Something Blue
★★★☆☆ Immersive fun
theSpace @ Venue 45 (Venue 45): Fri 8 – Sat 16 Aug 2025
Review by Erin Frances Speirs
Something Blue is an energetic, campy, immersive comedy following the breakdown of an already dysfunctional family after the bride disappears on the day of a highly anticipated wedding.
With a cast of five young actors playing a wide variety of ages, this immersive performance places the audience as wedding guests. It is written and performed by Forth Wall Theatre Company, a new youth-led collective founded this year by students from Portobello High School.
Abi Harrison-Teig in Something Blue. Pic Fraser Wilson
The lively cast immediately engages the audience by asking everyone to stand in preparation for the Bride’s entrance. She, of course, never appears and instead her snooty mother Mrs Capulet (Molly Roberts) charges in, beginning an hour of misunderstandings, misalignments, and misbehaviours.
Set in the round with a banquet table in the centre, Something Blue immerses its audience into this chaotic wedding day, with actors constantly reminding us that we are part of the story. Throughout Something Blue, characters reveal more about their toxic behaviours as they try to decipher why Juliet may have got cold feet: her avoidant mother; her alcoholic, money hungry mother-in-law; or perhaps something deeper in the relationship itself.
the pacing is impressive
The writing has weak moments of heavy exposition, although it is handled well by the actors’ exaggerated performances. They really show their skills when engaging with the audience off-script, however, embodying their characters more in those moments than in many more serious parts of the play. Regardless of heavy-handed writing, the pacing is impressive with the hour flying by, full of laughs and dramatic twists and turns.
Molly Roberts and Lucy McFadyen in Something Blue. Pic Fraser Wilson
Bert (Fraser Law Cochran) shines throughout, with brilliant comedic timing and chemistry with all other members of the cast. Bert is also one of the more fully formed characters in the play.
Unfortunately, all of the female characters appear very one-sided. Hedda (Abi Harrison-Teig) receives the worst of this, with her character being stereotyped into the seductress—red dress and all—and is given little to any redeeming character traits. Although Harrison-Teig struggles with chemistry with the other actors, her closing monologue is powerful and shows her talents as a dramatic actor.
stereotypes
Molly Roberts’s, performance is at times too exaggerated as Lady Capulet. Although it works well with the text, the other actors do not perform to the same energy level, making her performance feel too much of a caricature. Helen (Lucy McFadyen) is strong in her role of money-hungry widowed alcoholic, where we see more one-sided stereotypes. However she struggles to ground the character mainly because she is playing a woman far older than herself.
Jasper MacAninch, in Something Blue. Pic Fraser Wilson
Tesman (Jasper MacAninch) as a character is also confused, internally and on the page, as his motivations throughout the play seem unclear. With a stronger script, these actors would all shine and their work should be commended.
The ensemble are all based on characters from the dramatic canon. Tesman, Hedda, and Bert hailing from Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Mrs Capulet—and her daughter Juliet who haunts the narrative but is never seen—from Romeo and Juliet and and Helen from Lorca’s Yerma. These nods to other dysfunctional relationships within the canon showcase the themes of the production. However, at times the namesakes distract more than they guide, keeping the audience from the actual characters in front of us.
confident and quite frankly hilarious
The immersive use of audience participation is done excellently. Not only are the cast confident and quite frankly hilarious in their engagement with the audience, it is used in almost every scene, keeping us in the heart of the action throughout the play. At one moment, audiences are asked to get up and participate in the Gay Gordons—one of the most popular, and simple to understand, Scottish Ceilidh dances.
This is brilliantly fun and fitting within Something Blue’s setting of a Scottish wedding. The audience participation, specifically the Scottish Country Dancing, will bring joy to any tourists looking for a fun afternoon out.
Something Blue may not be at the level of the literary masterpieces it references, however it is an incredibly fun 50 minutes created by very talented, young emerging artists from Forth Wall Theatre Company.
Running time: 50 minutes (no interval).
theSpace @ Venue 45, 63 Jeffrey Street EH1 1DH (Venue 45)
Friday 18 – Saturday 16August 2025.
Daily: 2.45pm.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Instagram: @forthwalltheatrecompany
TikTok: @somethingblue.25
Fraser Law Cochran in Something Blue. Pic Fraser Wilson
ENDS
