J is a Birmingham physics teacher with a magic heart. At least, her mum told her it was magic when J was diagnosed with a cardiovascular condition as a child Too much excitement could kill her. Blair is a poetry-writing tree surgeon living in a remote Scottish village where the road runs out to a pier and the sea. But he has dreams of travelling. The two are brought together, not by fate, but by a dating app, in this latest show from the Flanagan Collective, which is driven by a vagabond ethos and desire to take theatre to remote places and unorthodox venues.
Fable has many of the company’s hallmarks: an easy storytelling style, an interweaving of music and text, bags of charm and an optimism about the human race and its capacity to find different ways to love and live. It is a show about remembering to have stars in your eyes as much as it rails against the kind of capitalism that keeps us in thrall to shopping and fearful of the future. It brings astronomy, quantum physics, the Voyager mission and magic spells together with a light touch.
At times, it becomes a wee bit cute and it’s a shame there is so little interaction between the two characters: Jim Harbourne’s Blair remains unformed and shadowy. But Veronica Hare is terrific as J, who explodes into thousands of pieces in a show that constantly reminds us we are all just dust; clever, but just dust. All the more reason why we should seize every opportunity and take every risk to make our lives mean something.
- At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 30 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
