A gentle morning romp through history, and a look at why we remember who we do
Mary has been one of the most popular girls name in Britain for the last five hundred years. Over that time many heroines, villains, scientists, and cut-throats with the name Mary have been born, and only some of them have gotten the time they deserved in the history books spotlight. Bloody Mary(s) asks us the simple question: Which would you bring along to a picnic? And in the process of answering that, perhaps we may rethink how we remember those from the past, and how differently women often take up (or don’t) the spotlight.
Created by Bluefire Theater, who previously had appeared at fringe with the hit “Chopped Liver and unions”, a personal favourite, you can expect some audience participation, a lot of fun history anecdotes and plenty of surprises about the Marys you thought you already knew. As a one woman show Lottie Walker acts as a welcoming host to the party and as a friendly guide to these women’s lives. The historical anecdotes are always interesting and surprising, often these famous women have a darker or at least a more complex side to their story, or the villains like Mary Read have an almost admirable quality to them – breaking the glass ceiling on cut throat piracy. Lottie never makes learning dull, and always surprised with pacing and a few twists in the format of the show. From music rounds, to quick fire Marys, neither the show’s structure itself nor the Marys ever get boring.
For most of our time we get to hear about these Marys from Lottie, assisted by props and at times an unruly set, before being asked whether we’d like said person to join for our picnic. Although the audience interaction is relaxed and sparse, it serves a role in making us question who we and others think are worthy of the ‘picnic’ of history. It is all too easy to include the great nurses, and politicians but people don’t seem as interested in having a swashbuckling highway woman or pirate, something I do doubt if this was a show about men from history. It is prehaps less intense, less challenging than other grander pieces of historical theatre at the fringe, or even previous productions by Bluefire theater. These are things I found myself missing, Lottie and the writer J.J Leppink have a way with connecting history as part of a larger narrative that hasn’t quite ended with you yet, this show was less about history in an of itself (despite barrage of interesting facts) but about how we engage and choose who is worth remembering. At the 10:30am timeslot it is a gentle, adventurous start to your day that will at worst leave you knowledge about approximately 60 Marys from history, but it might just make you question why you know, who you know from history, and leave you curious about who have you been missing out on.
Bloody Mary(s) is on almost every day, at various times and locations throughout Edinburgh fringe apart from 16th and 23-26th of August. Tickets here.