Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Temping
Dutch Kills Theater, Wolf 359
Genre: Immersive, Installation Theatre
Venue: Assembly George Square Studios - The Cubicle at Buccleuch Place
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
You have been employed as a temp to take the place of a secretary who you shall discover may be leaving for longer than you might have expected. Upon arrival you sign the contract before someone comes to take you to your desk in a container. It is an office kitted out as if it has just been left by the previous incumbent. You are welcomed to the company, have phone calls and emails with which to deal. There are voice messages in the emails with instructions for you to follow. You then have your printer sending messages that are clearly not for you. By the end of your “day” something sinister is hinted at.
Review
The whole experience is one dependent upon you taking part as if you will be willing to suspend your disbelief. In some ways, cynics need not apply.
You need to engage with the entire experience as some of us will not have spreadsheets with which to conjure or telephone messages form office politicos within which to deal. If you do have this as part of your day and daily, the experience may go a lot quicker.
There are times when it slows to the point of nothing happening for a short period of time.it gave me time to consider my surroundings which were pitch perfect for an office – apart from it being in a container in an Edinburgh side street. At times it can feel as if it drags but it does have a charm and a purpose; the banality of an office job where your principal activity is as an actuary is to register death.
The fact that the numbers you are given as indicators to be changed in your excel document are then sent to you in picture format for your screen and then printed out for you to read from your printer and get to know them has a poignancy.
By the end whatever the company is up to, is obviously not wholesome and that does disturb a little. I would have liked more drama, however, certainly more than a hint of some. I suspect that this was a great idea, which has the issue of attracting an audience where some people struggle with the technology but for those of us who use it all the time, and could cut a few minutes off the running time whilst others are completely comfortable with it but end up being none the wiser than those luddites before or after them.
