Monumental
★★★★☆ Momentous
Central Edinburgh: Sat 10, Sat 17 May 2025
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Up-and-coming feminist theatre company F-Bomb Theatre presents Monumental, an innovative piece of historical site-specific theatre, in the form of a walking tour around Edinburgh.
Monumental is part of Edinburgh 900, the council-curated celebration of 900 years of “local democracy” in Edinburgh. It represents F-Bomb’s mission to “celebrate and support women and people of marginalised genders in theatre and beyond”, by adding to the local public art five new statues of important figures from the city’s history; all women, whose stories have gone largely untold.
Samuela Noumtchuet as Clara Marguerite Christian. Pic: F-Bomb.
The show begins, like many other walking tours, at the Greyfriars Bobby Fountain. Sally Quinn as the Tour Guide, relates that Bobby is one of fourteen statues of animals in Edinburgh. Fourteen statues of animals and seventy-nine of men. But how many of women? Eight. Rather than be dismayed, however, she says that through the magic of theatre we will manifest some new statues, and the stories behind them.
After a triple cry of “are you out there” to bring forth the statues, and a reminder that although this tour is about women taking up space and being seen and heard, not to crowd the pavements, we’re off.
skill and subtlety
The first stop is McEwan Hall and the living statue of Clara Marguerite Christian (Samuela Noumtchuet). The first Black woman to study at the University of Edinburgh, Christian was both a trained singer and a medical student.
Noumtchuet embodies Christian with skill and subtlety, traversing Jaïrus Obayomi’s monologue of her life with questions of courtesy and multiplicity. The joy at finding love, and bearing children; and the difficult choice to end her studies, while her husband goes on to become a doctor.
As we leave Christian, we are asked to reflect on how many women’s stories were changed because they had to choose between family and vocation.
Brooke Walker as St. Triduana. Pic F-Bomb.
At the steps of Augustine’s United Church awaits St. Triduana (Brooke Walker), a deeply spiritual woman from the 4th century CE, who travelled to Scotland with St. Rule and the bones of St. Andrew. Her beautiful eyes are a gift and a curse: she escaped the prospect of an unwanted marriage where they were an object of desire, but now a Pictish king praises them and makes unwanted advances.
power and gravitas
Rather than face such harassment again, Triduana tears out her own eyes and presents them to him. Walker’s own eyes are concealed throughout her delivery of Kirin Seed’s script. She remains largely still, but fills Triduana with power and gravitas despite the bustling street.
Who are legends created for, we are asked, and which of our other great Scottish legends deserve a new version?
Cara Watson as Maggie Dickson. Pic: F-Bomb.
Down in the Grassmarket Maggie Dickson (Cara Watson), known for the legend of “half hangit’ Maggie”, stands in front of her namesake pub. A 17th century fishmonger, Maggie got into trouble after being abandoned by her husband, when she bore an illegitimate child in secret and attempted to dispose of it. Discovered, she was sentenced to hang — only, it didn’t quite go to plan, and Maggie woke up as her body was being transported for burial.
Maggie lives, but is over-shadowed by her own notoriety, and the indignity of having a pub named for her in the place where she was hanged. Watson delivers Rachel O’Regan’s script with a balance of ire and fire with sympathetic pain, Maggie reflects that perhaps it’s not so bad after all; if the men escorting her body hadn’t stopped for a drink, she might’ve been buried before she woke up.
Concealment of pregnancy is still a crime in Scotland, we are informed, with laws on the books that haven’t been updated since 1809.
poignant
In Prince’s Street Gardens at the site of the Edinburgh Holocaust memorial waits Elizabeth Meta Wiskemann (Laverne Edmonds), the first woman to chair a field of study at the University of Edinburgh. A journalist, historian, and intelligence operative in World War II, her efforts directly prevented the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
Laverne Edmonds as Elizabeth Meta Wiskemann. Pic: F-Bomb.
Edmonds’s performance, bursting from clear recitation of fact, to impassioned overwhelm, is all the more poignant given its setting. As Emery Schaffer’s script speaks of persecution, oppression, speaking up, and taking on the responsibility of knowledge, a protest for Palestine is taking place over the road at the foot of the Mound.
Last of all, after passing by the protest while thinking, as we have been instructed, about a cause we believe in, we come to Scotland’s youngest suffragette.
Bessie Watson (Layla Rozelle) became a piper as a wee girl to strengthen her lungs, and a suffragette at age nine, joining the Women’s Social and Political Union alongside her mother. She piped —a sound that “wasn’t pretty…it was big and bold and brash and brave”— for the WSPU pageant in Edinburgh in 1909, a march which celebrated “what women have done and can and will do”.
excitement
She piped “when the pageants were over and the protests had begun”; she piped for the suffragettes when they were arrested and carted away via Waverley station; and she piped for those imprisoned in Calton Jail.
Layla Rozelle as Bessie Watson with Sally Quinn. Pic: F-Bomb.
Rozelle perfectly embodies the excitement of the young girl of Hannah Low’s script, who also realises the magnitude of what she does, and the importance of what she represents. Before inflating her pipes to grace us with a tune, she exhorts us, next time we imagine a piper, rather than imagining a stereotypical burly, kilted man, to “picture a tiny girl age nine, piping for a world she believes in.”
History is fluid, Quinn reminds us; it’s for us to take control of, for us to make, and for us to not let our stories disappear. The tour ends with us being given notebooks; A5, pink, sturdy, but flexible, good for stuffing in a bag for when you need it. They’re emblazoned with the slogan: What You’ve Done. What You Can Do. What You Will Do.
sensational performances
F-Bomb’s inaugural outing of Monumental has been, all things considered, an outstanding success. The monologue of each statue was written by a different writer, and they were all directed by Emily Ingram, with dramaturgical support from Rachel O’Regan, who wrote the tour guide’s script. On an extremely condensed rehearsal schedule, Ingram and the company were able to put together some truly sensational performances, and the logistics of the tour went off as smoothly as any that’s been running for years.
Sally Quinn (Tour Guide) and Layla Rozelle (Bessie Watson). Pic: Claire Hutchins.
The show’s only real weaknesses lie in its format. The gaps between stops on the tour are a bit longer than a typical walking tour, and time spent at each stop longer, leading to a slightly jerky stop-and-go feeling. More statues with shorter gaps between them, even if it led to slightly shorter time spent with each, might help to smooth this out in future iterations. This might also help the show keep more consistently to time, as on this particular occasion it ran significantly over.
niggle
One final niggle is an access concern: the first and second-last statues received visual descriptions from Quinn, but the rest did not. Whether this element is part of the regular script or was added for this particular performance because of a contingent from Visually Impaired Creators Scotland in the audience is unclear; either way, striving for consistency in delivering this sort of access element should be a priority.
With any luck, we’ll see another outing of Monumental in the future, with a longer run and greater reach. F-Bomb is eager to continue with the show, both developing this version and creating new versions outwith Edinburgh, to shed more light on untold stories. And perhaps, in the future, we’ll see a Monumental made of the stories written in those pink notebooks.
Running time: Two hours (depending on conditions and walking speed of audience
Greyfriars Bobby Fountain, corner of Candlemaker Row and George IV Bridge.
Saturdays: 10 & 17 May 2025
Two performances: 12pm & 3pm.
F-Bomb socials:
Website: fbombtheatre.co.uk
X: @fbombtheatre
Instagram: @fbombtheatre
Facebook: @fbombtheatre
BlueSky: @fbombtheatre
To support F-Bomb and future productions of Monumental, visit fbombtheatre.co.uk or go HERE to donate. F-Bomb also encourages anyone who would like to see more of this show to get in touch with their local councils and arts bodies.
Sally Quinn (Tour Guide) with Samuela Noumtchuet (Clara Marguerite Christian). Pic: Claire Hutchins
ENDS
