Instructions for Border Crossing @ Summerhall

Daniel Bye's new work is a playful but unconvincing piece of political theatre

Review by Robbie Armstrong | 17 Aug 2017

Writer and performer Daniel Bye seems such a thoroughly likeable character you can’t help initially get on board with him. Instructions... takes the works of “half-forgotten” (read non-existent) performance artist Edward Shorter as inspiration. Bye then welcomes audience members to the enclosed stage as he reads out Shorter’s short plays, while interrogating them on aspects of their personality. 

It is an endearing performance, but the bones of the show need to be fleshed out more. It is unclear if the thrust of the piece is the story that Bye is telling us, or the interaction with audience members who take to the stage – even though both these elements work to good effect at times. 

Shorter’s works tell the tale of a girl sneaking across the border into her own country, but Bye has more distance to go to bring this narrative to life. The deeper issues at play, of migration and inequality, feel somewhat unexplored.

Artifice and multimedia are both admittedly employed to good effect, but this is not enough to keep the momentum going. At times it seems certain Bye isn’t acting at all; he is merely himself, riffing off the audience with quips and pleasantries. Perhaps this all serves to lift the curtains on the workings of the piece itself, challenging our notions of theatre. Either way, it falls short of entirely persuasive. 


Instructions for Border Crossing, Summerhall, until 26 Aug (not 23), 4.40pm, £10-12 

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/edinburgh-fringe/theatre