Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Never Get To Heaven In An Empty Shell
Fruitful Productions
Genre: One Person Show, Theatre
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard - Bunker Three
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Claud is stuck in a dead end job as a ghost tour guide and grieving the loss of her father. Surrounded by death she floats through her life without actually living it, fantasising about what inanimate object she can kill herself with. ‘I think about how, if humanly possible, I can kill myself with a lime.’ A deeply funny and deeply relatable fringe debut set in the depths of the Northern Line.
Review
Never get to Heaven in an Empty Shell is a raw, relatable and hilarious journey through a young woman’s grieving traumatised mind and the ghostly London public transport system.
We’ve all known what it feels like to be stuck, not knowing how to lurch ourselves forward into brighter times. Claud is in it, it’s the anniversary of her Dad’s death, she can’t stop thinking about killing herself with inanimate objects and she may or may not be a lesbian, this year. Not only does she have to contend with a dead end job that she hates and ghostly encounters from wayward spirits but she’s also being forced to wear the ugliest jumper on the planet, courtesy of her sister.
We follow Claud as she descends into the depths of her psyche and down the longest tube escalator in London. Deathly spirits rub up against crowds of tourists as Claud tries to move onwards. But will onwards ever turn into upwards?
Beautifully and cleverly written and performed by Claud(ia) Fielding under the subtle yet quirky eye of director Anna Rastelli. A story stitched and knotted together through memories and keepsakes as Claud tries to free herself from this never ending limbo. We see how time and time again she tries to use wit and sarcasm to cover the chasm of her own loss and subsequent loss of feeling. Her Dad has been gone for 10 years and everyone else seems to have moved on. Why can’t she? Maybe because she hasn’t cried yet?
The hour races by with the twists and turns of this compelling story with Fielding having us laughing one second and on the verge of tears the next. Her characterisation and story telling ability is as hilariously captivating as her costume choices and this reviewer is astounded that this is her Fringe debut.
The Pleasance Bunkers can be notoriously hard spaces to transform but Fielding masterfully transports you through space and time with limited technical assistance apart from the excellent, uplifting musical composition (also supplied by Rastelli). She doesn’t need it and you don’t need to comfortably sit by her side as she shows you her world. The space itself does lend itself nicely though to the cavern-like damp gloom of the London Underground.
This one woman show is a gentle smash around the face for you to wake up and face your Angels. It encourages the audience to assess themselves, but without taking it too seriously. To listen to the quiet voices in dark places, as they may speak the most sense, and not to look directly at the bright light for too long without considering the consequences.
Fielding and Rastelli, with support from the Seven Dials Playhouse, are a great team on this delicately balanced piece. A tale that is so full of heart without being preachy and covering some very serious topics with ironic humour that never stays into trivialisation. The ending is delightfully vague and allows for the audience to make their own interpretation. But for me whichever way the story ends for Claud, she definitely ends up in a better place.
Fielding is the oddball left field droll hero we all need in our lives. A rising star that you’d be an idiot not to stare directly at for extended periods of time.
