Edinburgh Fringe: Electric Eden, Electric Circus/Pleasance Pop-up, review: ‘Never quite electrifying’

Last year, Not Too Tame had a hit with a show in a pub; now the young ensemble are doing a site-specific ‘party-theatre’ in a disused house

This is a rave with a reason, ultimately protesting the gentrification that comes with corporate greed

Get your neon facepaint on and grab a drink from the bar: Electric Eden takes places in the Electric Circus nightclub, and the audience is swept up in the fun. But this is partying with intent: a protest rave, designed to celebrate the life, and demonstrate against the death, of local character and beloved grandfather Tommy Eden. He died after being roughly moved on from his busking spot by security guards; this 87-year-old eccentric didn’t fit with aspirational image of a swanky new spa.

Enraged at the way their town is slowly being stripped of its heart and soul by greedy developers, a gang of local young people set-up their protest party in building opposite said spa, blasting out music to wind up the corporate suits and hoping to go viral on social media. Sat around the edge of dancefloor, the audience are occasionally gently drawn into the action – I’m quite happy to be taken for a little twirl around the club – but between the down-the-decades dancefloor fillers, we also get to know the individuals making up this protest.

The focus is largely on a young couple, expecting a baby but still living with parents because they’re so strapped for cash, and the prickly exchanges between a local lad determined to provide for his family even if that means working three jobs, and an idealistic graduate convinced we need to overhaul society rather than just looking out for our own. Electric Eden forms a convincing look at a close community bowed under bigger problems: the housing crisis, austerity, a lack of opportunities for young people, the unstoppable tentacles of corporate greed.

Although devised by the company – young theatre troupe Not Too Tame, whose pub-set previous hit Early Doors has also returned to the fringe this year – the writing is distinctive. Many of the monologues have a poetic quality, a spoken-word rhythm that fits nicely with the party setting and dance sequences. There’s some really nice character work here, and performances are across-the-board tight and engaging, filling the large venue fluidly.

But there’s not much depth to the story: the developers are never more than boo-hiss villains, and although early on there are interesting nods to the way activists can be as consumed by their own egos as their cause, this isn’t really explored. The final conclusion – that communities should stick it to the Man – is heart-warming but rather pat.

I also wondered why, given its nightclub setting and party vibe, Electric Eden is on mid-afternoon; this has surely got late-night show written all over it. The play opens with a hymn to the dopamine-rush that music and dancing can give us, positing this as a positive action in a dark world – but that would be easier to evoke come nightfall, with an up-for-it fringe crowd. Still, this is a lively, fun fringe show, from a promising company, even if it's never quite electrifying.