That Woman! Wallis Simpson, Duchess Of Windsor

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14)

One of those biographical monologues the Fringe likes to stage as a safe bet, playwright Scott Smith and director Philip William Mckinley’s play about royal consort Wallis Simpson is lent an extra topical frisson by the recent marriage of Meghan Markle to Prince Harry. While both women are American and both unions also caused a media sensation, Simpson’s courtship of King Edward VIII in the 1930s was the only one that caused a constitutional crisis and abdication of a monarch. Already divorced and into her second marriage when she met Edward, Simpson was not deemed suitable – by Establishment, press or public – to be Queen.

Melissa Jobe plays the part with drawling sophistication, the density of the text countering the lack of physical action. She narrates Simpson’s life in character, from the budding socialite in Baltimore, to small-town married life in Florida, to post-controversy with Edward in the Bahamas and Paris. As with many pieces told in the character’s voice with no rebuttal, the meat of controversy surrounding the person involved (particularly rumoured Nazi sympathies) are glossed over; instead, we linger upon the “naturally gay and flirtatious” party woman who reportedly invented the cocktail hour, and her regrets at not being accepted by the British public.

Until 27 August. Today 5:15pm.