Gardening for the Unfulfilled & Alienated, Undeb Theatre, The Shed, Pleasance Courtyard ✭✭✭✭

A literally little play that asks big questions, Brad Birch’s monologue, performed with tremendous skill by Richard Corgan is one of Edinburgh’s hottest tickets - and not solely because only two audience members can see it at a time. In a compelling and unnervingly cramped space, a garden shed, Corgan’s unnamed protagonist takes us on a journey from genial to excoriating in just half and hour. It is testament to both the ability of Corgan’s performance and Birch’s delicate, nuanced writing that the tenor of the performance moves very quickly from intriguing to downright disturbing. As Corgan lovingly fingers a variety of garden implements, the atmosphere tenses and the hair on the back of the neck stands up. Corgan’s blue eyes pierce into your soul, while Birch’s writing transports you to dark place within, and then leaves you - asking, what would you do in the same circumstances? Undeb Thetatre, here making their Fringe debut, have marked their territory clearly. This is superbly detailed - pocket theatre in a potting shed that will leave you haunted.

**** (4 stars)
Runs until 25th August
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