There are raucous teenage kicks in Summerhall’s fringe programme this year, which includes school disco comedy VL and house-party drama The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return. Julia Grogan’s Playfight brings a similar mix of adolescent swagger and insecurity then branches out by following its central friendship for 10 years beyond GCSEs. That sweep means it poignantly combines the rush to become an adult ASAP with the sudden surprise that, as one character says, “the more we grow the more I feel like I’m shrinking”.
This is one of those shows where you sense within a minute that you are in safe hands as each element is so assured. Hazel Low’s set, lit by Kate Bonney, has a hot pink ladder for a tree, placed in a bed of wood chips. Roly Botha’s sound design charges up the Roundabout space and Emma Callander’s pacy staging for Grace Dickson Productions and Theatre Uncut is blessed with three actors who immediately command the stage (movement direction by Aline David).
