If this were a regular show it would be something like One Million Tiny Plays About Britain, the adaptation of Craig Taylor’s micro-dramas originally serialised in the Guardian. The characters of Eavesdropping include an exploited care worker, a woman in the grip of sexual arousal and a couple recalling the clubs and pubs of their youth. Together, they form a snapshot of urban life.
But this is not a regular show. Rather, it’s part of ThickSkin’s Walk This Play franchise, adding to versions in Manchester, Ancoats and Huddersfield, in which you listen on headphones while walking an hour-long circuit through the city.
At any point, the graffiti, sculptures and shops you’re passing are likely to wheedle their way into the dialogue, as if the characters are walking the route with you. I even say hello to a real actor just after hearing a fictional actor warm up, although the idea we might be listening in on the pedestrians around us is wishful thinking. Eavesdropping never feels like we’re actually eavesdropping.
It does, though, build a vivid collage of the life around us. Written with wit and imagination by Hannah Lavery and Sarah MacGillivray, the sketches respond to the environment, be that the sign above a disused bank or the infamous “pubic triangle” of Grassmarket strip bars.
It’s entirely plausible that the Meadows would have a resident tree-hugger (like someone from The Portal, Martin Green’s otherworldly podcast), just as the site of the Edinburgh international book festival could be the haunt of an aspiring writer.
Slickly put together by director Jonnie Riordan, with a heightened sound design by Finn Anderson, it makes for a colourful walk in the company of strangers.
Until 31 August, details here
