FringeReview Scotland 2025
The Kelton Hill Fair
Wonderfools in association with Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival and Up Your Airts
Genre: Drama, Fringe Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Tron Theatre.
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
The storyline gives us recognisable characters with a clear and important focus to the issues of trauma-based childhood. Directed with skill, it alludes to the fantasy of the Fair, with all the theatrical trimmings of the ancient skill of oral storytelling. Technically, it feels a little clumsy, hemmed in by curtains and choices over how to present the Fair.
Review
Flo is a young woman who has a past. That past, suggested by her foster mother, spells trouble with a capital T. Coupled with that, she faces a teacher who is representative of many educationalists within schools the length and breadth of the UK, who believe that trouble with a capital T should be on the outside of the school gates, not inside being educated. There is a police man who has a very different take on how to deal with Flo, as he has “experience” in working with young people.
Sitting in a nondescript room, waiting for somebody to turn up to chair the meeting from social work, who will allow, hopefully, an opportunity for Flo to say what she wants to say, Flo leaves and escapes. Away from that claustrophobic room. She has had the trauma of a lost friend who committed suicide, and a secret that she doesn’t want to tell quite yet.
She meets on the way a mysterious figure offering to take her one step beyond reality. To a Fair that only appears for one night only, once a year. And that night… in she goes along with a new friend, Lizzie, to a fantasy world is inhabited by the Gypsy King himself, Billy Marshall, feminist writer Lady Florence Dixie, the National Bard Robert Burns and serial killer William Hare.
Once we get into the fantasy it’s about game changing and this game changing is about Flo recognizing and realizing that rather than running away from her problems she needs to go back and face them: she needs to go back and look the man straight in the eye who attempted to abuse her and call him out for who he is.
The narrative structure works relatively well with fantasy woven into Flo’s reality to find new perspective. It opens our eyes to the possibilities not just of forgiveness but of understanding. We have a story interspersed with authenticity from the young collaborators and the apprentices who’ve worked on this.
That shines not least from Laura Lovemore as Lizzie and Ava Hickey as Flo. These are easy roles to turn into cliché partly because the clichéd view of the traumatized child in care is one, we know well it is portrayed lazily all the time. However, over the last few years, new perspectives and thanks to things like The Promise, we are beginning to see the emergence of more nuanced and informed portrayal. There is a very real reason why we need to engage increasingly with children and young people who have gone through this type of experience but also those who have a different perspective to bring to bear.
I found it unsurprising that Hickey plays Flo so well given the fact that she is part of the Showmen’s Theatre Company and obviously has a connection not with the ne’er-do-wells but with people who see life very differently from the standard run-of-the-mill, straight-down-the-middle pathway expectation that our authorities often throw at children and young people rather than attempting to help them understand what it is that they should be engaging with.
The rest of the cast bring tremendous expertise not least Perri Snowdon playing a very dramatic and engaging pair of characters – a politically correct (ed) policeman then serial killer William Hare. That breadth and depth brings such value, and it is helped greatly by Julie Wilson Nimmo not just being the out of patience foster mum but also being Lady Dixie being able to switch between somebody who doesn’t understand to somebody who understands too well.
Billy Marshall, played by Sam Stopford, the Romany figurehead of the past then the Independent Reviewing Officer who comes in at the end to allow Flo the opportunity to tell the truth while shutting up the goody-two-shoes policeman and the overbearing or authoritarian creep that’s the teacher. Michael Donaghy manages both that teacher and Burns with distinction, allowing us to believe that one may well have a relationship with hogmagandie that is to be tutted at and the other has a relationship with it that should be more than just condemned.
I have been quite a fan of Nurse’s direction for some time and here he manages to keep this flow going with a number of set pieces – the whole shadow theatre of Hare’s crimes – striking. This was a bold imaginative attempt to do something different and for that should be applauded. The engagement locally in Dumfriesshire with the young people is to be lauded. It gave this real of having heft and rigour in terms of authenticity. To allow young people to have that opportunity, to see their work developed from the beginning right through to the point being performed onstage in the Tron is just fantastic.
The songs were fantastic. They managed to weave themselves into the narrative, and in particular, my favourite was Hare’s song. That had storytelling and drama throughout – simply loved it.
Less impressive, for me, was the set. It was a little clumsy. Drawing curtains to keep some things hidden or to be a backdrop to the original discussion, even with lighting used, did not provide a comfortable backdrop. Costumes, however, were well imagined I particularly liked the west coast “in joke” of King Billy being the man who is in charge of the Fair whilst his ardent follower happens to have a Ranger’s tap oan – they were the peeepel!
This was more than a well worthy piece of theatre. It brought new theatrical exploration to the stage, and Wonderfools should be applauded once again, being innovative and expansive whilst also being inclusive.
