‘I’m not the person most people think I am,” says Daniel Hellmann in Traumboy (★★★☆☆). That’s partly because, when he’s not working as a performance artist, he earns a living as a prostitute. Coming out as gay in his late teens was one thing; admitting to being a sex worker is another – although, now that he’s made a show about it, the secret is out.
But his sense of being another person is not entirely down to his job. Like any of us, he presents a different face according to the situation. A paying client might like him to be sexily enigmatic. That wouldn’t work for his friends and family. To a theatre audience, he chooses to reveal yet another side of himself.
Although Traumboy is ostensibly about a misunderstood occupation, fascinating in its illicitness, it is just as much about identity and appearances. It is this, not sex, that links the four autofictional shows brought together on the fringe as Swiss Selection Edinburgh. Each is an attempt to get under the skin of the individual.
This is most charmingly done in 8:8 (★★★☆☆), a delicate, ephemeral and touching piece in which eight performers drawn from the Edinburgh community reveal something of themselves to an audience of eight. In a small basement room, they begin with a slow, almost motionless dance, showing different faces of themselves as they line up in horizontal and vertical arrangements.
Created by Jessica Huber and Karin Arnold for Mercimax, the short performance is based on a simple idea. Eventually, the eight sit down in front of us and take turns giving true and false details about themselves. We get a glancing sense of their past and present, the emotional weight they carry and their sense of humour. They flesh out our first impressions, but it would be hard to say we knew much about them.
Morning shows
Bout
Summerhall, 10.20am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Comète
Assembly Checkpoint, 10.30am, until 26 August
Are We Not Drawn Onward to New ErA
Zoo Southside, 11am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Bystanders
Summerhall, 11.40am, until 25 August. Read the review.
Afternoon shows
#HonestAmy
Pleasance Dome, 12pm, until 26 August. Read the review.
Sea Sick
Canada Hub @ Kings Hall, 12.30pm, until 25 August
Algorithms
Pleasance Courtyard, 12.45pm, until 26 August
F Off
Underbelly Cowgate, 12.50pm, until 25 August. Read the review.
Fishbowl
Pleasance Courtyard, 1pm, until 26 August. Read the review
The Accident Did Not Take Place
Pleasance Courtyard, 1pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Vigil
Summerhall, 1pm, until 25 August.
Beach Body Ready
Pleasance Courtyard, 1.10pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Collapsible
Assembly Roxy, 1.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
For All I Care
Summerhall, 1.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole!
Pleasance Courtyard 1.45pm until 26 August.
Art Heist
Underbelly, 1.55pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Like Animals
Summerhall, 2.15pm, until 25 August
The Happiness Project
Army @ the Fringe, 2.20pm, until 25 August
Beat
Pleasance Dome, 2pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Spray
Assembly Roxy, 2.35pm, until 26 August
Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck
The Stand’s New Town theatre, 2.50pm, until 25 August
Anguis
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3pm, until 26 August. Read the review
All of Me
Summerhall, 3.10pm, until 25 August. Read the review
George Fouracres
Pleasance Courtyard, 3.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
If You’re Feeling Sinister
Gilded Balloon, 3.45pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Scottee
Assembly Roxy, 4.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Lola and Jo
Assembly George Square, 4.15pm, until 25 August
First Time
Summerhall, 4.15pm, until 25 August
The Incident Room
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.30pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Typical
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.30pm, until 25 August
Everything I Do
Summerhall, 4.30pm, until 25 August
The Last of the Pelican Daughters
Pleasance Courtyard, 4.40pm, until 25 August. Read the review
The Chosen
Dance Base, 5pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Daniel Kitson
Stand Comedy Club, 5pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Scream Phone
Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 5pm, until 26 August.
Four Woke Baes
Underbelly Cowgate, 5.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Parakeet
Roundabout @ Summerhall, 5.05pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Superstar
Underbelly Cowgate, 5.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Janine Harouni
Pleasance Courtyard, 5.45pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Daddy Drag
Summerhall, 5.45pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Snare
Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Tom Parry - “Parryoke!”
Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm, until 26 August. Read the review
Evening shows
Who Cares
Summerhall, 6.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Tom Rosenthal
Pleasance Courtyard, 6.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Pops
Assembly Roxy, 6.35pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Toyko Rose
Underbelly, 6.55pm, until 25 August
Kai Samra
Pleasance Courtyard, 7pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Sophie Duker
Pleasance Courtyard, 7pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Jack Rooke
Assembly George Square Gardens, 7.30pm, until 24 August. Read the review
The Afflicted
Summerhall, 7.30pm, until 25 August
The Wild Unfeeling World
Pleasance Courtyard, 7.30pm, until 25 August
John Robins
Pleasance Courtyard, 7.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Zoë Coombs Marr
Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7.30pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Lucy McCormick
Pleasance Courtyard, 8pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Traumboy
Summerhall, 8.10pm, until 25 August. Read the review
London Hughes
Pleasance Courtyard, 8.15pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Huge Davies
Pleasance Courtyard, 8.15pm, until 25 August
Josie Long
Stand Comedy Club, 8.20pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Camille O’Sullivan Sings Cave
Pleasance Courtyard, 9.15pm, until 25 August
Simon Brodkin
Pleasance Courtyard, 9.30pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Musik
Assembly Rooms, 9.40pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Courtney Pauroso
Underbelly Cowgate, 9.40pm, until 25 August. Read the review
Jamie Loftus
Pleasance Courtyard, 10.45pm, until 26 August
Catherine Cohen
Pleasance Courtyard, 10.45pm, until 24 August. Read the review
Diane Chorley
Assembly, 11.00pm, until 25 August
Spank!
Underbelly Cowgate, 11.55pm, until 25 August
Times vary
Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Enough
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Crocodile Fever
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
How Not to Drown
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Burgerz
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Baby Reindeer
Summerhall, until 25 August. Read the review
Ahir Shah
Monkey Barrel Comedy, until 25 August. Read the review
Arthur
Your home, Edinburgh, until 25 August. Read the review
Daughterhood
Summerhall, until 25 August. Read the review
Until the Flood
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Roots
Church Hill theatre, until 25 August. Read the review
The Patient Gloria
Traverse, until 25 August. Read the review
Then, however, you put on headphones. The performer sitting in front of you stares into your eyes while you listen to a recording of them talking. Behind the casual conversational remarks they made in public, you hear personal stories usually reserved for intimate acquaintances. It feels tender and intense.
We clap at the end, but are we applauding the show or the people? That’s a question you ask after Traumgirl (★★☆☆☆), a companion piece to Hellmann’s show in which Anne Welenc talks about her life as a sex worker. It follows the form of Traumboy in its first-person exposition, interactive Q&A and sequences of erotic dancing, but has an artlessness that makes it hard to separate the performer from the performance.
Where Hellmann’s piece has a genuine sense of inquiry into our attitudes to sex, Welenc’s piece comes across as tawdry. Her engagement in the debate about the ethics of her job is half-hearted; there are weighty arguments on both sides that the show scarcely acknowledges. If we’re to agree that sex work is a normal occupation, we’d also have to wonder why it was worth making a show about. Clearly, it’s a subject that fascinates us, but her personal story offers little illumination.
By focusing so narrowly on the individual, the season (which also includes Mats Staub’s video installation 21: Memories of Growing Up), risks turning in on itself and losing sight of the big picture.
• At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 25 August.
