Clean

Traverse

16/18/21/23/24 Aug

9.00

£14 (inc. b’fast)

Throughout the Festival, the Traverse is offering on alternate mornings, two plays directed by in-houise artistic director, Orla O’Loughlin. Alongside ‘A Respectable Woman Takes to Vulgarity,’ this new play by the young & highly talented Sabrina Mahfouz is a compelling start to the flow of inspiration that the crowds are said to recieve in Edinburgh during August. I first encountered the abilities of ms. Mahfouz two years ago, when she wrote & starred in a one-woman show.  Roll on two years & she has divided her voice into three, played with great spirit by Nadia Clifford, Chloe Massey and Rosie Wyatt.

They play three classy female criminals, who are ‘clean’ in the fact that they leave behind no blood, guts & corpses. After various monologues introduce the characters, they are brought together & plunged into a Lock-Stock style caper which is brought to life in our imagination through the poetic wordplay & relentless engergy of Mahfouz’s writing.  As I watched I felt I was in the audience of Pesistratan Athens, watching the Rhapsodes unfold the lays of Homer, that timeless  blend of narrative & theatre that has been reborn in this very modern, & yet very classical play. FOUR STARS

Reviewer – Damo Bullen