The Fringe has always surprised audiences with some outright bizarre venue choices, from elevator shafts to swimming pools. Supper continues this trend by being hosted in the upstairs cafe in the Assembly Hall, filled with a never ending bustling crowd either looking at the art or diving off to their next show. It’s not the largest area yet they have managed to find space for up to forty people to sit around four diners sitting at a table eating and chatting and with the aid of headphones each of the audience are able to hear the thoughts of each diner.
The thoughts range from wildly funny to typically mundane discussing their desires, their pleasures and their observations on the strange people staring at them with headphones. They even manage to get in a sly dig at the citizens of Edinburgh who flee the city during Festival time with a comment that is as funny as it is true.
It’s a fascinating idea and good fun but it’s badly let down by some niggling flaws. Instead of having four actors perform as you would expect, the four people differ everyday as they are volunteers who have been tempted with a free hot meal and some wine. This might make financial sense to creator and producer Symon Macintyre but it robs the production of any emotional involvement. The pre-recorded thoughts are discussing matters like a woman falling for a man’s charms, yet what you are watching is a girl stuffing herself on cheese fondue chatting to her female pal. Instances like this make you realise that this isn’t a theatre production, it’s a radio play.
A nice idea but a missed opportunity, surely a better option would be to have two people chatting at a table on a date and flipping between one radio signal and another (a la Silent Disco) tuning into what both of them were thinking.
This could have been incredible but instead this is just middling.
2/5 
Martin Miller
