I was rather sceptical about the idea of a show you watch alone on an iPad. Surely you could do that at home, without all the hassle of hefting a suitcase to the festival? But Alma Mater – a strange and spellbinding "filmic journey for one" exploring the world of a child's imagination – provides an intimate experience that would not have nearly the same power in any other format.
Enclosed in a white, purpose-built kid's bedroom that reproduces the minimal set of the short film, you follow the wordless instructions of on-screen performers as they motion to the camera, indicating for you to sit or turn, so that your perspective is always the same as the camera's. The effect of the piece, by experimental Glasgow company Fish and Game, is oddly unsettling, a blurring of film and reality. On screen, you see characters entering the room, or (virtually) sitting beside you, or flying out of the window towards a forest. At one point, I even found myself looking round the iPad, expecting to see these beautiful, ethereal children in the room beside me.
Elsewhere in Edinburgh, Diana Quick is starring in Midnight Your Time, as a mother speaking to her daughter in Palestine via a webcam. And another show, You Wouldn't Know Him, He Lives in Texas, uses Skype to link performers and audiences in Edinburgh and Austin, Texas. The show is staged in the kitchen of an Edinburgh flat, and we the audience play Lizzie's guests at a party she has thrown to let us "meet" her American boyfriend, Ryan. We're given a drink and seated in front of a large screen, which shows a similar setup in Ryan's Austin home (the piece is a co-production with a Texas company). While the show does creak a bit, there's no denying that the novelty of such a live linkup is thrilling. And you're constantly thinking that the whole thing depends on an internet connection. One glitch and the show's over.
