2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
The Edinburgh Fringe show exploring being Irish in Scotland
Burke has brought her new show Mind How You Go to the festival to share her family's tale, featuring moving statues, nuns, and American cousins 'with beautiful teeth and magazine hair.'
Directed by Gerda Stevenson, and with songs from Burke's album produced by Duke Special, the piece spans generations — from her great-grandfather's imprisonment for Irish independence to her Uncle Pat's return on the day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.
'It's all about me and my family, and growing up in Ireland and my Catholic childhood,' Burke explains. 'And I suppose now, because I live in Scotland, looking back at that with a lens of being older and an immigrant. The themes in this piece are immigration, religion, independence - Irish independence - and Spike Island, a militant prison in Ireland and also about, you know, family.
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"There's quite a lot of fun and comedy in it as there always is in families.'
Bafta Scotland winner Stevenson agrees that the universality of those themes is key.
'We all come from somewhere, and so it's very much about all of that. It's also about music because Michelle is a wonderful singer and songwriter. The show is filled with those songs and the songs are built into the show and the storytelling. So, music, storytelling, history.'
What makes Mind How You Go distinctive is the way it draws on real artefacts from Burke's life.
'All these objects that we have in the show, which are real from her life. And there's something about objects that have kind of sat there silently and witnessed things going on. There's something very eloquent about objects. And we all have them," Stevenson shared.
Burke added: 'I do carry my granny's rosary beads and miraculous medals. I don't go to mass anymore and I'm a complete and utter hypocrite, but I do have them.'
Music runs through the piece, with songs from Burke's new album co-written with Duke Special, Kathryn Williams, and others. 'One of the songs on the album is set — we've set a poem written by my great-grand uncle that he wrote while he was a prisoner on Spike Island. It does feel special to put music to something that was written by him over 100 years ago.'
Creating a work for the Fringe also brings its own challenges — particularly the strict turnaround times in venues.
'You cannot go on longer than your slot, and you've got a 15 minute get in and get out,' Stevenson shared. 'So it has to be very simple, which it is, and brilliantly designed by Jessica Brettle. She's fantastic, and she's designed this very simple but beautiful set that we can hopefully put up in 15 minutes and start the show and then get it down in 15 minutes because the venue will not tolerate anything other than that.'
The discipline of sticking to time has shaped the performance itself.
'I have to stick to the script. I find that really tricky because sometimes I could go off on a bit of a tangent," Burke laughs.
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Stevenson adds: "This is the first show where we've actually had really quite a definite script because Michelle's a fantastic storyteller … and we can't do that on this because we have to finish within the hour..'
Still, Stevenson sees the limits as creatively useful. 'Often you find that it's beneficial because you cut to the chase and it becomes a distillation which is sometimes more eloquent than something that's rambling a bit.'
What audiences might take away
As for what she hopes audiences will feel, Stevenson reflected: 'I wonder, will it make them think about stories within their own family? I hope that they'll think about people on journeys and moving, entering into another community. And I hope that they'll think about that with interest. I think when you meet somebody who's telling you their story, it's a privilege.'
Burke sums it up with characteristic humour: 'Yeah, and I'm on the lookout for anyone who could prescribe me some horse tranquilizers so I can sleep.'
With its mix of history, music, and deeply personal storytelling, Mind How You Go promises to be one of the Fringe's hidden gems — a work steeped in memory yet alive with song, humour, and the enduring pull of home.
Mind How You Go is on at venue 186, Playground 1 at ZOO Playground, until August 24.
