QFWFQ @ Summerhall

Theatrical chaos makes intuitive sense in Gregory Nussen’s QWFWQ, a fiercely political and personal semi-solo show. Nussen steers the audience through stories told directly to us, in second person; some are fictional, some anecdotal, and none are ever finished. Each new narrative interrupts the last. Together, they thematically form a show that reckons with both the power and weaponisation of storytelling itself.

Nussen lays their inspirations bare throughout. Italo Calvino’s timeless novel If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler sets the foundations for the show’s ever-evolving meta-theatrical structure, and its goofy yet profound tone. The offbeat humour, inquisitive voice and dense ideas of the novel are distilled with impressive measure. QFWFQ even offers a contemporary outlook on the novel's themes – one just as playful, but decisively angrier than Calvino’s. Nussen’s script delights in and debates the art of creating, and grows to an earned climactic monologue reckoning with systemic oppressive forces in an arresting fashion that deserves to be seen rather than explained.

The pivots from giggles to tears are skilfully calibrated by director Hannah Pilkes. It's a credit to both Pilkes and to Nussen’s script that such an unabashedly lofty, semi-autobiographical meta-show avoids sentimentality, indulgence and pretension. It’s all incredibly intentional and well balanced. In a very Brechtian sense, the show’s second person device gently redirects the audience away from over-focusing on Nussen’s own history. Instead, we are provoked to consider our own position, our own power and perhaps trauma in relation to today’s systems of oppression.

QFWFQ is an ambitious, atmospheric and frequently hilarious outing that hinges on Nussen’s candour and charisma, both of which they carry in abundance. Striking, innovative and delightfully nerdy, this show just might cement Nussen as a new Fringe favourite.

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QFWFQ, Summerhall (Former Gents Locker Room), until 31 Aug (not 24), 11:40am, £16.50/£14