Dispatches from The Fringe – A charming Flaneurs pulls its punches

The Examiner / CHRIS O'ROURKE


In playing in a lecture room at Summerhall, Flaneurs has found its natural home. Described as a piece of live art theatre, Flaneurs is indeed highly theatrical, but ultimately feels like a charming, if lightweight lecture.

A Flaneur – someone who likes to ramble around a city in order to really get to know it – provides writer and performer Jenna Watt with a central idea from which to approach her subject matter. Namely, why people don’t intervene when faced with violent crime. Watts’ one woman show appears to serve as something of a personal catharsis as it recounts Watts’ reflections and conclusions following a violent assault on a friend in London. With much of the performance spent unpacking concepts such as psycho geography and bystander effect a didactic tone gradually crept in. But the research felt flimsy with relevant issues such as flight fight response and media coverage of the have-a-go- hero never properly discussed. Add to that the anecdotal evidence that just wasn’t strong enough to support a compelling argument and the result was that the shows conclusion just didn’t stand up to any serious scrutiny.

Yet despite these shortcomings, Watt’s performance skills, when brought into play, were first rate, leaving you wanting more theatre and less talk. Her clever use of a swing, of overhead acetates and a toy giraffe show her to be an incredibly talented theatre artist. And for the Flaneur in all of us, Summerhall as a theatre space revelaed itself to be an unexpected treasure.