FringeReview Scotland 2026
Take Up Space
Lyra
Genre: New Writing, Youth Theatre
Venue: Platform Theatre Easterhouse
Festival: FringeReview Scotland
Low Down
We arrive at a nightclub setting, get stamped on the way in and then find in charge are the young people set to perform a series of observations and fun time seriousness. Going from the stereotypical teenager through the faceless one onto young people prejudicially portrayed negatively, this is an anthem not to Doomed Youth but to ask us to see their abilities, fragilities and potential. But it has a message that goes further than that – see us now, not as your future.
Review
Lyra are giving young people an opportunity which has been embraced to develop an artistic and creative response to their here and now. Based in Craigmiller, Edinburgh which has a rich theatrical tradition that back to Helen and Andrew Crummy, Craigmiller stands in community arts participation as a beacon in its history your actual role in our culture with a unique history. But history is all very well and good but without a future it becomes nauseating nostalgia. Here there is both a vibrancy and vitality. There are some dips but overall, the roller coaster is well worth the journey.
Seeking to use high production values and high concepts, the cast and band are successful in giving us something to chew over. In particular the live band play well with a variety of hits that are far too old for them to remember the first time they came round, but for those of us of a certain vintage had our feet tapping.
The set captures the idea of a cross between a futuristic playground and a nightclub with scaffolding as platforms.
Scripted, this has peaks and troughs with some interesting ideas around how we view teenagers. There is an anarchic feeling to it which captures the spirit but at times fogs up the focus.
There’s a lot of ability on stage which shone in the rap, though I felt there could be a little bit more pace and confidence.
Always with young people’s work, there are some with more confidence than others but that collective joy of wanting those who are less confident to do well shines through here. It is that support structure in communities like Craigmiller that sometimes feels like we have politically lost but should be encouraged when we see it – it’s here.
Choreography is well imagined though some of the set pieces could do with being a little bit more together. The biggest compliment is feeling I can make criticism because I feel that the quality of what this cast do is something that can take it.
You feel the quality of responsibility has brought them not a feeling of privilege or entitlement, rather the opposite, a feeling of preciousness that this is something to be handed over and given up with an invitation to look at it and return it back improved.
Scotsman Fringe firsts adorned the walls of the Craigmiller Festival Society, and it’s great to see that there is a legacy, a future and a platform. Lyra bills itself as Scotland’s first children theatre company. and you can see theoretically why that’s so.
They have created a board that Who Cares Scotland would be proud of that involves former participants and young people aplenty. There is a structure in there that allows young people to have a genuine voice and a way in which a promise should be made kept and may at some point be genuine government policy.
Most importantly what this performance did was to demonstrate that creatively given the means young people can stand on a stage as equals, representing, many dozens more who could benefit from having free access to the creativity that is their right, not their honour, not their privilege.
