Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Suitcase Show
Trick of the Light Theatre
Genre: Multimedia, Theatre
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Trick of the Light Theatre company, creators of past Edinburgh Fringe hit The Bookbinder, are back with another winner. Their new work, Suitcase Show, is an eclectic but thematically connected collection of short stories that wow from start to finish. Featuring Ralph McCubbin Howell and Hannah Smith, with memorable appearances by Anya Tate-Manning and Richard Falkner.
Review
How lucky we are that New Zealand company Trick of the Light Theatre has returned to Edinburgh once again, and this time with not one but two shows. Double the pleasure, double the fun.
Back for a repeat run is their spellbinding The Bookbinder, the brilliant and magical children’s show that has the ability to enchant both children and their parents. For four performances it is being performed in Tills Bookshop near Summerhall, and lucky are those who have tickets to see the show in that perfect setting.
For those who can’t bribe their way into The Bookbinder in the book shop, fret not, for there’s a superb consolation prize: Suitcase Show. Like The Bookbinder, Suitcase Show wows its audience with its endlessly inventive staging and engaging storytelling. And what stories they are: an eclectic collection of short tales that reveal themselves to be related in a surprising and wicked way by show’s end.
Ralph McCubbin Howell plays a slightly bedraggled traveller stuck in the living purgatory known as border patrol, and he has not packed lightly. Piles of suitcases of various sizes surround the traveller, and the bored border patrol agent (Hannah Smith, delivering every one of her no-nonsense lines perfectly) insists on seeing and scanning the contents of each and every piece of luggage, all while two of her colleagues (Anya Tate-Manning and Richard Falkner) can be seen on CCTV slacking off in a side room.
The mysterious traveller thus begins opening the suitcases. Each contains its own story, and each is told in a different style. The variety is dazzling, including miniature trains, school projectors, shadow puppetry, and a hilarious pair of hand puppets. All are adroitly handled by Howell, who is never less than mesmerizing.
One of the best aspects of Suitcase Show is that you never know what’s coming next, which is why to be more specific about the individual suitcase stories would spoil the fun. Suffice it to say that boredom is very much kept at bay in this gorgeously conceived show that is like no other in the Edinburgh Fringe. One final thought: Best to get in line for this show early and get a seat on the first or second row. For Suitcase Show, given the small sizes of much of the wonderful art work, closer is better.
