Let’s talk about sex: 9 shows about doing the deed to see at the Fringe

The List / Gareth K. Vile


From the truly smutty to the uproariously funny, these Fringe shows aren’t afraid to get between the sheets. Sex, of course, was designed as a reproductive strategy and became a way for humans to experience intimacy that words just can’t express. Capitalism weaponised it as a commodity, and theatre-makers use it variously to open up discussions of desire and equality, emotion and morality–or attract audiences hoping to get a cheap thrill. While the Fringe has far greater problems with deadly sins other than lust (pride and greed making up the subtext of many press releases), some shows want to have a word about the wonderful world of human sexuality.

It isn’t as easy to find shows explicitly about sex in the Fringe brochure as it is to find revivals of Greek classical tragedy: plenty of shows have a subtext, but there is little that appeals straight to the libido. There are more shows about social media, so perhaps humanity has finally evolved to a point where interacting with computers is more thrilling than encountering another physical being.

 

Lovecraft (Not the Sex Shop in Cardiff)

Despite the cheeky title, Carys Eleri gets into the neuroscience of love and loneliness, working with a real neuro-scientist and a former member of 4Hero. Since it includes a song called Tit Montage and concludes that hugging is the answer, sexual content is mildly indicated. Conceived and written by Mark Jeary, Blackout is, in part, a response to his own battle with alcoholism. He goes further though, in a verbatim text which examines common attitudes to alcoholism and alcoholics to argue just how outdated they are, while showing how much other elements such as gender impact on alcoholism and those it.