Catharsis like you’ve never known it before
It is impossible to hide in the audience of CVNT. Embodying an exuberantly fashioned vulva with an appetite for radical confessions, Sophie Power stalks onto the stage oozing infectious glee. Power is a master of commanding a room, her twinkling gaze and gloriously uninhibited physicality drawing in even the most reluctant onlookers. CVNT encourages the audience to voice exactly what they see before them, welcoming tentative offerings from the audience with delight. Yet this also prefaces the show with an emphasis on the importance of choosing affirmative language to speak about ourselves, an undertone which blooms beautifully across the performance.
In an expertly paced series of audience interactions, Power teases out admissions of repressed enemies, neglected desires, anatomical misconceptions, secret misdeeds – you name it. Demonstrating immense skill at meeting her audience where they are, Power responds with whipsmart wit to whatever she is given, meanwhile never completely making her audience the butt of the joke. Instead, CVNT leads its audience to laugh in the face of shame and suppression – the feeling of having nowhere to hide is swiftly replaced with another: there is nothing to hide.
Maximising on the sense of empowerment she so effectively commands, Power soon has her audience releasing pent-up resentments and insecurities through her brilliantly raucous chants and rituals. This is a testament to Power’s generosity as a performer, offering audiences a glimpse into the world of Gaullier-style bouffon clowning and radical self expression which she has so brilliantly developed into her CVNT persona.
With Power’s versatile skillset and CVNT’s commitment to including all audience members indiscriminately comes an exciting variation between each performance. It is absolutely worth seeing this show not just one but two, even three times as each experience will unleash a new facet of CVNT’s liberatory charm. One thing is for sure, you will be moved to leave behind the voice of shame, taboo and doubt in the Assembly Box theatre, and emerge having rediscovered one that unapologetically seeks delight – as Power puts it – the c*nt within us all.
Reviewed by Ella Thornburn on 06/08/26
Fringe Listing: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/cvnt
LISTING INFORMATION:
Venue: The Box @ Assembly George Square
Dates: 5th – 31st August (not 13, 20, 27)
Time: 20:20, 65 mins
Ticket Prices: £17.00 (Concessions £16.00)
Age restrictions: 16+
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / http://www.edfringe.com