Does a musical romance with a climate message sound a tad worthy \u2013 and one in which the couple represent \u201cEarth\u201d and \u201cHumanity\u201d? In fact, Earth (Danielle Steers) is a Bridget Jones style singleton who is 750m years into looking for love. She is not convinced when Humanity (Tobias Turley) comes along, all earnestness and cute lines (\u201cYou are the centre of my universe\u201d) but is slowly won over.<\/p>\n
Somehow, Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote\u2019s climate romcom manages not to make a hot mess out of a very bizarre idea. Quite the opposite. It is so well executed that you see the tragedy of Earth\u2019s love affair with Humanity as a toxic relationship in which the latter betrays, manipulates and gaslights, even as you are dazzled by the music, tickled by the humour and taken in by the romance.<\/p>\n
It is a two-hander in which both performers blaze. Steers is armed with an out-of-this-world voice and a welter of well-timed one-liners (\u201cI can literally pull anyone, it\u2019s called gravity\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m not picky, I\u2019m naturally selective\u201d). Turley is a formidable singer, too, and manages his character\u2019s trajectory from wet-eared eagerness to workaholism, insecurity, unfaithfulness and denial.<\/p>\n
Surprises and delights \u2026 Steers and Turley in Hot Mess. Photograph: Mark Senior<\/p>\n
It serves as a metaphor for our abuse of the planet\u2019s resources while making promises to do better, and be greener \u2013 tomorrow. But it is delivered without flat-footedness or strain, never breaking out of the storyline of its central romance. You know where it is all heading but it still manages to surprise and delight.<\/p>\n
Coote\u2019s book whops out one brilliant line after another. Godfrey\u2019s lyrics keep up while the music is super catchy, whether synth pop, rock, funk or moments of rap. The duo\u2019s Edinburgh fringe show last year, 42 Balloons<\/a>, was a runaway hit. This cements their extraordinary musical chemistry. Coote, who directs as well, keeps it pacy. Having played a run at the Birmingham Hippodrome earlier this year, the production is slick without being glib.<\/p>\n A fringe highlight which, like the planet, deserves a longer, fuller life.<\/p>\n At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh<\/a>, until 25 August
All our Edinburgh festival reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Does a musical romance with a climate message sound a tad worthy \u2013 and one in which the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-326556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114990376784071056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}