It wouldn’t be Edinburgh Fringe without at least one play about a zombie apocalypse , Broken Bottle Theatre make their Fringe debut with Eleanor McMahon’s Strays, a predominantly four-hander exploring toxic masculinity and themes of mental health.
A series of newsflashes bring us up to speed, a virus has spread quickly across the globe leaving the infected as the walking undead. Four friends have managed to survive for a year since the outbreak, living in the relative comfort of a basement flat. But their stock of supplies is being stolen and this causes suspicion and discontent within the once tight-knit group.
We learn that there was a fifth member of the group, but what exactly happened to Jack is a secret that seems to be known by only three members of the group.
If Jamie is the group’s, slightly tyrannical, leader then it’s Logan who is their moral compass. Between checking their shed for intruders, misogynistic and homophobic jokes are cracked in typical ‘laddish’ style. But Logan rails against this culture which is permeating the tight living quarters.
McMahon’s script successfully keeps the audience in suspense, while at the same time highlighting the issue with four men trapped together, experiencing the same problems, without being able to actually speak to each other about it.
Euan Reid is suitably terrifying as the unhinged Jamie; barking orders at Alistair (Jordan Monks) and Danny (Aidan Curley). As Logan, Dylan Baxendale finds the nuance between trying to improve relations in the group and disillusioned subordinate.
Strays, directed by Andrew Nimmo, does a nice job of using the zombie apocalypse as a device to interrogate these very urgent themes that are affecting so many young men today. There’s just a little too much going on at any one time, with too many plot threads that struggle to be satisfactorily resolved in the running time.
Strays is a violent, loud and complex play that takes an often used trope and adds a new perspective to it. Overall this is a strong, and very promising, debut from this emerging company.
