The agony and the ecstasy

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) JJJJ Set in a post-apocalyptic future in which cities have been buried by giant sandstorms, Frozen Light Theatre’s immersive show is aimed specifically at people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) but that’s not to say that there’s nothing here for anyone else – far from it. In fact, a great many theatre companies could take lessons in stagecraft and how to engage any audience from this necessarily simple tale.

The play follows two women, Scarlet and Olive (played by artistic directors Lucy Garland and Amber Onat Gregory) sole survivors thrown together by circumstance, as they try to learn to trust each other, forge a friendship and learn to cooperate in order to work out a survival plan. The metaphor for what people who cope with PMLD have to deal with daily is clear but it’s never hammered home. The obvious care put into set and costume design (all Mad Max dusters and sand goggles) creates its own reality. Musical director Al Watts provides an impressively varied live soundtrack that incorporates driving rock beats and inventive, gentle “getting-to-knowyou” numbers – every audience member coping with PMLD gets their name incorporated into a song. However, it’s the tactile, sensory elements that make this truly immersive. At various points in the story the audience are invited to plunge their hands into sand, then later glisteningly wet tapioca balls, stare into a box that contains the jewel-like night sky and play with bubbles (always a winner with any audience, that).

Although – perhaps unavoidably – light on dramatic tension, the introduction of Watts as a third character could come a little sooner than five minutes before the end as it might provide a more useful narrative wrinkle, but it’s hard to quibble with such a consistently engaging, imaginative show. RORY FORD Summerhall (Venue 26) JJJJ In The Eradication Of Schizophrenia In Western Lapland, the first part of a trilogy on the theme of innovative treatments of mental illness, Ridiculusmus divided the audience and sat them on opposite sides of a twoway set. The show you saw depended on the luck of the draw. It was a bold, theatrical

0 How does Zack get out of his box? The treatment of mental illness is explored by Ridiculusmus relatively rare on the Fringe. Yet in the basement of the old Freemason’s Hall in George Street, here are Fair Pley Productions and Unite the Union, presenting a gentle and thoughtful short play by Anne Hogg to mark the 30th anniversary of the Caterpillar Occupation, when 1200 workers in Uddingston, near Glasgow, staged a work-in at the plant which had promised them secure jobs and massive investment, only to reverse the decision within weeks and announce complete closure.

There’s old footage of the rallies and news reports surrounding the occupation; and then the play opens, 30 years on, in the kitchen of Mary’s house, where one of the veteran women supporters of the strike is recovering after a riotous reunion night out with the girls. Her manifestation of the schizophrenic theme.

In the second instalment, Give Me Your Love, the company plays a different theatrical game as it turns its attention to post-traumatic stress disorder. This time, the warped joke is that we don’t see the performers at all. Or, at least, very little of them.

We catch no more than the odd sighting of the feet of David Woods as war veteran Zack, who spends the whole play taking cover in a cardboard box pockmarked with 30-year-old daughter Danni arrives, with worrying news about Mary’s best friend; and for a while – as they field calls and texts from various menfolk – the two women sit and chat and reflect on 30 years of working-class history in Lanarkshire, on how things have changed, and how they remain the same.

There’s nothing conclusive about Hogg’s play, and nothing very complex.

Yet the mere act of remembering that long-gone struggle, and the voices of the women who supported it, seems radical in itself; and in Sarah Mccardie’s production, Kate Donnelly and Keira Lucchesi deliver a warm and completely credible pair of performances, as well-shaped as they are heartfelt. JOYCE MCMILLAN bullet holes. John Haynes, meanwhile, is either an offstage voice or a disembodied arm reaching round the locked door into the dingy Port Talbot flat, realised in stained and grubby detail by designer Jacob Williams.

So distressed is Zach by his frontline experience that he can only get by in hiding. He is distrustful of everything, from his sympathetic wife to the unopened mail.

His friend and fellow band member Ieuan, played by Haynes, patiently cajoles ZOO Southside (Venue 82) JJJ Few things are more alienating for an audience than somebody laughing hysterically on stage for no reason.

We don’t know what’s funny, we’re outside the joke and it breaks the spell. So when a dancer did just that in the middle of Folk, my heart sank. But if we push that moment aside, this piece from the wonderful National Dance Company Wales has plenty to offer – even before it starts.

Joe Fletcher’s set is a genuine sight to behold, and presumably a nightmare to tour. An enormous tree hangs upside down from the him, hoping that an ecstasy pill may liberate his mind enough to help him confront his demons.

It’s about as far from an orthodox health-education drama as you can get, the dialogue as comically surreal as the situation is bleak and bewildering. Using MDMA to get out of his box may or may not be the best way for Zach to get out of his literal box, but it seems to open possibilities worth exploring. MARK FISHER ceiling, branches spiralling out, a large pile of discarded leaves lying beneath. It serves as a beautiful hook to hang things on, both literally and metaphorically.

Choreographer and company head, Caroline Finn was inspired by everyday people living everyday lives for the piece, and we see idiosyncratic characters emerge throughout, bookended by family photo-style tableaux.

Towards the end, Finn’s choreography, the dancers’ dynamism and Fletcher’s atmospheric lighting design (is there nothing that man can’t do?) all come together in a powerful sequence that is both slick and earthy at the same time.

More of that would have made this 30-minute piece a force to be reckoned with. KELLY APTER C Cubed (Venue 50) JJJ Angela Brazil’s novels are little known today, but she pioneered the writing of school stories for girls from the 1890s to the 1930s, selling more than 3 million books. Kate Stephenson’s play, produced by the lively Not Cricket Productions from York University, is a fast-paced romp through her story.

Brazil (there is debate in the play about whether it should be pronounced in the same way as the country, or as “Brazzle”) did not leave a full account of her life, but it seems she often used events from her life in her novels. Stephenson starts with a framework of the known facts and mines the books for scenarios to fill the gaps.

All this is delivered with a bucketload of charm and energy, in school-marmish, jolly-hockey-sticks style by the cast, led by Kosi Carter as the cheesecake-loving novelist. With considerable versatility and humour, they paint a picture of a woman who could be feisty and stubborn and had her fair share of grief, but deserves to be remembered for being one of the first to give young women a place at the centre of their own stories. SUSAN MANSFIELD Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302) JJ A mildly hysterical woman and a young man are the party-makers in this slightly uncomfortable and overly contrived show which feels more like a showcase for the character comedy skills of the eponymous Abigail.

In time-honoured fashion we welcome to the stage a series of “special guests” and Abigail assumes a new wig and accent. Dave is a likeable, long-suffering straightman. It is a sweetly old fashioned, almost amateurish hour. Abigail and Dave are not untalented but they need a better, fresher show. However, a huge well done to them for controlling the hopelessly drunk girl on the front row in a friendly but firm fashion. KATE COPSTICK