The Bear
★★★★☆ Fast and furious
Royal Scots Club (Venue 241): Mon 10 – Sat 15 Aug 2026
Review by Julia Amour
Chekov called his own short play, The Bear, a ‘stupid vaudeville’, but it takes smarts and sass to really bring it to life after nearly 140 years, and this production delivers hilariously.
Ladling on the melodrama, hysteria and slapstick is a bold choice for director Alexander Cook, and it pays off thanks to the sizzling energy of the principals and a classic comic turn as the faithful retainer.
Jenna Donoghue and Nicholas Thorne in a publicity shoot for The Bear. Pic: Robin Mair Photography
The Bear (aka the Boor) is great ham-fisted country squire Greg (Steven Croall), who comes crashing into a house of mourning to demand its mistress pay off her late husband’s debt.
The luscious young widow Poppy (Jenna Donoghue) has committed deeply to her grieving – burying herself away despite the pleas of her aged butler Luke (Nicholas Thorne) to look to the future, and performatively swearing to remain loyal to her faithless husband even unto death.
She gets her kicks from observing herself with a little hand mirror to see how sensational she looks in her veiled splendour. Stretched out on her chaise longue, she looks like nothing so much as an influencer making a ‘get ready with me’ post about becoming the perfect late nineteenth century widow (kudos to Kate Stevenson for the gorgeous costume design).
passions
Enter Croall, excellent as a man of near-uncontrollable passions, with sinews strained and fists clenched as he strives to retain his civility despite his desperation for the money he’s owed. He must have it today to redeem his own debts, he explains, or he will have to hang himself tomorrow. Nothing to be done, says the widow, as she cannot pay until her steward returns.
Wittily written as the script is, at this point the play can become something of a marathon as this stand-off basically continues for about half an hour.
cap
Cook’s decision is to play things fast and furious, with frantic movement and physical pratfalls heavily reliant on first-rate comic timing. He makes complex demands of the set and lighting and is well served in the delivery by Richard Spiers and Gordon Hughes.
Croall seems perfectly at home as a credibly adorable big lunk with simple rules for living and an inbuilt mistrust of women; having experience, he candidly admits, of being turned down by nine of them. Donoghue too is magnificent in her fury at being treated with such disrespect, and more than a match for Croall’s manic energy as she demands that they duel it out with a pair of her husband’s pistols.
The dialogue feels fresh and authentic in their hands. While the Bear starts to wonder what he’s doing threatening to kill this passionate, vivacious creature, the young widow too gets the chance in this version to notice his manly physique after her months of self-imposed abstinence – so when their loathing suddenly turns to lust it seems highly plausible.
a classic treat
There is a very slight delay to Thorne’s final entrance as Luke the butler to seal the slapstick denouement, though this should be easily remedied. Elsewhere, his performance is a classic treat with quivering gait and strangulated tones recalling such titans of the British and Scottish comedy canon as Manuel, Mrs Overall and Rikki Fulton’s Reverend I.M. Jolly.
As Chekov no doubt recognised, despite his dismissiveness, pure farce has its place of honour in the theatrical tradition. It would be too much of a stretch to look deeply for satirical meaning, but in sending up furious preconceptions and performative shallowness this version does a great job of giving us a modern, fresh and funny take on the venerable social comedy.
Royal Scots Club, (Hepburn Suite), 29-31 Abercromby Place EH3 6QE (Venue 241).
Monday 10 – Saturday 15 August 2026.
Daily: 8.10pm.
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
EGTG website: theegtg.com
Facebook: @edingrads
Instagram: @edingrads
ENDS
