Ghosts of the Near Future @ The Studio, Edinburgh

Any show that warns the audience as they enter the auditorium that there will be pyrotechnics can only be a good thing – especially when a lot of the audience remain in their coats for the full 75 minutes, the memory of subzero temperatures still fresh in their minds. In the end, the pyrotechnic is just a little one, which probably makes it safer, but not warm enough to take my coat off.

As the performers tell you – with characteristic perceptiveness – ‘When somebody asks you, “Are you watching closely?”, the answer is never yes or no. The answer is always, “Watching what?”’ 

This should probably have tipped me off that the show was not going to be what I thought it was – in fact, the show never stops not being what you think it will be. An expressly sinister rabbit comes onto the stage before removing its head and telling a story about an elderly cat. A showgirl drinks gasoline and vanishes a magician. Exquisitely intricate scenes, filmed live on tiny sets, are broadcast above the stage. Cacti do things you never thought they would do. The surrealism builds and complexifies, motifs repeating and developing, and I wonder: ‘Yes. What am I watching?’

The performance duo emma + pj are superb. There is not a moment in the play (which includes a satirical magic trick, spoken word, audacious light and sound effects and an uncanny closing monologue) which isn’t perfectly executed. To my mind though, the multiple lush components did not marry together well. The piece is about disappearance and extinction, undoubtedly, powerfully so, too – but I did struggle to understand what point was being made. Maybe pointlessness was the point. But if so – what’s the point? What do I do with the emotions the show inspires?

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Ghosts of the Near Future, The Studio, Edinburgh, run ended