Victoria Melody jokes that she joined a historical reenactment society as a response to getting divorced. It seems a plausible explanation. Why else would someone do something so eccentric? Dressing up in period costume and driving to the fields to relive ancient battles is one of those pastimes, like train spotting, metal detecting and attending fan conventions, we like to imagine as an oddball pursuit.
But there is more going on here than a straight celebration of everyday British quirkiness. True, Melody has form in this area: she became a beauty queen to see what it was like for her pet to be entered in a dog show and spent a year living with pigeon fanciers. That is as well as the time she trained as a funeral director when she thought her dad was dying.
As a self-styled anthropologist with a “passion for other people’s passions”, she has a genuine love of peculiar hobbies. Her eyes light up when she describes the lengths her new friends go to in the name of historical accuracy. But in Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, she demonstrates an interest that goes beyond the whimsical.
For this is a story, directed by Mark Thomas, less about history buffs dressing up in old costumes and eating authentic stew, and more about people resisting authority and taking control of their environment. Having muddled up the musketeers of the English civil war with her memory of watching Dogtanian, she is fascinated to find a conflict between not only royalists and parliamentarians, but also radical groupings such as the Levellers, Ranters and, in particular, the Diggers.
The belief of this dissident group in equality and access to common land strikes a chord with Melody as she works as an artist-in-residence on the deprived Whitehawk estate in Brighton. What if the land variously threatened by developers and neglected by the council could be reclaimed by those who lived there? What if it could be achieved through a massive – if not exactly accurate – historical reenactment?
Her retelling of the tale, wide-eyed and ever delighted, is a joyful testament to people power and a heartening parable about the possibility of collective action.
• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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