Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Dribble
Cênica, part of the São Paulo Showcase 2026
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Underbelly George Square
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The performance begins in the queue as the door opens and out come the performers into the street. Singing in Portuguese with such bright verve, they take you inside, let you settle and then begin an exploration of how football has been a background to the connections between our two countries. That background is then used, with the famous dribble, to show how life has been affected and connected by the way we navigate, we dribble, through what life throws our way.
Review
Last year, Cênica were relaxing with the cultural attaché from the Brazilian consulate and discovered that football had come to Brazil thanks to a Charles Miller, son of a Scottish father. Their research then took them around not just the arrival of football in Brazil but
its cultural significance which struck a chord with Scotland. From there the five meetings between the two countries in the World Cup were an easy step providing a platform upon which Cênica contemplated how life and sport mingled in both tartan and the yellow and green of Brazil. This is celebrated in Dribble in an explosion of dance, music, celebration and diversity.
Cênica develop collective theatre from the place in which they find themselves. That influence, the connection between them as creatives and the places that they find themselves has been mercilessly mined here to great effect. It is a delight and just enough, in a skilled way, to keep pertinent and effective.
It works well considering the space in which they work. Coming outside expands their horizons and their connections – they are the same as the audience. It is a joyful combination and subversion of the theatrical form, allowing us all to be part of this experience in a way that is not only authentic, but very engaging.
This is not a narrative form but a thematic one as we go through how football arrived in Brazil through Charles Miller, the number of other Scots that spread the gospel of football across the country and how the games between the two countries have led to some in Brazil believing that if Brazil plays Scotland in the World Cup they won’t win it! Given that this is true, I learned we were Brazil’s bogey team! What a treat to see oursels as ithers see us!
This has a very strong ensemble feel. All of the actors interact strongly. A surprising element of it is the emergence of a drag member of the team who is a little older than the rest. That is surprising because in a sense you expect prejudiciously at least for that person to be the more conservative of them all. It underpinned the message here that sports and football bring us together and opens the doors for us all. Of course, the reality for people of LGBTQIA+ is that they don’t necessarily have a welcome mat put out at a training ground but here at least they’re invited in.
The biggest issue is the venue. It does not feel like a bar where people meet. It feels like a representation of a bar where people meet, though the audio and visual projection of the games in the background as well as the translations as it is a bilingual production works. However, because people are in front of the projection shadows cause a problem though at one point there is a very poignant scene in shadow, which works exceptionally well.
They do fill the space and when they invited people to come up and dance with them there was an enthusiasm from the audience which demonstrated the relationship was very well established and had crossed that cultural divide.
Its greatest power is in how the intersection with life is portrayed. The poignancy where one of the actors talks about the loss of his father during rehearsals for this particular performance has us all in the palm of his hands. It demonstrated that this joy and the exuberance are merely a drawing of us in so that they could whack us with an emotional sucker punch, almost like a 95th minute winner.
For people who don’t like football, Dribble is perfect, because what it does is it draws you in to think of the cultural connections between us all. The stage, pitch and the gathering place are where we share our stories and come together in the celebration of something outside of us. Dribble is a great example of how we should always be open to the idea of other’s and how we treat people.
