Out of the black box and beyond

Here’s a quick spotlight on work that refuses to stay in its lane — folk mythology, a gorilla in a fairy tale, a trombonist reimagining opera, a queer life story across fifteen years, and Liz Truss on her last morning. All of them doing something slightly unexpected with their form. That’s a good story.

You think you know – mythology, panto, musical theatre, political satire – and then something shifts and you realise the label was just the door. What’s through it is something else entirely.

Yep. There’s a particular kind of show that doesn’t announce what it is until you’re already inside it.

I’ve been looking at theSpaceUK’s Edinburgh programme and that’s the quality that keeps catching my eye. Not the biggest names. The ones doing something slightly unexpected with their own form.

Heracles: Of Men and Beasts — The Barden Party

Greek mythology reimagined as a folk musical, built around live-looped soundscapes.

That combination shouldn’t work as well as it clearly does. But there’s something about the oral tradition of folk music and the oral tradition of mythology that turns out to be the same thing — stories carried in the body, passed hand to hand, never quite finished.

If you’ve been waiting for someone to notice that connection and build a whole show around it, this might be the one.

Jessies — A Bunch of Jessies Ltd

Queer life across fifteen pivotal years.

The title is doing something quietly clever — plural, possessive, slightly defiant. And fifteen years is long enough to hold real change, real loss, real becoming. This feels like the kind of show that knows exactly what it’s doing and trusts the audience to keep up.

Woman Seeking Cuddles — The Robot Company

The title is doing everything right — it makes you pause, makes you slightly uncertain, then pulls you in.

What it actually is: a darkly comic exploration of identity, grief and connection. Which turns out to be exactly what the title was always pointing at. Sometimes what we’re looking for and what we need are the same thing wearing slightly different clothes. This feels like a show that knows that and isn’t afraid to make you laugh about it.

Solo From the Pit — Teater KEF

A virtuoso trombonist reinterpreting opera through personal storytelling.

This is the one I’d take a chance on without knowing anything else about it. Solo instrumental work that also tells a story, from a single performer who has clearly thought very hard about what their instrument can do that a voice can’t. That kind of specificity is almost always worth an hour of your time.

CinderGorilla: The Musical — The Ministry of Mini Musicals

One performer. One audience member. Live instruments. Puppetry. A gorilla in a fairy tale.

The one-to-one format is its own statement — this story is for you specifically, not for a room. There’s an intimacy to that which changes what the work can do. And a gorilla in Cinderella is either a terrible idea or a very good one. Everything about this company suggests the latter.

The Last of Liz Truss? — Oxia Theatre

Her last morning at Number 10.

This one transferred from the West End for a reason. Political satire has a short shelf life unless it’s actually about something more durable than the person it’s satirising. The question mark in the title is doing a lot of work — and suggests this might be less about Liz Truss specifically and more about the particular quality of endings, of the moment just before everything changes.

Which, now I think about it, is what half the best shows on this list are about.

All six are part of theSpaceUK’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. Tickets and full listings at theSpaceUK.com.