Fringe 2025: new crime thriller at Edinburgh Deaf Festival – also for hearing audiences
There's a growing awareness of BSL as a language in its own right and deaf actors like East Ender's star and Strictly Come Dancing winner Rose Ayling-Ellis have had a big role to play in creating understanding of life as a deaf person. If Ayling-Ellis is having an impact on our TV screens then deaf writer and performer Nadia Nadarajah is an equally big presence on stage.
If you were lucky enough to see Nadarajah's debut play The Ghost of Alexander Blackwood as part of last year's Deaf Festival you will know what a writing talent she is.. She was also the star of The Globe Theatre's BSL version of Anthony & Cleopatra last autumn and responsible for translating the Shakespeare play into BSL Now Nadarajah returns with a new play, a crime thriller Echoes Across Time and Edinburgh audiences will get to see its first ever staging.
The plot is about three women across three timelines. In 2000 and 2012, two deaf women disappear without explanation. In 2025, faint traces of their lives begin to resurface. Echoes Across Time follows one woman's search to uncover hidden connections and untold histories. Searching for answers in the past, she uncovers new questions: where do the clues lead and what is waiting to be found?
Where did Nadarajah get the idea for the play? 'I have a lot of hearing friends and I am always seeing them with headphones on. I thought they were listening to music but one day my housemate told me that lots of people listen to podcasts.' She became fascinated by the popularity of podcasts, particularly why so many people listened to true crime ones, and being a writer and performer started looking into how they were made. 'I wanted to know about the special effects, the background sounds, how an atmosphere is created that brings these stories to life. I was walking around my local park thinking, what is the deaf version of this?'
The answer is Echoes of Silence which she wrote earlier in the year. Nararajah writes in BSL, which is a different language to English. The script format is ideal for the three deaf actors who play the women involved in the mystery, but it needs to work for hearing audiences too so it was translated into English. At the performances on 15th -17th August hearing audiences will experience this translation voiced by a performance interpreter and there will be subtitles too.
It might be influenced by the current obsession with true crime (it starts off in a garden because apparently a high percentage of real murders take place in garden settings) but the story has all come from Nadarajah's imagination. 'I travel on the train a lot to Edinburgh and get inspired by what I can see when I look out the window.' Berwick-upon-Tweed in particular caught her eye, 'I regularly go through it and think it looks like a beautiful place, but what secrets could be hidden there? One of the questions I want people to think about is how well do you know your neighbours?'
Bringing Nadarajah's story to life are actors Irina Vartopeanu, from Romania and now based in Glasgow, Claire Wetherall, a Geordie living in Scotland and Benedetta Zanetti, who is originally from Italy. Naomi Gray will be interpreting the BSL into English.
'Our three deaf actors all trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in Glasgow. Between them they have had lots of roles on stage and TV but this is their first experience of acting at Edinburgh Fringe,' said Nadarajah, talking in BSL via her interpreter. 'I got my first Fringe experience in 2015, and it gave me a lot of confidence to carry on as an actor.' Since then she has gone on to work on stage and film and won Outstanding Stage Performance at the Asian Media Awards for Antony & Cleopatra in 2024
What can hearing audiences expect from Echoes of Silence apart from a jolly good mystery? Nadarajah and her cast know that storytelling is one of the strengths of signed language because it has a visual impact that a spoken language doesn't. She thinks audiences will find themselves watching the play in a new way.
'Echoes Across Time will be accessible to deaf and non-deaf people alike. It is in British Sign Language with an English voiceover and captions, it will be accessible to all,' Nadia reassures.
This play is just one of many offerings of Edinburgh Deaf Festival which opens on Friday 8 August and runs until the 17th. You can also experience stand up comedy, drag artists, magicians, shows for children and young people, and the return of the ever popular Evie Wadell, musician and story teller, with her new show about Ivor Cutler.
It is hosted by Edinburgh's Deaf Action which is a deaf led charity based in Edinburgh, supporting people in Scotland. Founded in 1835 it is the world's oldest deaf charity. It supports residents and visitors alike, and can provide interpreters on request to any Festival show.
Edinburgh Deaf Festival wants to change people's attitude towards disabled artists. They want audiences to understand that these actors are people with a lot of amazing skills who just happen to be deaf.
'It is not about giving deaf people 'a go',' said Nadrajah, 'it's about recognising new talent and new work equivalent to the standards that non-deaf, non BSL users have. Deaf creatives can do it, they have the skills. Now it's time for them to be shared with the non-deaf world via the Edinburgh Fringe.'
Listings Details
Venue: Deaf Action – Blackwood Bar, 49 Albany St, Edinburgh EH1 3QY
Time: 18:30
Dates: Aug 15-17
Duration: 60 minutes
Ticket prices: £10 to £12
Tickets:
https://www.edfringe.com
Photo Colin Hattersley
Joanna Matthews
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