LESSONS IN REVOLUTION (★★★★★) is a play that at times resembles a live action essay, and a poignant look at the dialectic of failure and legacy.

Stitched together by soundscapes, photos, video, audience participation and, fittingly for the narrative, an overhead projector, this is a unique multimedia production held in the intimate stage of the Former Woman’s Locker Room at Edinburgh’s Summerhall.

Produced and performed by playwrights Gabriele Uboldi and Sam Rees, the play weaves a compelling view of the web of global capitalism in a story that takes the audience from the former British colony of Rhodesia to the cramped slum apartments of modern-day London.

Yet it’s the student politics and the tragic figure of activist Marshall Bloom, where the majority of the narrative plays out. For anyone involved in the current student protest movement for Palestine, there are certainly strong parallels to this story of idealist student bodies against stubborn university management.

Throughout the performance there are insightful reflections on revolution, especially those that fail, and yet the script artfully evades cliched left polemics for a more thoughtful and open-ended meditation on the enduring fragments of passion that failed revolutions leave behind. 

Unique and intellectually potent, this is the best thing I’ve seen at the Fringe this year. 

Written by Palestinian playwright Ahmed Masoud and performed by British actor Julia Tarnoky, The Shroud Maker (★★★★★) covers 80 years of Palestinian history, from the tail end of British colonialism to the current hellscape of Israeli genocide, told through the eyes of Hajja Souad, a shroud-maker living in Gaza. 

A British actor playing a Palestinian may be a juxtaposition too far for some, but rather than a crude caricature, Tarnoky’s performance draws from a deeper well of emotion and resilience in an incredible performance that draws out an existence riven with the contradictions of innocence and cynicism. 

Despite the grim subject matter and morbid vocation of the heroine, Masoud’s script eschews maudlin sentimentalism and instead paints a more complex picture of life in an occupied territory, one in which the struggle for collective freedom comes into conflict with the incentives of day-to-day survival. 

A beautiful study of a life worth living. 

Chopped Liver and Unions (★★★★) is a one-woman play based on the life of Sarah Wesker, a somewhat forgotten trade unionist from the early 20th century. The play takes us through Wesker’s life through a series of monologues and there are times where both the script feels a little formulaic, but when actress Lottie Walker starts singing the performance truly comes alive. 

With classic left-wing standards like Solidarity Forever and a quickfire rendition of Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers, Walker’s range and personable performance creates a warm and hopeful atmosphere. 

In her sardonic but breezy stand-up, Class of 2000 (★★★★), Sooz Kempner takes the audience on a nostalgic trip through her “lower-middle-class” upbringing, asking what it means to be classy. 

For Kempner, having “class” is to bathe oneself in Impulse deodorant or consume Viennetta ice cream, but behind the nostalgic gags, there’s a more pointed undercurrent of anti-Establishment iconoclasm. Kempner’s infectious personality ensured this never dragged and even raised a chuckle from grumpy cynics like me.

Written and performed by Chinese performance artist Yafei Zheng, Is There Work on Mars? (★★★★★) feels like an experimental episode of Black Mirror. Set in an imagined future where Elon Musk’s SpaceX company is colonising Mars, this is a biting satire on the soulless corporate “diversity” policies that end up raising as many hurdles as they attempt to break down. 

Yafei’s performance is impressively genuine. 

Lessons in Revolution runs until August 26, Summerhall, Edinburgh;
The Shroud Maker runs until August 25, Pleasance Dome; Chopped Liver and Unions runs until August 25, Paradise in Augustines, The Studio; Class of 2000 runs until August 25, Underbelly; Is There Work on Mars? runs until August 24, The Space.

Ewan Cameron is a writer and academic based in Edinburgh.