Old Bones @ Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

How much can change with the roll of a die? What will happen when you have chosen the Devil as your ultimate opponent? The question haunts James Napier, the subject and protagonist of Jen McGregor’s layered and witty one-man show, which featured at the Edinburgh Horror Festival this year. As the audience are called up to play the Devil himself or to attempt to beat an increasingly tormented Napier, we start to suspect an answer that is never explicitly divulged – it is always pulled back with carefully controlled sleight of hand.

Daniel Hird gives an excellent performance as lothario-turned-wanderer. His oscillation between genuine anguish and flirtatious charm maintains a good narrative pace as Napier is buffeted across oceans and centuries, haunted by a secret too terrible to divulge. Hird's use of props – including a red sheet which acts as a carpet, cloak, and a ship sail – creates a cleverly timeless feel. Hird’s rapport with his audience never falters, and manages to balance caustic quips with gentle encouragement that will get even the most reluctant participant on stage. The result lends an unexpected degree of relatability to a not-so-typical spooky story that is, at times, reliant on big narrative jumps at the expense of character development.

In the end, though, Old Bones' strength lies less in the (mis)fortune of tricksters and their satanic secrets but in the way it reveals a sense of longing for different ways of being and of being loved. It is a reminder of all that we stand to lose in our deeply human desire to gamble everything in an instant, to throw down our cards – Devil be damned – in the hope of something better.

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Old Bones, The Banshee Labyrinth, run ended – part of the 2022 Edinburgh Horror Festival