We need to talk about Donny. Actually, Donny is more than happy to talk about himself. After all, he’s “Donny Stixx the boy with tricks”, a teenage magician who is confident that he will soon be famous. He is, but not for his magic show.
Philip Ridley always writes well about the damaged and the deluded, and Donny is both. He was born with a club foot to a mother who has mental health problems and who cannot stand any kind of imperfection, but who he desperately tries to please. This is the story of a boy who was dealt all the wrong cards in life, but still mistakenly thinks he can win over the crowd and come up trumps.
It’s clear from the start that Donny has done something terrible, but David Mercatali’s production plays cleverly on that tension, and there is a sweaty, entirely convincing performance from Sean Michael Verey – recently seen in Ridley’s Radiant Vermin – as the boy incapable of empathising with others but longing for the spotlight of fame. You can’t take your eyes off Verey, who captures Donny’s vulnerability but also the rage that bubbles up until it explodes.
There is no proper reveal, because it’s pretty clear all along that Donny is a social misfit, deluded about his own abilities. The show simply becomes a reiteration of that, but it is a watchable reiteration that probes the desire for fame at any cost and how social media can be used to expose people in the cruellest way.
Donny may be unable to empathise, but perhaps the truth is that the world is unable to empathise with the Donnys who need love, not mocking laughter and ridicule.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 31 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
