FringeReview Scotland 2025
Hotel Otori Skin-Okubo
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Emergence Festival

Genre: Fringe Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
A performance piece that had a set that was very well constructed and thought through. It had a narrative which was new and different and able to be bought into with a cultural aspect of it, both asking us in the auditorium of what we thought but also examining a different form of cultural activity that we would be unfamiliar with – to an extent. It allowed the solo performance to shine alongside a cast of many in the background, hardly seen, but having a very strong presence for us.
Review
This was a piece that could have fallen in love with itself for its concept as there was a very interesting cultural difference being placed on stage but in a conventional theatrical sense. This was a Japanese love hotel where our protagonist Yui Minari onstage, culturally taking us by the hand through this miasma of moralistic concern and challenge.
As a narrative, this hung together really well. put in charge of the front desk of a love hotel where people come and rent rooms by the hour in order to indulge in some form of sex. Given the job, by her uncle, who now owns this hotel that once belonged to her grandfather, whose father had been in the same position, at the front desk, during college.
There were plenty of parallels and structural notes within that that held your attention and gave it a balance. Rather than having this all explained at the beginning, there was a real revelatory aspect to the narrative in a real structure which was impressive.
The development of different ideas including the relationship with the housekeeper, family relationships, people who had turned up hiring the various rooms for their pleasure, under-age abuse and how you deal with gay couples in 2025, all added to make this a more rounded performance piece because the script was so strong.
It was also very well directed and within a set with frosted glass so you couldn’t see the people in respect of their dignity and privacy, it added to the seedy nature of it all. But what was particularly impressive as I sat there in the smallest audience of the night only to realise by the end that the majority of the audience who had sat for all the other shows were now on stage playing the people coming into the hotel! It meant that you had a real feeling of a rounded piece of a cast of many. That cast played their part brilliantly because instead of just standing there, they were in the middle of the frosted glass integrating the voice and the grunts and the groans of the audio track into their movement so that you get a real sense that what you were seeing through that frosted glass, though you couldn’t see it perfectly, was a perfectly pitched person come to use the facility.
At the end, there was a short picture display projected on screen of what I presume was Minari’s grandfather, father and family, which gave it a real sense of questioning whether it was based on the truth, or it was simply something that had been procured in order to perform. That was something that was really interesting. It gave it another level and like a performance which really did capture your attention.
Hotel Otori Skin-Okubo was, for me, quite a revelation. A shout out does go to the use of the non-verbal housekeeper who, like Peanuts and Charlie Brown (Google it!), managed to give us that off-stage authority and commentary, allowing Minari to translate it for us all on stage.
The only thing I would suggest was Minari’s character seemed to be initially surprised by the nature of the hotel, but by the middle part of the script, it was quite clear that she understood what it was and what was happening there. That naivety at the beginning perhaps could be subsumed into a naivety at another level on another thing. This was interesting and got the laughs when it was a couple who turned up who didn’t know what they were going into and having to phone the front desk to find out about the “amenities” and their sterilisation status – don’t Google that…
Overall, I left really glad that I got the opportunity to see this and will certainly be looking out for Yui Minari who managed to impress me so much in the future.