Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Go with the Flow
Ethereal Collective
Genre: Cabaret, Comedy, Musical Theatre
Venue: Zoo Playground
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
In joining the gynae guru to find out how music and menstruation match, we have three singers, many songs, one man behind them playing the piano and a 28-day cycle trip… and occasional flood. Songs have been adapted, changed or developed into the narrative, in an engaging period of time, if you pardon another pun, and even if you don’t, what flows is an education for those of us who can’t and release for those who do.
Review
And so, with three microphone stands, minimal props and technical support, apart from the aforementioned piano, this has a lightness of touch which belies the subject matter. At the core of this, there’s more than just a good idea. There are four excellent performers who get into the stride midway through this. It takes time for a structure to fully emerge which resolves some of the meandering.
The problem with the beginning of it is that it lacks some focus. Trying to find your focus as a narrator whilst keeping to a script takes time and the one thing that is clear is that this shall develop, of that I have little doubt. It was the first show, and you can see the buds of a secure performance well planted.
The relationship between the three singers is vital and at times towards the end you saw that supportive look and relationship building which really helped. This feels like three connected parties who just need some security that material works – it does.
It struggled with audience interaction. Rather than abandon it completely, it needs time to settle and for our narrator to simply gain that experience which will come with more performances.
And so, the structure, like regular periods takes us through a 28-day experience of being a woman form the first flush through the 14-day rush and then the repeat is on its way. The set-up leads to the sciency bit. And this is where I felt it worked so well. One of our performers was wrongly diagnosed with polycystic ovaries due to irregular periods and put on the pill as a teenager. It is an all-too-common experience for people who are irregular. Along with her two companions – progesterone and oestrogen one on either side – she ends with how there are so many investigations and studies to look at male genitalia and issues around their “bits” but very few about the cycle that 50% of our population experience. Without screaming it isn’t fair; it is an injustice.
Where it works best on the run up to the serious stuff are the songs – and boy, can these three sing. The mansplaining at the back was also a nice comic interlude. But some of that felt more improvised than rehearsed. I think it could do with building not the role for your piano player, but their contribution – having a man, yet again, attempting to tell women how to feel.
I really enjoyed I will Survive and Here comes the Sun which lifts us to this very serious point towards the end.
And that I suppose is where I find myself not squirming but delighted to have spent the time in this company’s company. I didn’t feel an odd, old man sitting there. It wasn’t until my relationship with women began to develop in my late teens that I discovered that these things happened at all, because I had no sisters at home and had a mother who was very closed off. It was enlightening, but at the same time, it was more than educational. If the first part matches the second half, they have got a fantastic hit on their hands.
