Edinburgh Fringe 2026

Operation Market Garden

Lizzy Lane for Inspired Theatre Company

Genre: Historical, Theatre, Verbatim Theatre

Venue: The Space @ Surgeons' Hall

Festival: Edinburgh Fringe

Low Down

Review

This Inspired Theatre Company production sees Izzy Lane’s dramatisation of her great-grandfather’s 1944 diary brought to life. Verbatim theatre which sees Neville Neads, a Welsh paratrooper, captured by the Nazis at the Battle of Arnhem.

There are dramatically intertwined characters played by a cast of multi-role actors. We see young soldiers who are keen to get out and serve their country and join others like them already at the front. Whilst these stories have been told frequently over the years, the intimacy of Lane’s treatment of Neville’s diary shows a reverence and relatability rarely seen in a wartime story at all. Even more impressive is that it is told by such a young cast and their multi-talented, all-female creative team.

As audiences enter the auditorium, they are met by a solitary seated soldier, head in hands, on a darkened stage. The play opens with this figure rising to his feet and, without introduction or spotlight, beginning to speak to us of his wartime experiences. A soft spotlight illuminates him as we shift to a post-war now, where he is comforted by his wife Mair, played by Lane herself. Mair is tea and sympathy personified as she gently navigates her husband’s unfolding traumas. It is this stylised treatment of the verbatim genre that draws us into the characters’ lives. It does not feel at all like a documentary, nor a reminiscence, nor a nostalgic retelling. Clever choices are made, allowing the actors to use first-person narrative voices in past and present tenses, alongside third-person reflections. These are some of the elements making this such an intimate piece of theatre.

Further clever directorial decisions see Mair ask questions of her husband, thrown out to him across land and sea, as we are the voyeurs of him and his battalion asleep around her feet.

The ambience of the play is well-considered. A soundscape has been created with seemingly incessant rain, occasional gunshots, cries and other battle cacophonies. These never overpower, but provide a credible audio backdrop. One advantage of a wartime setting is that actors can move themselves and the set and props around the stage as noisily as they choose, because it only adds to the authenticity of the setting.

Without wanting to give too much away, but as may be expected when in the audience of a Second World War story, some of our heroes die on the battlefield or in POW camps. Neville’s pages describe his emotional reactions to these distressing losses. As characters are lost to war, their voices are lent to us as a new narrative perspective and sometimes give us access to Neville’s inner voice. At moments these voices speak to our protagonist; at others they speak of him. In one haunting moment, their voices are silent, but their eerily comforting presence is seen while Mair reads her letters to her husband, who spent more than a year away from his beloved Welsh home. Some of the losses described in haunting detail by her husband are too much even for the stalwart that is Mair.

There are moments at which the floorwork in Theatre 3 of The Space at Surgeons’ Hall does not lend itself well to an audience in level seating. Perhaps this could be adapted for raked and non-raked venues, so that audience members don’t lose sight of facial expressions and physicality of the actors.

This talented young cast have been thoughtfully directed through dramatic scenes, including air raids, the clink (solitary confinement in a POW camp), the battlefield and finally hospitals and hotels on their way home. Some of the more challenging scenes, in which we accompany our paras on painfully long journeys, as described in Neads’ journal entries, would test even the most seasoned actors. Director Izzy Driscoll and Assistant Director, actor and producer Izzy Lane seem to have coped well with these hurdles.

Macsen Llewelyn does an admirable job of portraying Nev’s myriad fears, desperate, hopeless moments of darkness, and his uplifting buoyancy with his friends and comrades. Harry Davies’ omnipresence as Pat lends a warmth and pathos to many scenes. David Ruston’s portrayal of Colonel Frost feels authentic and he gives him the air of respectability and honour that Nev’s descriptions deserve.

Overall, this was an accomplished opening night for this Fringe run. Audiences across generations are offered a rare and poignant window into scenes long past but forgotten and scenes which may have hoped never to have to witness or diarise again..

Published August 18, 2026 by Deborah Nicholson