20/08/24

Assembly George Square (Studio 2), Edinburgh

I hardly know where to begin with this one. Plenty of Fish in the Sea is – bear with me – an absurdist fable about a couple of isolated nuns (Madeline Baghurst and Emily Ayoub), who catch a man (Christopher Samuel Carrol) with their fishing rods; they then take hallucinogenic drugs and have wild sex with him before throwing him back into the sea. If ever proof were needed that the ‘seven basic plots’ theory is flawed, then look no further. I think it’s safe to say you haven’t seen this one before.

Devised by Baghurst and Ayoub of Clockfire Theatre Company, this is a mind-boggling delight. From the forbidding image of St Cotrillard to an obsessive plundering of the ocean and a gluttonous feeding frenzy, this is a play that defies explanation. It’s like being immersed in someone else’s fever dream. I’m hooked.

Clockfire’s roots lie in the Jacques Lecoq Theatre School, so this is – of course – a piece of perfectly-executed physical theatre, with some exquisite clowning. There are numerous elaborate set pieces, an abundance of striking tableaux that linger long after the final bow. There’s the nun (Baghurst), trudging along, pulling everything she owns behind her. There’s Bernadette (Ayoub), the silent novice, administering a mysterious salve to the man’s cheek – and then, cocaine-like, to her own gums. There’s the man (Carrol), passionately kissing a fish. And much, much more.

The props are simple: a cupboard, a bed, a window/picture frame. But they’re inventively designed (by Tobhiyah Stone Feller) and utilised to unsettling effect, with characters emerging, farce-like, from within the cupboard or behind the bed. Daniel Herten’s disquieting compositions add to the feeling of unease.

But what does it all mean? Ayoub says that the piece was “inspired by the modern societal pressures of ‘hook-up’ culture,” and there’s certainly something here about the soul-destroying nature of swiping right to find a mate. But it’s a lot more than that too. There’s surely a skewering of religion and consumerism, a commentary on human greed and the sheer silliness of the rituals we perform on an everyday basis. But Plenty of.. is a slippery fish, and it’s hard to pin it down.

And that’s exactly where its beauty lies.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield