One of the Fringe's most astounding and emotion-fuelled plays has enjoyed several sell-out shows and rapturous reviews over the course of this month. Here's another, as the extraordinary (perhaps slightly unbelievable, certainly never explained) coincidence of a former Guantanamo Bay interrogator meeting a former detainee - and the father of her child - highlights the trapped emotions of a range of characters dying to escape from their troubled pasts.Alice, the interrogator turned florist, is the most haunted of all, having to explain to her 14 year old daughter Rhiannon (played by Greer Dale-Foulkes, who puts in a stunning performance) the reasons for her erratic behaviour, and why there is such an immediate connection between Rhiannon and Bashir, the ex-detainee now trapped in America, shackled by not only the memories of his tortures but also by the increasingly violent effects caused by Hepatitis A, another ill that Alice has bestowed upon him.The audience surround the action, enclosed themselves in a 'Gitmo' style box, which is undoubtedly a reason for the success of the show - there is no getting away from the moral answers that Alice evidently must provide to her daughter. Bashir, as the one character who is open about his past, is therefore portrayed as the least troubled - not that he doesn't want to be free from his illness and back with his own family, but that he can walk tall, unaffected from the haunting effects of trying to cover up his past, a situation with whom Alice and husband Lucas cannot empathise.Lidless cleverly and skilfully weaves complex characters into a flowing plotline, enabling the audience to draw their own judgements on who is hardest done by out of the characters, and who is the most trapped by their past. The close proximity of the onlookers makes it painfully easy to be forced into answering these questions while equally being appalled by just how dehumanising some human beings can be.
