Edfringe 2026

An Echo in the Void

08/08/26

Assembly Roxy (Upstairs), Edinburgh

Written and directed by Jason Weiss, No Boundaries’ An Echo in the Void deals with the timely topic of AI. When journalist Ivy (Grace Serrano) logs into her regular Sanctuary session, she’s surprised to find three strangers there. It’s supposed to be a private virtual space and should only be populated by those she chooses. But here are soldier Toby (Adam Sinclair), programmer Arthur (Sunkrish Bala) and CEO Miranda (Lee Rodriguez), each as dumbfounded as she is by the others’ presence. What’s happening? Has the tech model gone rogue? And if so, why?

If Arthur is the brains behind the platform, Miranda is the money – and Ivy has long been petitioning to interview them both. As for Toby, he’s the company’s poster boy. Sanctuary offers a safe place, where people can leave their real-world troubles behind for a few hours, so who better to front its ad campaign than a war veteran suffering from PTSD?

But Sanctuary is addictive. If life on-line is so much better than off, why would anyone want to return?

This minimalist production is performed on a bare stage, which works well, echoing the blank canvas of a Sanctuary space. Like the platform’s users, we are invited to create our own imaginary setting. Simple tech is used to good effect, with pinspots emphasising the characters’ isolation, and a repeated sound motif signalling glitches in the machine. The actors inhabit their roles convincingly, and a sense of dread builds steadily.

However, although I applaud Weiss’s decision to eschew set and props, the piece could benefit from some more visual elements. It’s very dialogue-heavy, with a lot of information for the audience to absorb. It would be easier to engage emotionally with some of the more complex sequences if they were played out rather than reported. I also think the actors could change their voices and mannerisms when they are taking on characters from each other’s pasts, in order to clarify exactly who and where they are.

An Echo in the Void questions what it means to be human, when everything we think we are can be so cleverly mimicked by computer code. In the twenty-seven years since the similarly-themed The Matrix was released, the issues have only grown more urgent. It’s hard to imagine a more topical play.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Badgers

07/08/26

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Malaika Kegode is the storyteller and we, she tells us – gently persuasive – are Meles, a young woman, struggling to make our mark as a podcaster. Our mother looms large: not only is she a famous TV journalist, she’s also dying of corticobasal degeneration (and no, Kegode sighs, a long walk won’t help). We move home, our emotions a mixture of resentment and relief. It’s good to escape the daily hustle and London rents, but it’s hard to be back in our childhood bedroom, aimless and under-occupied, fearing our mother’s death.

So, when we hear about the mysterious disappearance of a local musician, ten years ago, little wonder that we grasp the opportunity to investigate. A true-crime podcast might just be the thing to finally impress Mum. So off we go, into the woods, to visit an old crone called Dora Brock, who freely shares her tales of secret songs and magical badgers, unaware we’re using her…

Badgers is a harmonious hybrid, Jakabol’s eclectic score perfectly complementing Kegode’s beguiling narration. Rebecca Wood’s set design is ingenious, its colour palette stark, all black, white and red; musicians Joe Williams and Beth Roberts sit in a glass box, centre-stage, a theatre within a theatre, part cage, part display case. It’s very techie, with flickering screens and distorted voices (video by Christopher Harrisson and sound by Jack Drewry), and tonally as slippery as the shape-shifting badger-humans at its heart, switching seamlessly from contemporary online vernacular to fairy tale to folk horror. It’s this last element that allows Mike Gunning and Natalia Chan’s lighting design to shine (sorry), ramping up the jump scares and other-worldliness. And then there’s Kegode again, speaking softly, bringing us back down to earth, helping us to accept Meles’ troubled reality.

If the sound levels are a little off at first, so that I struggle to hear Kegode over the music, this is soon rectified, and I leave the theatre still wearing Meles’ skin, still caught up in her life. Directed by Jenny Davies, this is a spellbinding production, weaving us into its fabric and leaving us utterly disarmed.

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Supposing:

07/08/26

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

TravFest starts off strong this year with Zinnie Harris’s magical-realist new play, Supposing:, a blend of mythology, contemporary politics and overt theatricality.

Sally (Nicole Cooper) has fallen down a hole. In literal terms, it’s just a small crater in a road outside a theatre, and she’s not seriously hurt. Metaphorically, however, it’s so much more, not least a portal for a Greek chorus, who promptly take up residence inside her head. Awkward. As if that weren’t enough, she’s also been cursed with the ability to see some very specific aspects of the future…

Sally’s husband, Rich (Richard Conlon), doesn’t believe in her newfound prophesying skills. He thinks she’s suffering from depression – again – or maybe it’s the menopause? Either way, he has absolutely no intention of popping next door to warn their racist neighbour that she has an undiagnosed medical condition, however urgently Sally insists.

It’s not just their marriage that’s under strain. The outside world is a pressure-pot too. The town’s hotels are being used to house immigrants and there are right-wing protesters gathering outside. Sally’s internal chorus never lets up its refrain: Trump, Reform, the climate crisis. Madness seems like a legitimate response.

Cooper’s performance is impressive, at first clipped and precise, then – as Sally plummets ever-deeper down the rabbit-hole – excessive, even flamboyant. Conlon provides an excellent foil, a study in baffled defensiveness and disappointment. Deftly directed by Harris, Supposing: is a timely exploration of our post-truth society, albeit one that poses more questions than it answers about how to navigate the shifting sands.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, don’t hesitate to buy your tickets. You don’t have to be Cassandra to see that this well-crafted, thought-provoking production is sure to be a hit.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield