If you’re a fan of slash fiction, Slash should top your shows to see in Edinburgh this year. If it’s new to you, it probably should still be up there.
This is the show most likely to get you laid
I talked to the show’s creators, Emily Allan and Leah Hennessey, and got images in my mind I can never unsee.
For those who like to scan read, can you summarise your show in a single sentence.
Slash is a comedy about girls who, to treat depression, role play as men secretly in love with each other.
So far, so straightforward!
Slash refers to ‘slash fiction’ and ‘real person slash’: the stories, according to Wikipedia, focussed on “romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters (or famous people) of the same sex.” How does this territory manifest in the show?
Slash provides a barrage of contradictory and surprising perspectives on gender, class, and revolutionary history.
There are famous fan-fictional pairings like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. We then incorporate these with meta-commentary by infamous second-wave feminists such as Camile Paglia and Andrea Dworkin.
And it’s all played to a soundtrack of mashed-up punk.
I’m imagining a weird combo of Strictly Come Dancing and Celebs Go Dating…possibly on acid.
Where else can you go to see Tiffany and Ivanka Trump histrionically wailing about their shared childhood trauma one minute, and the next see the same figures stumbling through a rendition of Jellicle Cats as an incongruously Italian-accented Stalin and Trotsky?
Slash is funny, irreverent, and romantic. But for all the absurdity of the show, at its heart there’s a serious story about using culture as an escape from culture.
It certainly sounds like I will see things I wouldn’t often expect to see. Or even imagine. Which makes it perfect for the Festival.
Slash is the most perverted, most esoteric, and most romantic show in town.
We believe the show offers a vision of desire that has never before been shown in the mainstream.
It’s probably the hottest date show that is most likely to get you laid.
As well as being entertaining, you’re also hoping to educate?
When you’ve seen Slash, you will understand more about female sexuality than you ever dreamed of.
If you miss it, you may never be initiated into the mysteries of why girls are turned on by the fantasy of straight guys falling in love with each other.
This is your chance to tell our readers why they should book to see Slash when you play the Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre) in Edinburgh between 2nd -27th August. You have exactly 50 words.
You’ll laugh. You’ll be shocked and appalled. Your heart will break into one million pieces. And you’ll be able to sincerely say you enjoyed a serious piece of feminist theatre.
It’s the best play ever written about slash fiction. And the only play …for now. Get in on the ground floor.
