Roots

The flyer had a picture of the sea on it, all I really needed to be tempted.

The programme for the Fringe, the festival running alongside the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Festival, is daunting in its thickness.  I no longer even pretend I’m going to read it.  But I do like to see something on the Fringe in between events in Charlotte Square.

This year my choice was Roots of the afore-mentioned flyer, a one-woman show featuring Elisabeth Flett.  And when I say it was a one-woman show, I mean it.  Elisabeth wrote the script, composed the score, sang, played, and spoke.

Her subject was home and her starting point was exchanging a small Scottish seaside town for London at the age of seventeen.  She mused on identity, on belonging and on the grief of losing her place as she considered what home is and whether one can ever truly return.

Elisabeth’s performance was confident and accomplished; the music was haunting; the show contained moments of wry humour, shared guilt and collective memory.  Roots made me remember, ponder and celebrate my home.  To be there was a joy, a joy that I hope will be repeated in coming years.