Edinburgh Fringe: A roundup of Scottish shows - Midsummer, What Girls are Made of, My Left Right Foot

Lyn Gardner reviews 'Midsummer' (★★★☆☆), 'What Girls are Made of' (★★★★☆), 'My Left Right Foot' (★★★★☆)

Natalie MacDonald in ‘My Left Right Foot’, which fully embraces popular theatre with heart, bells, extra whistles and humour (Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

In theatre, the most remarkable is often found in the most unassuming. It was the case with David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s Midsummer, a play with songs which a decade ago slipped shyly into the Traverse’s festival season to tell the story of Helena and Bob, two lost souls on one lost weekend in Edinburgh.

This gorgeous, giddy little love letter to second chances and the city of Edinburgh itself, was a forerunner of the gig theatre that can now be found all over the fringe, and it’s back in town at the Hub (to August 25) as part of the International Festival. It’s bigger, but not necessarily better.

Part of the pleasure of the original Midsummer was its lofi, on-the-hoof style, which reflected the diffidence of miserable divorce lawyer Helena and petty criminal Bob, both approaching middle age, who unexpectedly discover each other and take to heart the philosophical advice delivered by the Castle Terrace car-park ticket machine which proclaims: change is possible.

Change has turned a small gem into something a tad overblown and brassy. Kate Hewitt’s revival seems overly conscious of the size of the space it is trying to fill and throws in balloons, glitter falling from the ceiling like Edinburgh’s soft rain, and a full band.

Now there are four actors, not just two, with an older Bob (Benny Young) and Helena (Eileen Nicholas) aiding the storytelling and observing their younger selves (Henry Pettigrew and Sarah Higgins). As in Sondheim’s Follies, the youth and age dynamic should offer a bittersweet extra emotional layer, but all it does is detract from the immediacy of the storytelling.

We know from the start that Bob and Helena will commit. It’s still a very enjoyable night out, but it has lost some of its quiet charm.

Henry Pettigrew in ‘Midsummer’ (Peter Dibdin)

Cora Bissett played Helena in the original production of Midsummer and now she’s back at the Traverse (to 26 August) with her own play with music What Girls are Made of. It’s a roaring, exhilarating show inspired by her teenage diaries of growing up in Kirkcaldy and life on the road as the front singer of an Indie band called Darlingheart.

For a few giddy months in the early 1990s, Darlingheart was the coming thing and was on the road supporting Radiohead and Blur.

Then it all went wrong. Or maybe it all went right, because this isn’t just a rock’n’roll memoir and a story of hotels and dreams trashed, disreputable conning managers and manipulative record companies but a story of one woman discovering herself and what she really wants.

It is also a story of a girl who at 17 thought she wanted to get away from the ties that bind only to discover that it can be those ties that keep us strong. The show begins with Bissett unpacking a dusty box found after her father’s death.

Orla O’Loughlin’s heady but exquisitely controlled production stages the entire show as an exhilarating piece of gig. But it is most moving in the final third as Bissett, alone and adrift, starts to understand that while youthful dreams may collapse something can rise from the ashes. Bissett is never going to be Patti Smith, but she can be herself.

If both Midsummer and What Girls are Made of are touched by the spirit of John McGrath’s seminal book espousing popular theatre, A Good Night Out, then National Theatre Scotland and Birds of Paradise’s My Left Right Foot (Assembly Roxy, to 27 August) fully embraces it. With heart, bells, extra whistles and a huge dollop of filthy humour.

Simon Donaldson and Cora Bissett in ‘What Girls are Made of’ (Sid Scott)

Directed with riotous glee by Robert Softley Gale, who also wrote the book, this musical comes with music and songs by Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie, and additional songs by Jerry Springer: The Opera composer and writer Richard Thomas. It tells the story of amdram group, The Kirktoon Players, who are determined to make their mark in an upcoming competition.

When they discover that extra points will be awarded by the judges for inclusivity, they decide to stage Christy Brown’s My Left Foot, which in 1989 was made into a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis as the writer with cerebral palsy.

There are objections. Drama queen Sheena (Gail Watson) thinks the group is already quite inclusive enough. “We have soya milk in the fridge.” But this is a woman who once blacked up an 11-year-old for Bugsy Malone. Besides, leading able-bodied actor Grant (John McLarnon) is keen to play Christy because “who hasn’t won an Oscar when they are playing the disabled?”

This is a show that revels in the worst possible taste to make the strongest possible points around the assumptions made about disabled people not just by the entertainment industry but by all of us.

In their rush for stage glory by the dubious method of using inclusivity to win extra points, they completely overlook that they have someone in their midst – Chris the handyman (Matthew Duckett) – who is qualified to play the role and won’t have to “cripp up” because he actually has cerebral palsy.

It’s smart work, beady-eyed and deliberately outrageous. It is, of course, also fully accessible featuring integrated signing and captions. But it is accessible in other ways too: this is a scathingly funny and massively enjoyable show that uses popular theatre to tell unpopular truths about box ticking and our outmoded attitudes to inclusion.

Tickets for all shows 0131 226 0000 (www.edfringe.com)