Tag: edinburgh fringe

Devizes Wharf to Edinburgh; Whose Play, and The Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books!

Images: Chris Watkins Media

May seemed so far away back in Feb when we ran a preview of two plays which will see a Devizes acting company debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. Beforehand, they’re staged at their base, the Wharf Theatre. I’ve had a sneaky peak already, you can too….

Acting coach Lou Cox, director of The Wharf Acting Company, wrote and devised both shows. Whose Play is it Anyway is showing at the Wharf Theatre on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th May, before heading north, but the second, Having a Baby and the Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books is only on Saturday.

Firstly, and undoubtedly the easier to summarise is the interactive comedy Whose Play is it Anyway? Name-spin upon improv show Who’s Line is it Anyway, but more a general parody of low-budget TV quiz shows of the seventies, thirteen actors of the group perform eighteen scenes from various plays and it’s up to audience to call out which decade, genre or play it is, according to the question set by the grandstanding host, Barry Ruffles.

With no fourth wall Ruffles, played with diligence by Gavin Rand, tempts the audience to be the quiz show crowd with offers of carrot-on-a-stick prizes. But the utmost comic element is his impertinent relationship with his superficially glitzy assistant, Jenny Flannel, played with such absolute perfection and improv timing by Danielle Cosh, you’d think you regretfully picked her up in a Wetherspoons in Romford.

A unique angle, yet the greatness of this show is in the contradiction between the sombreness of the scenes against the comical game show concept, and in turn, the scenes make for an interesting display of the diversity of theatre throughout the ages. For the theatrophile it might act as a boastful test to their knowledge, but for someone less culturally aware it has the potential to be a fun clipshow sampler. Being the latter, there were several encapsulating scenes which made me think, you know what, I’d like to see that play in full?

It’s originally quirky, bottom line, ideal for the Edinburgh Fringe but also with a degree of universal appeal. What was most fascinating, and also a testament to the skills of the actors, similarly to its namesake Whose Line, there’s a genuine improv component in the order the scenes are played out. Governed by a deliberately tawdry bingo ball machine, the order is genuinely random, even if you’d be forgiven for assuming it was fabricated. “It keeps us on our toes,” one actor, Matt Dauncey jested, “and makes the show different each time.”

The others, as follows, Laura Deacon, Dion Smith, Karen Payne, Brigid Maude, Laura Bartle, Rhiannon Fitzgerald, Isla North, Jamie Whatley, Jenni Prescott and Lisa Smith all need to be highly commended too, for the immense amount of preparation undertaken to develop this, and their readiness to randomly jump into any of the various characters and styles of play. The team also fondly remembered member Andy Bendell, who recently passed away. This was fun and intriguingly original in equal measure, and (in joke) more a waste of Haribo than a waste of your time!

Only similar for contrasting comedy against tragedy, Having a Baby and the Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books I was treated to next. Lou has performed this one-woman show before at The Wharf and elsewhere; Helen Robertson reviewed it for us, causing me to want to see it myself.

Committed to taking a “manly” perspective to one with their knickers at their ankles chatting about their vagina, which is usually blushing and smirking like Finbar Saunders, I found equal heartfelt emotion and gulp in this unbridled masterwork.

I’m reminded of a podcast interview with Adrian Edmondson, hardly recognising his voice, a voice I should know only too well. He was crying over thoughts of the passing of his comedy partner Rik Mayall, and I reasoned, because I’d never heard Adrian cry, only ever laugh. What happens to the funny person when the funny runs out?

I marvel at writers like John Sullivan, with his knack of creating loveable character relationships, like Del-boy and Rodney, who can switch the comedy narrative to the most sombre and touching moments. But if this takes genius, it’s a whole other ballgame to take a monologue twisting comedy from tragedy to the stage, when it comes from the heart of personal experience. What begins as part stand up routine, part PowerPoint presentation, ends with the most unfeigned emotional piece of theatre you’re likely to witness.

Lou runs off a frank and quite brilliant stand-up routine akin to a most alternative, brutally honest and graphic guide to pregnancy, and while keen to state each case is different from any other and many women like to talk about their experiences, she describes the stark revelations of mental and physical changes due to her own maternity, with comical precision. This self-observational comedy would be plentiful for a trip to Live at the Apollo, and whilst this is impossible to summarise without spoilers, the conclusion to her story is not bathed in the glory of childbirth, nor amusing anecdotes of post-natal activities.

Until this point, you ride it with Lou, especially parents with a story to tell themselves. But, due to lack of oxygen during a traumatic birth, Lou’s daughter Hattie was left severely brain damaged, and only managed five days. Lou reflects on her tragedy honourably but with understandable criticisms to faults made and how they were dealt with, abruptly halting the jokes, and twisting the direction to finalise with a tearful poignant message so powerful you’re at loss for a suitable expression to account for such grief.

I asked Lou if this was her way of dealing with it. “For my show it’s certainly cathartic,” she replied, “but more importantly I’ve been able to raise so much money previously under Hattie’s name. Also having had to be silent during the legal case I feel I can finally tell my story in the hope that I can raise awareness and promote change in maternity services.”

You can donate to Hattie’s Fund here, but sympathy, try as you might, the show is a glimmering reality horror not calling for it. Only commanding you to walk in those shoes for a moment, causing it to be breathtakingly brilliant, but hard to review, words will fail you, dammit. Easier to present to it a deserved award; it’s something you have to see for yourself. 

Which you can do, HERE, before they see it in Edinburgh. Of which we wish them all the best for, and being clips of multiple plays, suggest they break more than one leg!

Whose Play is it Anyway (18+)
Having a Baby and the Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books (18+)

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Devizes Acting Company to Debut New Show at Edinburgh Fringe 2026

A gameshow unlike any other is set to take local actors to the world stage. The Wharf Theatre is proud to present the debut of a brand-new show, “Whose Play is it Anyway?”

Set to enjoy a week-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026 from August 17th to the 22nd, this innovative original production offers a fresh perspective on contemporary storytelling, using a gameshow format to explore a range of devised, scripted and improvised pieces, many created by the talented cast themselves. As part of the game, each performance order will be left to chance, creating a unique experience every time.

Join your host, Barry Ruffles and his glamorous assistant, Jenny Flannel as they present 18 pieces of theatre in 50 minutes; all you have to do is guess the genre, playwright or year to win a speedboat, cuddly toy or a holiday for two on the Isle of Fernando! 

Prior to the Fringe, the show will preview at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes, running from 29th to the 30th May, Bristol’s Alma Tavern and the Shaftesbury Art Centre; giving West Country audiences an opportunity to experience the production ahead of its official festival run.

Whether you’re a seasoned Fringe attendee or a first-time visitor, Whose Play Is It Anyway promises to entertain. The show will be performed at the SpaceUK, located at the heart of Edinburgh’s bustling festival district. Tickets are available from [Ticket Provider] and can be purchased online or at the venue box office.

Lou Cox, director of The Wharf Acting Company, who perform & devised this show, is also taking her solo show, Having a Baby and The Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books, for a week at the Edinburgh Fringe. Inspired by the loss of her baby girl, Lou described the play as a “comedic and brutally honest one-woman show which gifts audiences an emotional, and at times highly entertaining, whirlwind of witty anecdotes and graphic storytelling, with an ending no mother could ever imagine.” And this one too will be performed at The Wharf Theatre, also running from 29th to the 30th May, of which the previous run was reviewed by Helen, HERE.

Whose Play is it Anyway (18+)
Having a Baby and the Sh!t They Don’t Tell You in Books (18+)

“Glasshouse” at The Mission Theatre, Bath, July 21st 2025

by Mick Brian

With Sandcastles Productions marking its debut production with Charlie McGuire’s original play Glass House, the cast and crew behind this production are clearly anything but inexperienced as the piece delivers its thrills and emotional beats at every turn.

What Glass House ultimately delivers is a play packed with fascinating questions about the nature of transaction and social transience; questions for which, it would be amiss to neglect, a public bus is not only an apt but a deeply compelling setting. For its sharp 55-minute run time, the audience are held in suspense with the passengers themselves as our collective inaction serves as the play’s crux.

What the perhaps overly wordy synopsis does get right is this: a houseless man, unable to buy a ticket, boards a bus and drags the six others on board into a ‘mire of social tension’. It’s a simple premise, yet McGuire adeptly and continually reinvents the tension of this idea in a way not dissimilar to Hitchcock’s approach to bottle storytelling; think ‘Rear Window’.

At age 21, this is McGuire’s third original play, having penned and staged his first effort ‘Sandcastles’ (from which his production company naturally gets its name) in 2021 before his sophomore script ‘Vignettes from an Inkblot Archipelago’ was met with critical acclaim (★★★★ – Varsity, ★★★★ – The Tab) just last year.

Following his work directing a bevy of projects whilst at university in Cambridge, the mercifully compactly-titled Glass House shows a maturity in its consistent empathy, flair and razor-sharp dialogue. It moves from social realism, to political agitation, to a fantasy about love overcoming hate. At other times, it takes on an existential dread, feeling like a timeless, placeless hell, similar to the works of Samuel Beckett, or simply an inescapable trap, as an Alan Bennett character might experience. The play is far more than 7 strangers sat on a bus for an hour.

And about those strangers; the cast were truly excellent across the board, meeting and arguably exceeding the demands of the script. So strong was each performance that it felt impossible to single-out a protagonist, I simply let myself be compelled by each actor to invest deeply – almost immediately- in either loving or hating their character. It’s that sort of play.

Sarah, executed with gripping intensity and striking emotional sincerity by Marta Zalicka, certainly has the most to say as she commands the bus with Malcolm Tucker-esque quips and hard-nosed logic. Rising directly to Sarah’s challenge is Freya, brought to life by May Daws, who is routinely the beating heart and moral compass of the bus. Daws plays Freya’s simmering frustration to perfection and her chemistry with Zalicka was one of the play’s most compelling dynamics.

Freya’s girlfriend/not girlfriend Natalie brings further tension to the bus with a painfully-apparent urgency for her feelings to be requited, as Madeleine Whitmore skillfully conveys the weight of her emotional exasperation often through a mere micro expression. As the play progresses, Whitmore becomes more involved in the verbal sparring and superbly delivers the plays most biting one-liners.

Similarly quiet yet nowhere near as observant, Harry Lloyd-Yorke’s Calum feels like a character who could easily have slipped towards a Harry Enfield-reminiscent teenage stereotype. Lloyd-Yorke’s portrays apathy, however, with such well-timed line deliveries and poignant stillness that Calum has more of the menace of a Lord of the Flies character than the dullness of an Enfield trope.

Charles Wolrige-Gordon scored many of the play’s laughs with his portrayal of Colin, however prevented Colin from coming off as merely a comic stock character by lacing many of his lines with genuine threat and malice. Far less loathsome was Joe Orrell’s performance as Owen, the bus driver who seems to be stuck in some form of Beckett-esque purgatory. Sporting a flawless Welsh accent, Orrell undergoes a character progression which may not feel earned in the hands of a lesser actor, but was deeply authentic and ultimately heartbreaking.

Perhaps most surprising is Rafael Griso’s performance as Eden, the houseless man who can’t afford a ticket, which soars from invigorating the play’s ecstatic, surrealist moments to a remarkable subtlety. Naturally, there are ethical questions to be raised about performing homelessness on stage, especially within the context of the Edinburgh Fringe, but I was glad to see that this is something the play very much interrogates. Without spoiling the scene, as it really was a great shock to the system, Glass House questions in a troublingly-entertaining way why Eden must give us something in order for us to sympathise with his plight.

Outside of the play itself, the team are evidently aware of the potentially problematic nature of performing a play with a prominent houseless character at a festival quietly-renowned for its displacement of the homeless; the play will partner with a homeless charity in Edinburgh, having charity collection boxes at each show and donating profits of the Fringe run to a local homeless charity.

The play tackles a lot, not only thematically and narratively, but theatrically. Attempting to pull off a fictional documentary angle, where interviews of the characters on stage are used to reconstruct a story that supposedly happened years ago, may have felt overstuffed had the play not benefitted from the expert technical design and execution of Barash Tunahan. Interweaving purposefully homespun-sounding interviews with a forlorn and jazzy soundtrack whilst punctuating the play’s emotional beats with precision – Tunahan’s work seamlessly builds the world of the play in effortlessly cinematic fashion.

If I were to critique the production, I would say that Glass House perhaps is not the best fit for a space like the Mission Theatre. The Mission, a treasured and historic performance space in Bath, has a scale to it which does not benefit the intimacy which McGuire is evidently shooting for, however I am sure this will be remedied by the venue they will find themselves at in Edinburgh.

Whilst I am eager to see what McGuire and Sandcastles Productions do next, Glass House is without a doubt a brilliant piece of Fringe theatre.

★★★★★

Glass House is at the Edinburgh Fringe from the 18th-23rd August at Greenside Venues George Street in the Olive Studio.