Picture: Tyler Whiting
The Shocking Truth About Flat Earth continues at Queen Dome at Pleasance Dome until 30 August (except 18).
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Sharon Hargreaves (Emma Norman) is in a desultory marriage to a husband (Michael Joseph) who spends his days staring at the TV. Worse, her beloved dog has died.
To comfort herself, she is drawn down an internet rabbit hole to conspiracy theories and ultimately the Flat Earth Society. Convinced by her sympathetic best friend Debs (Emma Thornett) to join her on a trip to see Adele, she flunks out to go to a Flat Earth convention where she is assumed to be the event’s star speaker, online guru Angela (though why the aficionados don’t recognise her, goodness only knows – Debs is Thames Estuary, Angela is American). She then sets off with a couple of influencers and an itinerant explorer on an absurd quest to find the edge of the Earth, pursued by a furious Angela.
The plot is ludicrous, absurd, almost comic bookish, and very, very funny (during one song, Debs asides that it’s the only solo she gets), but its bedrock is a wealth of serious, humbling themes: grief, loneliness, misinformation, what draws some people to cults. Community. The need to belong.
The cast of five is sensational. In fact, tt took me some to realise that influencer Brodie and Angela were both played by Leonie Wall, with Tom Dickerson and Joseph juggling roles with aplomb.
The songs by Alexander Moneypenny and Adam Tuffrey (who together wrote the book) are catchy, exhilarating and pop-infused, with occasional touches of Randy Newman. The singing faultless with great harmonies. The show is slickly directed by Karl Steele with his foot firmly on the accelerator.
This Wolverhampton Grand Theatre production, with a tweak here and there, surely has a life beyond the Fringe.
James Bryce
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