Pip Utton’s Farewell to the Fringe
Bacon: ★★★★☆ Raw
Hunchback of Notre Dame: ★★★★☆ Visceral
And Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You : ★★★★★ Extraordinary
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33): Wed 19 – Sat 29 Aug 2026
Review by Rebecca Mahar
After thirty-four years, Pip Utton bids farewell to Edinburgh Fringe with a one-man repertory of three plays: Bacon, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You.
Each piece is sharply distinct in tenor and in the characters which Utton inhabits, this is a send-off which demonstrates his impressive range as an actor and writer.
If there’s one thing Utton does brilliantly, it’s “the moment before.” Prior to beginning a play, a scene, a monologue, or whatever dramatic feat is to come, an actor considers the moment immediately before what is to come: what is the character’s mental, emotional, physical state; what has just happened to them, that shapes how they step onto the stage?
Before every show, Utton embodies his own “moment before” onstage: in front of the arriving audience, and so including them in the psychological preparation of the monodrama.
Pip Utton performs Bacon.
Bacon
The moment before: To the background of slow jazz, Utton perches on a tall chair in a long leather jacket, examining his appearance in a small mirror, combing his hair, applying cologne. Francis Bacon owns the room.
The Francis of this Bacon is not the early modern philosopher, but the twentieth century figurative painter described by Margaret Thatcher as “that dreadful man who paints those horrible pictures.” He’s also dead, and we join him in his nebulous afterlife as he recounts what came before, from his tumultuous childhood until he ended up here.
Utton doesn’t hold back in either the script (written with Jeremy Towler) or the performance of it, neither shying away from Bacon’s hedonism nor the abuse he suffered. There are a few bits that haven’t aged particularly well, for instance, Bacon’s description of an Algerian lover. There’s always a conversation to be had about works that are of a certain time, or/and using the language of people from a certain time: is it meaningful, is it dramatically necessary, and is it done with purposeful care? And if not, might it be time, where feasible, to revisit the script?
essence
For the most part, Utton and Towler have otherwise captured the essence of Bacon and the vulgarities that come along with his fraught existence with a script that answers yes to all three of those questions. Utton’s performance of it is electric, moving steadily from jaded bonhomie to tortured artist trying to communicate why he created the way that he did, how he tried to capture the sensation of things, deforming and reforming until only the truth remained— not how something looks, but how it feels.
Biting humour is threaded throughout, showcasing Utton’s extraordinary ability to take a room from guffaws to ringing silence in an instant. His Bacon brings us with him on this journey through his life and vituperation of critics, with the feeling that perhaps he let us in a little too far, showed us a little too much, revealing truths of himself that only death could illuminate.
Pip Utton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Pic: Andy Doornhein.[
Hunchback of Notre Dame
The moment before: Bells ring as the audience files in while Utton, dressed in burlap rags, stands shakily over a shrouded body on the floor, a bouquet of baby’s breath in his hands.
This Hunchback begins not with Quasimodo yearning to step beyond the cathedral walls in daylight, but at the end of all things: Esmeralda is dead, Frollo is dead, his blood being cleaned from the stones below, and Quasimodo is alone. In his solitude he speaks to Esmeralda, telling her not to be afraid, that he is her friend, and he will watch over her and keep her safe. In his struggle to come to terms with what has happened, Quasimodo recounts the story of how they met and came to be here.
Any abridgement or adaptation of work by the notoriously verbose Victor Hugo requires selective pruning of the original story, and to create a cohesive version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in an hour requires the wholesale culling of great swathes of material. Pip Utton’s version strips the story right back to the most essential aspects of Quasimodo’s psychology; narrative fragments stitched together with meditations on Paris itself praying for forgiveness, and what is ugliness, really.
This tightly focused approach includes what seems just enough context from the larger story— it’s difficult to say whether no advance foreknowledge of Hugo’s plot would be a detriment to audience understanding and enjoyment of the play, but having it certainly enhances the experience.
deeply tragic
The choice to begin at the end places Utton, and the audience, immediately at the height of Quasimodo’s agony and in his moment of decision. Although Utton plays the intervening story between where we start and where we finish with appropriate light and shade and immense pathos, there is less of an arc to the whole piece than might be expected: the journey finishes where it began, in the moment (and thence completion) of decision. This isn’t necessarily a negative in and of itself, but despite its intensity, it does transform the play into something quieter and more contemplative in its inevitability.
Hunchback of Notre Dame is visceral and deeply uncomfortable in a purposeful way. There is nothing comfortable about or comforting in this story, and no catharsis at the end. It is an exploration of a deeply tragic character that assumes the burden of his tragedy with open arms, and its audience must expect to do the same.
Pip Utton performs Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You. Pic: Supplied.
Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You
The moment before: Clad in a white blazer and pale jeans, blue tie and pocket square, squat glass in hand, Michael welcomes the audience in as if he knows each of them. The chanson La Mer builds in the background as they settle in, and Michael seems to become progressively less certain of whatever he’s about to do.
Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You is an exploration of the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s on both those living with the disease and those who love them. Michael has been welcoming the audience, as it turns out, to the celebration of life for his wife, Chrissy, who has recently passed away from it. He pulls out the cue cards the vicar encouraged him to write so he wouldn’t forget anything he wanted to say, and which might help him not to cry getting through his eulogy. But this system soon breaks down and before long Michael has tossed the cards aside: “Chrissy’s worth a lot more than that, words on paper… And if I cry, I cry.”
The celebration of life is only the first stage of the narrative, however. Utton addresses the audience directly during this portion, but when it’s over and he turns away, Michael begins to speak to Chrissy. At this point the audience become outsiders, voyeurs into something intensely personal and even more heartbreaking. The stage is divided into two parts: the side where Michael sits, drinks, and speaks to Chrissy, and the side where he sits in a doctor’s office as, moving between the two sides, the signs of dementia slowly begin to show themselves now in Michael.
Before I Forget I Love You is composed of both personal experience and extensive research: partially based on his and his brother’s experience of “seeing their mum deteriorate and die just three years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,” it’s clear that Utton has invested deeply in creating an unvarnished portrayal of all sides of that experience. The narrative is built with incredible skill, detailing Michael’s journey, introducing Michael’s son John; never flinching in the face of overwhelming grief or of anger; or, indeed, of finding laughter even in the terrible.
The words of praise for Utton’s performance of this narrative are too few. To hold on to such an intense state of emotion for so long is a monumental feat, and to do it with such variation, subtlety, and precision, without it becoming overwhelming for the audience to the degree that it permits them to check out of whatever they may be feeling, is a true masterclass of the work.
Although memories may be lost to time or the dreadful unfairness of disease, those who made them never truly leave us. At its core, Before I Forget I Love You is about remembrance, humanity in its joy and its fear, and grasping tight to love and life— to make the most of what you can while you can, and always know you are loved.
Pip Utton’s Farewell to the Fringe
Running time: One hour (no interval).
Pleasance Courtyard (The Green), 60 Pleasance EH8 9TJ (Venue 33).
Wednesday 19 – Sunday 30 August 2026.
Daily (not Mon): 12.15pm.
Bacon
Wed 19, Sat 22, Wed 26, Sat 29 August 2026
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Hunchback of Notre Dames
Thur 20, Sun 23, Thur 27 August 2026
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You
Fri 21, Tue 25, Fri 28, Sun 30 August 2026
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Pip Utton’s website: https://putco.uk.
ENDS
