, the stage is set for a black comedy.

But Murray has something else in mind. The more we learn about the characters, the more the simple “will they get away with it?” plot becomes more complicated. The play starts to ponder class tensions and family relationships, deep-seated issues such as Karen’s disappointment with her life, and Thomas’ fear that he will turn into his father.

Murray’s writing feels most sure-footed when he’s being funny, and this pushes into newer, more emotional territory, with Michael Nardone’s direction and a nuanced performance by Farley taking up the heavy lifting. The fact that these conversations take place while shifting boxes of stolen meat sustains a strain of humour.

When there is a revelation which no one can laugh about, the play shifts away from comedy and hits a darker trajectory. It holds together, just, but the shift might come as a disappointment to those whose expectations were shaped by the first half. Susan Mansfield

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Mr Bergmann of Deadman’s Point ★★★★

Paradise in the Vault (Venue 29) until 30 August

The death of Peter Bergmann has a reputation for being one of Ireland’s most famous unsolved cases, a mystery which has naturally spilled out into the internet’s more fanciful and speculative corners.

In June 2009 a man using the alias ‘Peter Bergmann’, presumed to be European and probably Austrian, arrived by bus in Sligo from Derry and stayed in a local hotel for three days, venturing out to view the town during his visit.

Then on the fourth day ‘Bergmann’ was found dead on a local beach with no identification on his body, and no evidence of either murder, drowning or obvious natural causes. To this day no-one knows who he was, why he was there or how he died.

This solo play by writer and performer Ronan Dempsey seeks neither to relitigate what happened nor try to solve the case by either fictional or investigative means. Instead, Dempsey tells an entirely different story using the Bergmann affair as a backdrop.

Although he appears in wordless, atmospheric interludes as Bergmann, wearing an inscrutable, Kabuki-style mask and giving off an air of eerie mystery, Dempsey’s main character throughout is ‘Balmy’, the local embalmer, whose task is to prepare Bergmann’s body for its funeral in an unmarked grave.

These are the months after the 2008 financial crash, remember, and as Dempsey relates a story of his small local Sligo community buckling under the crash’s rippling waves, he also alludes to his own personal collapse.For Balmy, a “magician of the dead”, this will be his final embalming, albeit also his most famous.

In script and in action Dempsey creates a thoroughly intriguing piece of work, a mystery within a mystery, as Balmy’s own transgression and his hope he may somehow be redeemed from it build a puzzle worthy of the tale’s real-life inspiration.

Amid it all, Dempsey’s striking, brilliant performance makes this a real hot ticket, building a wonderful sense of the character’s desperation alongside the human delicateness involved in his weird, grisly art. David Pollock

Sobremesa ★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Venue 24) until 31 August

Millie (Athena Vlachos) loves a “sobremesa”, the Spanish word for lingering over drinks after a meal is finished. And she’s determined to enjoy this one, on her sister Alma’s (Alejandra Deane) 30th birthday, when she has just introduced Alma to Jamie (Benjamin Sumrie), the new boyfriend with whom she’s already planning a future. But Alma thinks she’s seen him somewhere before.

This new play by Agnes Perry-Robinson, whose debut play Eleanor attracted praise on the Fringe in 2024, is ambitious in its themes but awkwardly static in its structure, trapping the characters at a restaurant table no one is quite able to leave.

Jamie’s nice-guy mask quickly slips to reveal controlling behaviour and a retrograde attitude to women’s rights, and this is so clearly signposted it seems to rob the play of some of its tension.

The more compelling aspect of the drama is the close bond between the sisters, which is beautifully written and acted, and the choice that Millie must make between that loyalty and her dream of a home and family.

Sobremesa has much to commend it, not least its writing and all three performances. It should pack a punch, but somehow it doesn’t quite do so. Susan Mansfield

READ MORE: 'There's such a love there' - Eva O'Connor on how uni friendships inspired her Fringe show For Dolores

The Understudy ★★★

Assembly George Square (Venue 8) until 30 August

“It's the arts,” says the wide-eyed and eager young theatrical understudy played here by Australian writer and solo performer Eva Seymour. “I'm not doing it for the money!” That’s a good thing, because she isn’t getting any, and nor is she getting much credit or recognition for her very small offstage role in a new Australian play.

Nor is she required to turn up at all, in fact, unless she’s needed, but still the desire to show willing and be close to the action of the theatre burns strong in her. She goes into the theatre every night anyway, to the friendly bemusement of her fellow actors.

At least she’s not a ‘hungerstudy’, she’s told, meaning an understudy who’s desperately, nakedly ambitious, but her “just happy to be here” attitude sinks any hopes she may have of eventually being cast into the background.

Taking a turn for the psychologically surreal as it progresses, actors will absolutely get The Understudy, and will surely respond to this nuanced and darkly amusing exploration of the tumultuous inner life of the working performer with enjoyment and the occasional cringe.

Everyone else will likely still get the joke, and can also enjoy a nuanced, funny, first-rate performance from Seymour. David Pollock

Dribble ★★★

Underbelly George Square (Venue 300) until 31 August

For a football match’s ninety minutes, all the pain of the world stays outside the stadium. That's the ethos of Dribble, a celebration of the beautiful game in the form of a series of physical, musical and storytelling vignettes performed by six actors from the Cênica company of São José do Rio Preto, Brazil.

Proudly arriving at the Fringe with the well-worn message that Brazil is the country of football, although not its actual birthplace, the piece appears specially designed for the company’s visit to Scotland.

It includes the tale of Charles Miller, son of a Scottish engineer, founder of São Paulo football club and the reputed ‘father’ of Brazilian football; tells of Brazil and Scotland’s five World Cup meetings and of how the ‘curse’ of Scotland means Brazil won none of those tournaments; and includes a jokey segment where both countries’ cultures meet, comparing cachaça to whisky and guarana to Irn-Bru.

From the moment the queuing audience are met in the street by the cast performing samba, it’s a joyous, celebratory piece, albeit with moments of tenderness in the personal moments, as one performer rejects boyish stereotypes to become a drag queen and another tells a tale of football as a cure for alienation.

Football is “a way to make life less boring”, says the text, and Dribble embraces that sentiment. David Pollock

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