Theatre review: Hear All About It

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Two earnest young men, clear-voiced and fresh-faced tell us the facts: a suicidal teenager known only as X is in danger of taking her own life if a hospital bed can't be found for her.

theSpace@Jury’s Inn (Venue 260)

SpaceTriplex (Venue 38) from today.

***

The show is part of a series of new plays which the young company write, direct and produce in response to recent news. Each week they will stage a new one.

Today’s piece is an old-fashioned, unabashed piece of political theatre in which performers George Brooker and Rishi Soneji also wryly question whether they have any right, as men, to tell an unnamed woman’s ­story.

Ava Davies has written a smart and creative script that may initially feel like an on-the-nose retelling of the facts, but then questions its own legitimacy through a far more interesting exploration of liberal values. Didactic but charming, literal but self-aware, the piece calls for us to remember the unseen people affected by cuts to mental health services and the NHS.

At the end a clearly ­emotional Brooker hugs Soneji – a touching moment that hints at the intense but inspiring ­process creating a piece this quickly must involve.

Until 26 August. Today 11:45am.