FringeReview Worldwide 2025
The Best Of
Ellie Higgins
Genre: Experimental Art, Immersive, Interactive, Music
Venue: Gathenhielmska Huset
Festival: FringeReview Worldwide
Low Down
A short immersive experience wherein the audience listens to a mixtape made for them by the artist. Sitting alone in a room, the audience is left to meditate on the memory of music.
Review
I often seek out immersive works at fringes. Usually, the most intriguing pieces are the ones that ditch the traditional theatre space all together and utilize alternative forms of storytelling and the immediacy of the moment to tell its story. The Best Of does just this.
Entering into Gathenhielmska Huset, an old house I’m told was once owned by a pirate (and may be haunted), I am led into a small room with the performer Ellie Higgins. She asks me if I’ve ever attended this style of work — 1:1 theatre. My experience of it is primarily that of Punchdrunk. Which, compared to this, is far more theatrical, scarier, and confounding. Higgins takes away the stress pre-performance. She speaks calmly and gives clear instructions on how to use the CD player. I can imagine less adventerous audiences may be put off by the idea of 1:1 theatre. Higgins assures and comforts. The experience is not scary. Rather, it is deeply introspective. She has made me a mixtape. The lyrics are inside the album if I would like to read along. Once she is sure I’m all set, she leaves and I’m left alone staring out a window onto the streets of Gothenburg. It’s just me and the mixtape Higgins has made for the remainder of the time.
The piece only runs around 20 minutes. We listen to Higgins speak quietly to us. I am cautious to say too much as it would ruin some of the intrigue of the piece. In essence however, the work is about the memory of music. Higgins details to us how music affects her own memory. Music makes her remember important people in her life and key moments. The dialogue is poetic and melodic.
Beyond listening, there are other bits of interactivity. At one point (which I missed somehow), we were invited to eat a small piece of candy. We can look through the other albums in the CD set, including the curiously named “The Best of Gothenburg.” The experience is not just listening to an audio recording, even if that is the primary bit of it. There are more intriguing bits of immersion going on. Albums to flip through. People to watch. To say too much would ruin some of the magic, particularly its final visual.
If you have twenty minutes, The Best Of is a wonderful work of art. It is a meditative journey on the impact of music. It brought a smile to my face. Fringe theatre should embrace more of this kind of work that Higgins has brought to Gothenburg Fringe. It is impossible to forget. Deeply personal, impactful, and introspective.
