When you watch news reports from war zones, you often see civilians going about their daily business even amid the gunfire. Conflicts take place not on designated battlefields, as they did in our school books, but on streets where people live.
With that in mind, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Edinburgh’s East Claremont Street, a residential road not far from the centre, as the frontline in some unknown battle. There are vantage points for snipers, alleyways for quick escapes and tenement flats where enemy combatants could be lurking.
Certainly, you can imagine an army reservist returning to the streets where she grew up and being unable to shake off the crackle of field radios, the tension of being observed and the adrenaline rush of living under constant threat.
That’s the scenario for this short audio play created by Preston’s They Eat Culture in which we patrol the streets around the Hepburn House drill hall, the base for the Army @ the Fringe programme, listening to the reminiscences of a young woman whose best friend has become embroiled in a disciplinary complaint.
Guided by curt instructions from unseen officers, we discover the passageways and hidden spaces where the girls spent their teenage years. This is where their loyalty was forged and now, with the voice of the commanding officer still in her ears, the reservist reflects on their changing friendship as they entered the military, a traditionally male world of fear and discipline, quite at odds with these quiet streets.
It feels like a sketch for a bigger drama about women in the army, but it has a brief intensity of its own.
