Alan Turing: Guilty of Love – Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Alan Turing: Guilty of Love continues at the Hill Street Theatre – Alba Theatre until 27 August 2023.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Writing a musical is difficult, and then if your main character is based on a real person… An individual who changed the course of the Second World War; someone endowed with extraordinary mental superiority, driven by logic and curiosity, who possibly was on the autistic spectrum and/or had OCD. He was a gay man and a mathematical genius. Try to encompass all the above and you really have your work cut out.

Written and composed by Jane Bramwell and Michael Brand, this musical explores Alan Turing’s private and professional life. At the very least it necessitates thought-provoking dialogue, melodic music, witty and informative lyrics and interesting full-dimensional characters. Guilty of Love, directed and produced by David Kettle, does its best to incorporate it all. Some of which works exceedingly well, but at times lacks cohesion.

Jamie Sheasby gives a masterful performance as Alan Turing. His meticulous interpretation of the central character both dramatically and vocally aptly dominates the production but succeeds in not overshadowing other prominent and important characters. Andrew Hornyak, playing Turing’s constant friend and first love Christopher Morcom, handles the role with great delicacy and provides a constant link throughout the production.

The ensemble cast members, Caitlin Downie, Alasdair Baker, Helene Holman, Rhys Anderson, Joanna Harte and Steven Wren, give strong individual and collective performances, vocally handling some tricky harmonies and doing so with ease. When given the opportunity, they provide insightful glimpses as to how each person affected Turing’s life. There is a wealth of talent on stage and it’s to the detriment of the production they don’t have a chance to expand their characters and therefore only give us glimpses of Turing’s life and his inevitable demise.

Flo White