Binge Culture’s 25-minute “solo audience experience” Happy Hour plays at Summerhall, Edinburgh’s year-round cultural village, which is for many the beating heart of the fringe. After picking up an audio guide, you push through the exciting hum of the courtyard and grab a seat alone at the bar.
A narrator attempts to ground you in the reality of your environment: what can you see, what can you feel, why are you here? After some reflection on the purpose of human connection, you’re asked to perform small, totally sensible tasks relating to your isolation, such as checking your phone for pretend messages and saluting an imaginary friend. It’s all calm and self-affirming, until, suddenly, you’re guided to the bathroom, where a narrative of despair kicks in. Why are you alone, and can you be OK? It’s dramatic, it’s deep, and unless you’re in a very specific frame of mind, it probably won’t work.
The concept, and the complex narrative, does have potential. But it relies on too many variables: the bar has to be busy (but not so busy you can’t hear the podcast). Fellow barflies have to be active and socialising (not similarly alone, checking emails). But most importantly, the listener’s particular social proclivities need to align with the narrative drive.
This show raises interesting questions about our place in the world. Whether or not the stakes are high depends on who is listening: are observance, retrospection and solitude actually dramatic? Or can sitting alone, watching the world go by, be quite enjoyable, boring or something else entirely?
In theory, Happy Hour has the potential to connect the listener to matters of society, the self, and that sense of unified isolation we are all susceptible to when left alone in public. In practice, it’s a slightly bizarre podcast, connecting the listener to a bar-stool and a pair of tinny earphones.
• At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
