Throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the Traverse Theatre Company is staging a series of new short plays by a selection of Britain's top writers. Starting at nine in the morning - you get breakfast beforehand - these 'scratch' plays revolve around a current issue and this morning it was cocaine which has become such a popular drug that Britons now consume more than almost any other country in Europe.
Chris Hannan is the writer of this three-hander 'Posthuman Satire Slash Romance'. The play opened auspiciously enough as two characters - Greene and Nash - began gossiping about a celebrity who was in a club they were at. It's a pastime of many people to discuss the intimate details of famous people they have never met. Cocaine is talked about a lot and Greene produces a huge slab of the stuff. There is an interaction with his wife Marie and the three of them end up at the celebrity's house with the intimation they had taken copious amounts of the drug.
Robin Laing played Nash; Molly Innes was Marie and Andy Clark was Greene. He read the part really well considering he had only a few hours notice to take over from Keith Fleming who had damaged his back.
The play however was not one of Hannan's best. The idea was good, but the writing was disconnected, which could have been deliberate considering the disjointed effect cocaine can have on a user. But the script sounded as though he had written the play in a rush. It was like a first draft. There was no build up of the characters and no distinctive plot line.
Times: Thursday 27 August, 9am