Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: L'Addition / Long Distance / The Sun, the Mountain and Me

L’Addition, Summerhall ★★★★ 

Bert and Nasi – or, more fully, writers/directors/actors Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas – are virtually Fringe royalty, having carved out a niche in recent years with playful, provocative shows that question theatrical conventions alongside often serious real-world topics (the Syrian conflict in 2017’s Palmyra, for example, or the EU and Brexit in 2016’s Eurohouse). This year they’ve almost transformed themselves into a meta-theatrical Morecambe and Wise, however, for a show (first seen at last year’s Avignon Festival) created with Tim Etchells, notorious detonator of theatrical tradition as artistic director of Sheffield’s Forced Entertainment.

As the smartly dressed Bert and Nasi explain in their brief (they promise us, though it seems to drag on for hours) spoken introduction, we’re about to experience an iconic theatrical stock scene. Sitting at a restaurant table, a diner is served wine by a waiter, who manages to make an unholy mess of the whole process. And we’ll see it over and over (and over) again. And by the end of their increasingly desperate, farcical, sometimes infuriating, ultimately patience-testing 80 minutes, nothing has been left unquestioned. Who’s really the diner, and who’s the waiter? And what’s become of Bert and Nasi in the process? What are these apparently essential props, and what can they do without them? Most importantly, given the show’s title, who’s going to pay the bill?

What makes L’Addition far more than just a bit of self-referential theatre about theatre is the richness of comedy it offers – often born out of despair or frustration, it has to be said. A long, dragged-out set-piece in which an increasingly deranged Nasi begs the immobile Bert to actually pour some wine into his glass so that they can continue is one of the show’s darkest and funniest highpoints. Sometimes they’re collaborators, sometimes enemies, sometimes simply desperate for it all to end. There are threads of elusive meaning to be followed, too, in details like the arrangement of a table cloth, or the speed of dabbing spillages, taken up and developed almost like jazz solos. But lurking behind the physical and cerebral comedy, of course, is a profound questioning of what we’re even experiencing, and what our role is in all this frenetic chaos. Okay, it’s inevitably quite arch and self-indulgent, but L’Addition is as inventive and funny as it is challenging. 

• Until 25 August, then at Battersea Arts Centre, London, 5-16 November 

Long Distance, Zoo Playground ★★★ 

Across town, another strong two-hander takes a far less meta-theatrical perspective on an iconic dramatic scenario, but introduces innovations of its own. Long Distance tells the story of a relationship between two young queer guys – from initial flirting to deeper affection, conflict, then break-up – entirely through their text-message interactions.

Writer/director Eli Zuzovsky’s back-and-forth script sits somewhere between casual text-speak and a kind of brittle poetry, as ideas are encapsulated in pithy observations or switchback exchanges, and emojis slightly awkwardly (though amusingly) conjured using miniature harmonicas hanging from the two actors’ necks. There are inevitable questions, of course, about delivering supposedly bald text exchanges through spoken dialogue – chief among them, the layers of meaning and connotation added by gesture, timing, tone of voice and more. But it’s as if we’re getting to hear the online exchanges as the characters intended them – alongside the unavoidable misunderstandings when they fail to land as intended (or are deliberately misinterpreted). It adds up to a beautifully nuanced, thoughtfully observed portrait of love and attraction, one that provides intimate insights into the characters’ doubts and motivations, their shifting attitudes to self-disclosure, and their lingering feelings of longing and mistrust.

Performances by Jonathan Rubin and Freddie MacBruce (standing in very convincingly for an indisposed Lewis Merrylees) are quietly focused, often softly spoken, but seem ready to detonate with yearning, desire or fury. Zuzovsky’s writing, however, seems to focus more richly on Rubin’s fragile but feisty Marxist, with MacBruce’s less committed physicist occasionally relegated to literal interpretations of off-hand remarks, or quibbling over factual accuracy. It would be interesting to understand more about what’s going on in the latter’s head. Nonetheless, it’s through those differences – in both character and insight – that the writer signposts the drama’s inevitable but still poignant ending, in which the play’s themes of distance and separation come heartbreakingly to the fore. 

• Until 25 August

The Sun, the Mountain and Me, Underbelly Cowgate ★★★★ 

From two two-handers to a solo show – though nobody could accuse writer/actor Jack Fairey (pictured above) of any lack of ambition in this intricately constructed, thematically bold creation that weaves together three separate storylines. Fairey plays young painter Arthur, who seems to be doing okay for himself with a handful of workaday commissions, but nevertheless feels he needs to realise his full potential by tackling bigger issues and bolder themes. Diving for inspiration into a childhood book of Greek myths, he’s struck by an image of the winged boy Icarus – and is also stirred by the true story of Italian PoW Felice Benuzzi, and his perhaps baffling attempt to escape from African incarceration in order to scale Mount Kenya.

There’s a lot going on here, and yes, there are moments during the lengthy exposition of Fairey’s expansive creation when you wonder whether it’s really all going to come together – and, more importantly, actually provide new insights or fresh perspectives in the end. It does both, very cleverly and very movingly, too – but not without first touching on ideas of captivity and freedom, self-fulfilment and compassion, all with a considered sense of wisdom that a writer far longer in the tooth might be grateful for.

At the start, Arthur himself might seem a little unsympathetically self-absorbed, not to say worryingly entitled, but by the end of his hour Fairey has persuasively set his protagonist’s fixations within a bigger picture of obsession and unchecked drive, from which there are only two ways forward. If the young artist ultimately chooses compromise over come-what-may bloody-mindedness (and all the destruction that may entail), then Fairey’s ultimate message of compassion for yourself and for those around you offers reassuring counsel on mental health without ever preaching or casting judgement.

Fairey is a vivid, energetic performer, conveying Arthur’s nervy dynamism convincingly, while also finding calmer, more reflective moods for his back-up stories, though his stabs at Greek and Italian accents are possibly one unnecessary step too far. Laura Hannawin’s direction teases out the play’s themes with gratifying clarity, and Fairey’s staging is simple but effective, with his performance area mapped out by easels and (very good) paintings of his supporting characters. George Jennings supplies distinctive and nicely memorable tunes to map out each of the show’s three strands.

In among the day-glo colours and raucous noise of a lot of the Fringe, a quiet, thoughtful show like The Sun, the Mountain and Me might struggle to be seen and heard. But Fairey’s is a voice well worth listening to, and he’s clearly a writer (and actor) to watch. 

• Until 25 August

• The Edinburgh Fringe runs until 26 August 
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