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The National
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
4 Edinburgh shows which will stay with you for the rest of your life
One such production is the extraordinary Works And Days (Lyceum, ends today) by Flemish company FC Bergman and Antwerp municipal theatre Toneelhuis. Taking its title from a verse by the ancient Greek poet Hesiodos, the piece is a unique work of physical, visual, musical and philosophical theatre. The show – which is, at its core, a meditation on humanity's relationship with the land – begins with a startling image that brings pre-industrial human labour into spectacular conflict with the Victorian splendour of the Royal Lyceum theatre. It would – for readers fortunate enough to have a ticket (or still manage to procure one) for this afternoon's final festival performance – be a sacrilegious spoiler to divulge the details of this opening scene. Indeed, the same is true of much of what takes place in this unforgettably brilliant theatre work. Performed by eight adult players, one child actor and a remarkably well-behaved chicken, the piece is constructed of a series of astonishingly innovative theatre images and illusions. Presented episodically, this wordless performance evokes the fertility rituals and the working methods of the pre-industrial societies that account for most of human history. The piece is ingeniously direct in breaking the barriers that modern capitalism places between most people and the production of the food we eat. The connection between the ritual slaughter of an animal and the conception of a human being is represented in terms that are simultaneously brutal and unexpectedly humorous. The endless inventiveness of the piece encompasses the surprising and comic representation (and birthing) of an elephantine creature. It also includes the living anthropology of people dancing in stunningly colourful, conical costumes that are, simultaneously, visually transfixing and gloriously percussive. The arrival of the industrial revolution – in the shape of a beautiful steampunk contraption – replaces gods with machines. The resultant ecstasy is literally, and spellbindingly, sexual. All of these scenes are accompanied by extraordinarily evocative and varied music and sound, which is created live on-stage on an array of wind and percussion instruments. By the time this remarkable theatre work reaches its shuddering conclusion, one's mind is reeling with thoughts about such subjects as the diverse history of pagan culture, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and the destruction of Earth's ecology. Equally, however, one's senses have been fed copiously and pleasingly by a theatre of visual and aural spectacle that is continuously creative, regularly very funny and often deeply emotive. READ MORE: 'Absolutely crazy': Scottish jazz artist scores new film by Hollywood director Another company that is renowned for creating work that builds an exquisite connection between the visual and the musical is Polish theatre group Song of the Goat. It is some 21 years since they presented the astonishing Chronicles – A Lamentation at the Fringe. It remains the single most powerful theatre production I have ever seen. The company has undergone considerable change since then. Founded by Grzegorz Bral and Anna Zubrzycki, the Goats (as they are affectionately known) have been led for some years now solely by Bral (Zubrzycki continues her work in the great theatre city of Wrocław). As its latest show, Hamlet – Wakefulness (Summerhall, until August 15), attests, the company retains a thoughtful and soulful aesthetic. At a little over an hour long, the production takes about a quarter of the time required to perform Hamlet – which is Shakespeare's longest play – in its entirety. One should approach the piece, not as one might a work of narrative drama, but more as one would a live performance of a piece of choral music. Played in timeless, black costumes upon beautiful, dark metal furniture (a bed frame, a table and a series of chairs), the work seeks to evoke the emotions embedded within the Bard's play at their most visceral. The double torture of Hamlet's sudden bereavement, followed by the metaphysical exposure of the murderous treachery of his mother and uncle, is represented in short, emotionally charged bursts of Shakespeare ('Mother, you have my father much offended'). More profoundly, however, it is expressed in the polyphonic song of the company and splendid, simple music played on a zither. What is true of Hamlet is also true of Ophelia and the anguished ghost of the murdered King. As is often the case in song, little of the language is discernible. The beautifully performed piece relies instead on the emotions conveyed by the human voice and upon the power of the image (such as a sudden explosion of red rose petals on the otherwise monochrome set). This Hamlet may not be the finest, most complete piece in the Goats' impressive oeuvre, but it is still among the most interesting theatre works you will see on this year's Fringe. There is dramatic power of a very different kind in Consumed (Traverse, until August 24), Karis Kelly's dark comedy about four generations of women in one family in Northern Ireland. It's the 90th birthday of Eileen (played by Julia Dearden), the family's hard-as-nails matriarch, who is like a cross between Ian Paisley and Catherine Tate's irrepressible Nan. Her daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) is fussing over the dinner, the party and the imminent arrival (from London) of her daughter Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) and granddaughter Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin). The men of the family – that is Gilly's husband and Jenny's other half – would appear to have fecked off. The play that ensues is both gloriously outlandish and frighteningly pertinent. This is true of its, by turns, hilarious and anguished observations of the trauma that is passed down through families from generation to generation. Inevitably, when the simmering resentments explode, they do so in the particularly combustible context of Irish politics and history. Young Muireann – who was raised in London and, therefore, speaks with an English accent – takes exception to being told (by her grandmother) that she is 'not Irish'. If Eileen defines herself as 'British', says Muireann, she has no place questioning her great-granddaughter's self-identification as Irish. The nonagenarian grants that the young woman has 'got a point'. This admission is not only spectacularly unexpected, it also gives rise to the first in a series of increasingly devastating revelations. Kelly's script is brilliantly observed, scalpel-sharp and bravely executed. READ MORE: Three people arrested at first Oasis gig in Edinburgh Director Katie Posner (whose company Paines Plough is one of four co-producers of this world premiere) has a perfect grasp of the farce-like pace, the uproarious comedy and the deeply affecting pathos of this 80-minute play. Likewise designer Lily Arnold's immense, hyper-real set and sound designer Beth Duke's atmospheric soundscape. The drama demands a complex combination of nuance, energy and bleak cartoonishness, and the fabulous cast delivers abundantly. Once again, it is an Irish play that burns brightest in the Traverse's Fringe programme. Which is not to overlook the accomplishments of Flora Wilson Brown's deeply thoughtful piece The Beautiful Future Is Coming (Traverse, until August 24). Although it runs to only 90 minutes, the play cuts back-and-forth between the United States in the 19th century and the UK now and in an ecologically collapsed near future. In the American scenario, Brown imagines the travails of Eunice Newton Foote (played by Phoebe Thomas), the pioneering scientist who made potentially path-breaking discoveries about the planet-warming potential of CO2. Had her discovery of the greenhouse effect not been sidelined and patronised – on misogynistic grounds – as the 'amateur' output of a mere 'hobbyist', it could, the play suggests more-than-plausibly, have played a key role in averting the current climate crisis. Meanwhile, in present-day London, young marketing hotshots Claire (Nina Singh) and Dan (Jyuddah Jaymes) are heading towards a blissful family life in the Lake District when ecological breakdown bursts into their lives. Finally, later in the 21st-century – on a research station cut off by a long period of persistent tempestuous storms – we encounter young scientists Ana (Rosie Dwyer) and Malcolm (James Bradwell). Each of the play's situations carries its own truth. Particularly poignant is the current (and, one imagines, future) dilemma for young people contemplating whether or not to have children in the face of environmental devastation. In dramatic terms, as the work moves back-and-forward in time, one can't help but wonder if each of the scenarios – especially the Newton Foote storyline – wouldn't benefit from being a full play in itself. Nevertheless – although Brown's chosen structure is, inevitably, somewhat schematic – one understands and respects her decision to combine all three narratives. There are – in director Nancy Medina's nicely wrought production for Bristol Old Vic – fine performances across the piece (including from Matt Whitchurch as Newton Foote's supportive husband, John, a fictionalisation of the scientist's spouse Elisha Foote). Designer Aldo Vázquez's sets are appropriately minimal and ingeniously adaptable to the demands of the play. Brown's three-in-one drama is necessarily frightening. It is not an overdue warning about climate chaos so much as a heartfelt cry and an urging, not only to action, but also to human solidarity.
Scotsman
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival review: 'A hymn to theatre itself'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Works and Days Lyceum Theatre ★★★★☆ In Works and Days, the Flemish company FC Bergman – multiple award winners for their intensely visual epic theatre – offer us their vision of the story of humankind, so far. It's a show without words, both beautiful and poetic, if – at times – slightly predictable in its post-modern pessimism; and it begins, for perhaps the first 40 minutes, with a powerful evocation of the life of a hard-working farming community, before the industrial revolution. So there is ploughing and sowing, seedtime and harvest, the killing of a big old beast for its blood and meat. A barn is raised, a horse gives birth to a foal, a newly handfasted couple conceive a child, cheered on by the whole community. The image is of a life that is hard, but lived in harmony with the cycles of nature, and in deep intimacy with other humans; the music of musicians Joachim Badenhorst and Sean Carpio, who accompany the show live throughout, is all simple birdsong pipes, and the occasional bang of a drum. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Then something goes wrong, in the shape of six towering corn-doll type figures - money? war? religion gone wrong? - that distract the people. There is a powerful, discordant jazz solo; the machine age arrives, and there is idleness, and worship of the machine. And then there is the final sequence, where the oldest woman of the group – the wonderful Japanese-Flemish actress Fumiyo Ikeda – struggles and fails unforgettably, in drenching rain, to plough the dying land alone. In her despair, though, she sees the machine age end at last; and finally sits in a devastated landscape, accompanied only by a passing robot dog. The closing act of the show, in other words, is perhaps less clear in its mood and purpose than the earlier Works and Days is a completely absorbing show, so full of food for thought that its 70 minutes seem to pass in half the time. And intentionally or not, it also emerges as a hymn to theatre itself; an art-form where human beings often still work together, intensely, physically and in real time, to create something worth building, to celebrate it together, and to look to the future, whatever it may bring. Until 10 August
Scotsman
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Work and Days, EIF Theatre review - 'A hymn to theatre itself'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Works and Days Lyceum Theatre ★★★★☆ In Works and Days, the Flemish company FC Bergman – multiple award winners for their intensely visual epic theatre – offer us their vision of the story of humankind, so far. It's a show without words, both beautiful and poetic, if – at times – slightly predictable in its post-modern pessimism; and it begins, for perhaps the first 40 minutes, with a powerful evocation of the life of a hard-working farming community, before the industrial revolution. So there is ploughing and sowing, seedtime and harvest, the killing of a big old beast for its blood and meat. A barn is raised, a horse gives birth to a foal, a newly handfasted couple conceive a child, cheered on by the whole community. The image is of a life that is hard, but lived in harmony with the cycles of nature, and in deep intimacy with other humans; the music of musicians Joachim Badenhorst and Sean Carpio, who accompany the show live throughout, is all simple birdsong pipes, and the occasional bang of a drum. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Then something goes wrong, in the shape of six towering corn-doll type figures - money? war? religion gone wrong? - that distract the people. There is a powerful, discordant jazz solo; the machine age arrives, and there is idleness, and worship of the machine. And then there is the final sequence, where the oldest woman of the group – the wonderful Japanese-Flemish actress Fumiyo Ikeda – struggles and fails unforgettably, in drenching rain, to plough the dying land alone. In her despair, though, she sees the machine age end at last; and finally sits in a devastated landscape, accompanied only by a passing robot dog. The closing act of the show, in other words, is perhaps less clear in its mood and purpose than the earlier Works and Days is a completely absorbing show, so full of food for thought that its 70 minutes seem to pass in half the time. And intentionally or not, it also emerges as a hymn to theatre itself; an art-form where human beings often still work together, intensely, physically and in real time, to create something worth building, to celebrate it together, and to look to the future, whatever it may bring. until 10 August
The Guardian
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Works and Days review – wild ride charts the arc of human progress
Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman's take on 'the crisis of modernity' in this show, which travels from the ancient world to mechanisation, is nothing if not wild. The boards of the stage are dug up with a plough at the start – a sign of things to come. A chicken is bashed in a sack as part of a pagan sacrifice (the real chicken remains unharmed), a naked man emerges from within an animal's carcass and there is an apocalyptic landscape of erupting pineapples. It's wacky, but stays just on the right side of reckless. Directed by Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck, and part of the Edinburgh international festival, this is a wordless piece, based on muscular movement and stunning live music composed by Joachim Badenhorst and Sean Carpio. The arresting scenes mark the arc of human progress, from the taking up of tools onwards. When the industrial age dawns, a steam engine is shown with human limbs wrapped around it, as if they are extensions of the machine. The title refers to a poem by Hesiod on agrarian culture, for what that's worth, but the narrative stays oblique. Yet you feel the changing mood. There are revels and fertility rites when actors' trousers are unbuttoned, skirts raised. One couple literally roll in a sack. Spiritual ceremonies are enacted, too, and spinning around fire. There is a construction phase, with nature tamed and a chorus of hammers on wood, a storm of sawdust. A house-like structure is erected from this industriousness. Civilisation arrives as animals are gutted, with fluttering red scarves standing in for blood and viscera. Performers, including Aerts, Agemans, Verstraeten and Vinck, plus Susan De Ceuster, Geert Goossens, Fumiyo Ikeda and Maryam Sserwamukoko, are as physical as dancers. There is an almost constant shaking, pounding, swirling on stage, and beauty, too, in some of the scenes, but it is invariably interrupted by savagery – a large animal, maybe an elephant, is eviscerated and strung up – or a violent sound. The sonic effects are enthralling, with instruments used in original ways: two flutes taped together, a table harp and saxophone that sounds like a didgeridoo, six Tibetan singing bowls fused as one and played with a bow and mallet … The music is inspired by Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but seems so much stranger. The lighting, by Aerts, Agemans and Ken Hioco, is magnificent, too, with swarms of blackness and columns of light. Is this theatre, installation or dance? Who knows. As indefinable as it may be, it arrests. AI raises its head in the final moments. It is funny but unnerving. The endpoint of progress, it seems, is arriving. At the Lyceum, Edinburgh, until 10 August. Edinburgh international festival runs until 24 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews
The Herald Scotland
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: FC Bergman's Works and Days is remarkable
Royal Lyceum Theatre Which came first? Chicken or egg? In the case of this remarkable work by Belgium's FC Bergman company, who open the show by getting a real life hen to let loose an egg into the earth beneath, probably both. Surrounded by the eight performers of this seventy minute ritual navigation through ancient Greek poet Hesiod's idea of the five ages in his poem that gives the show its title, the hen's egg drop is as golden a statement on new life as it gets, even if it does come a cropper later on. As the tight knit ensemble rip up the land – and the wooden stage floor – with a plough, they build a house and create something resembling a community as they shed clothes like skins with each new era they step into. Wildlife is killed for trophies. The dawning of the machine age sees a steam engine ridden like a bucking bronco before hanging in mid air like a Rene Magritte painting, When the rains come, a woman attempts to pull her plough through the mud like Mother Courage. All this before the naked Edenites get back to the garden like those in Luca Cranach the Elder's sixteenth century depiction of The Golden Age. Read More: This is set to a Vivaldi inspired live jazz inflected score played by Joachim Badenhorst & Sean Carpio, and realised without a word spoken. Each scene morphs into the next like an animation brought to life in an abstract dreamscape under cartoon skies. The result is a kind of living artwork based on the land that sits neatly alongside the big Andy Goldsworthy exhibition just opened at the Royal Scottish Academy. With core FC Bergman members Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck in the thick of things as directors, dramaturgs and set designers, they are joined for this collective action by Susan De Ceuster, Geert Goossens, Fumiyo Ikeda and Maryam Sserwamukoko. Co-produced with Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Teatro d'Europa and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, by the time the future comes calling as FC Bergman move through the seasons, it may not be as friendly as it looks. Don't count your chickens either way in FC Bergman's meticulously realised environment. To purchase tickets for the festivals, please click here
