Author: Brett Herriot

***** (5 stars)

“Deeply Moving”

It’s a good job there’s a café at Holyrood.  I staggered out of this installation deeply moved, with my head whirling – I have to sit and recover here, and try to find words to express my feelings.

Before entering the installation, I didn’t know that 11,824 children were ‘looked after’ in 2025; that 48% of registered care homes for children are run for profit; nor that care costs are £6,100 or more PER WEEK PER CHILD.

Nor did I have any personal experience of being in care: even now, I can only have an inkling.  What I experienced was in some small measure the arbitrary, convoluted, jargon-filled and often uncaring ‘care’ system for children and young people – both physically, in being taken through a number of different rooms [one particularly uncomfortable to be in for any time] and aurally, in listening to the words of Brian, someone working with and within the care system, and Kayla, who’s been in care for the past eleven years, being first taken into care when she was only five years old.

It’s fascinating to contrast the language each of them uses: Brian comes over as kind and caring at first but it becomes obvious that he’s process- and jargon-orientated.  Does he even see Kayla as a person?  He’s forever telling her off, shutting her up, endeavouring to keep me, the visitor, on the straight and narrow.  Kayla, on the other hand, is desperately trying to be heard as a real human being with feelings and opinions:  her comments give a totally different picture of the reality of the care system.

Woven in between the comments and instructions are the voices of many other people with experience of the care system in Scotland.  They are part of Caring Scotland, a three-year listening project led by acclaimed playwright Nicola McCartney documenting and recording the lives of Care Experienced people in Scotland.  Kayla and Brian are brilliantly and memorably voiced by Genna Allan and Scott Kyle.  

I’m not sure whether they also voice the many other contributions we hear – poems, songs, and spoken comments.  I rather hope that these are in the voices of the original contributors, but whether they are or aren’t, together they make an increasingly moving and unforgettable picture of real people, with real feelings, and real lives, all desperately hoping to be heard – You can’t just bin me: I’m me.

These are real human beings, all wanting to be seen, to be heard, to be loved: not just labelled as ‘someone who’s in/ been in Care’.

In 2020 the Scottish Government made The Promise that all children in Scotland would grow up loved, safe, and respected.  The Promise is supposed to be fully implemented by 2030.

Come and listen to One Hundred Voices and see how likely you think this is to happen…

One Hundred Voices, The Fringe, Main Hall at the Scottish Parliament, Venue 511, Runs until 28^th August. For more information go to: One Hundred Voices | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

This National Theatre of Scotland Production will then tour Scotland visiting Citizens Theatre Glasgow, Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries, Millennium Centre Stranraer, Reid Hall Forfar and Rothes Halls, Glenrothes.

**** (4 stars)

“A Brilliant Show!”

Oh my gosh this is a brilliant show, sheer delight from start to finish!

Wordless, indeed, but not soundless – there’s a constant stream of burbling, a little bit of singing, and a mind-boggling array of sound effects as our three performers weave their way through an ever-changing succession of scenarios.

The young girl in front of me was in fits of laughter from the start, as two of the three performers from the Lang Spot community arts centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, attempt to co-ordinate their explosive first entry on to the stage.  I ran out of paper in my notebook as I tried to keep track of the multiplicity of scenes, incidents, and encounters between the three characters.

The imagination, invention and artistry are simply superb; the expressive faces and bodies awesome; the virtually non-stop transformations mind-boggling – it’s a real treat for anyone who enjoys the absurd, the rib-tickling, the Just Plain Silly…

So many characters, human and non-human alike; so much acute observation to create them.  There were some wonderful birds, a couple of really excitable dogs, a sheep; at least one bicycle, a bus, a plane, an evil mad scientist, a truly terrifying teacher, and a number of very recognisable [and some very objectionable] school pupils.  There’s even a brisk canter around Edinburgh in August…

The two energetic young men who opened the show gave way to a very old lady, who hobbled her way around the stage with her [invisible] zimmer frame and had to put in her false teeth before she could start to do anything.  This seemed somewhat random – until the final seconds of the show, where everything became crystal clear.  On the way we visited a school [many times] and had a wonderfully kaleidoscopic journey through all manner of scenarios both real and [we hope] very well imagined.

I tried but failed to find the names of the three performers, and I’d love to know how they and their tech person came together, and how they brought their show to Edinburgh.  Pity.

Never mind: they are utterly wonderful and you really shouldn’t miss them!  I was laughing most of the way through, and the rest of the audience, adults and kids alike, were held spellbound by the cast’s skill and artistry, flexibility and sheer all-embracing talent.  The finale is both heart-warming and poetic justice – I’m so very happy for the heroine of the piece, and absolutely enchanted with the final-moment reveal that brings us full circle and sends us out satisfied and very, very happy.

A lovely start to my day!

Shhh! (A wordless comedy), The Fringe, The Lounge, Gilded Balloon Teviot, Runs until 31^st August for more information go to: Shhh! (A Wordless Comedy) | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

**** (4 stars)

” extraordinarily difficult piece to watch “

An extraordinarily difficult piece to watch – I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to perform it, to go over and over the horrors we visit in passing, to relive them every evening and to live with them every day, knowing they have to be repeated the next night.

Thetis, mother of Achilles, the renowned Greek warrior, lover of Patroclus and major player in the Trojan war.  Zeus, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Paris, Hector, Agamemnon, Menelaus – the list of names is endless and familiar to anyone who’s ever read any of the great Greek stories.  All these and many more characters are brought vividly to life as we watch, horrified and powerless, as the gods of Olympus play with the lives of men, and in their own petty jealousies and rivalries cause swathes of violence and destruction to sweep across the earth.

The story starts slowly, and in the middle: it works outwards, forwards and backwards through the names and the stories – everything is interlinked, and everything ends in death.  Wars are fought, men, women, and children slaughtered in the pursuit of one individual’s lust for revenge or pursuit of a desired object.  Is this right? Is this fair? Is this just?

It’s not hard to see, so very clearly, the parallels with our own world today, where millions suffer because of the desires or even the whims of a few powerful men [and isn’t it nearly always men?]. At the end of this piece Paola Balbi and Davide Bardi remember friends of theirs, storytellers, currently experiencing untold hardship and living in fear in parts of the world where today one group of people is trying to wipe another group off the face of the earth.

There’s some very powerful storytelling here – mixed, thank goodness, with a lot of wit and humour, some very earthy reality and a near-constant tapping/drumming/thunderingly percussive and at times haunting accompaniment. 

What comes over to me, loud and clear through it all, is the sheer stupidity of war, which doesn’t solve any problems but adds to them while furnishing the reason for the next war, and the next, and the next…

Iliad: The song of Thetis, The Fringe, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Venue 30, Runs until 18^th August for more information go to: Iliad: The Song of Thetis | Edinburgh Festival Fringe