Edinburgh Fringe 2025
All In
Idle Hive Studios
Genre: Drama, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Greenside: George St
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
All In is a two-hander about love, power and the fallout of addiction. Before the new name. Before the clean slate. There’s one night left to face everything that still hurts. On the eve of entering witness protection, Henry and Marianne are allowed a final reckoning. Locked in a pressure cooker of memory and desire, they pick at wounds that never healed.
Review
Two people. One night. A final meeting before one of them disappears. That’s the frame for All In, and it’s a good one. Henry (Daniel Cuckow) is about to enter witness protection. Marianne (Imogen Strachan) arrives, knowingly breaking the rules, for one last night together. From the start, we sense there’s more going on than nostalgia, how has she even found him? What begins as a farewell quickly turns into a reckoning as they pick over the wreckage of their shared past, revisiting love, betrayal, and the things that went wrong.
The play moves between present and past in a series of short episodic scenes. The flashbacks chart the decline of their relationship after two life-changing events: Marianne, a high-flying lawyer, is signed off work following a serious accident; Henry is suspended from his job for allegedly stealing from his company. Bored, bruised, and looking for distraction, Marianne drifts into online gambling. Gradually the story of what really happened emerges.
Strachan is also the writer and has created sharp economical dialogue that rings true in the ways that couples bicker, deflect, and circle the truth. In performance the chemistry between the two performers is comfortably natural. They navigate the shifting loyalties and blame of their relationship with skill – one moment we’re sure Henry is the victim, the next Marianne, until the final twist completely upends expectations.
The show benefits from a simple domestic set which works across both fields of conflict, Daniel’s secret home and their earlier one with the additional costume and props set either side and visible, thus making the scene shifts as smooth as they can be.
However, the episodic structure, while effective for showing the gradual unravelling of their lives, also gradually disrupts the build-up of tension. The costume changes in low light are handled deftly, clearly carefully thought out with the actors staying visually connected to each other, rather than a black out, but the frequency and duration take just long enough to risk losing momentum – always a danger in a fringe-length drama. A more streamlined approach to telling the backstory could heighten the emotional stakes and keep the audience fully gripped.
At the heart of All In is an important and under-explored subject: gambling addiction in women, often quiet, insidious, and easily missed until the damage is done. The play shows the financial impact of Marianne’s addiction; however, there is scope to extend the play into more depth – what caught her eye and started it, how was she drawn in, why did it become impossible to manage? That emotional detail could make her journey even more compelling.
With strong performances, a layered script, and a topic rarely tackled on stage, All In shows real promise. It’s a relationship drama with the bones of a crime thriller – with the potential to dig even deeper.
