Sheila Atim, the Olivier award-winning actor turned playwright, might have stumbled on a new radio format. It’s like Desert Island Discs but instead of playing records the guests pick up an acoustic guitar and sing their favourite songs. That’s the idea behind Serenade, a fictional broadcast in which virologist Kate Williams, played by Janet Kumah, interviews fellow women in science, showcasing their achievements so it isn’t always men who get the attention.
Her first guest, in a time-bending conceit, is Cleopatra, played with no-nonsense pride by Paksie Vernon, who turns out to be no mean singer-songwriter as she takes to the stool between questions. That’s when she’s not writing herself into the science history books for backing research into sour donkey milk and crocodile poo (who knew?).
You’d expect the studio-interview format to be theatrically limiting, but Kumah and Vernon wrestle with the arguments with considerable dynamism in this production by Lucy Jane Atkinson, while Atim finds enough reasons to interrupt the recording and switch the rhythm. They engage in a smart-talking debate about misrepresentation and making themselves heard – and why, if they’re so confident in their abilities, they keep going on about the men.
Although Cleopatra is in the interview chair, reprimanding her host for going on about Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, it’s not all about her. Kate has a story of her own, having been suspended because of an accusation of negligence. There is the suggestion this is another chain of events misrepresented by men. It is hard, however, to see how her experience lines up with Cleopatra’s and the play’s initial clarity – quirky concept notwithstanding – becomes muddied.
• At the Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
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