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AETHER

 
Alec Martin Review by Alec Martin 4 Published: 4 Aug 2025 Summerhall Show Dates: 31 Jul 2025-25 Aug 2025

In Aether, TheatreGoose turn Summerhall’s Anatomy Lecture Theatre into a whirling dramatic accelerator where séance tables brush against particle detectors and ideas collide, leaving behind lasting impressions. Emma Howlett’s script darts between a present-day dark matter PhD candidate, a Victorian medium eager for credibility, an embattled illusionist, and the powerful echo of a silenced teacher from ancient times. The threads orbit each other with scientific precision, proving that big ideas needn’t eclipse character.

Aether invites us to relish the chase for discovery

Sophie Kean, Abby McCann, Anna Marks Pryce and Gemma Barnett swap roles at almost quark speed, mining both exuberant humour and bruised pathos from women’s sidelined contributions to science. Ellie Wintour’s clean, chalk-white set morphs with a swivel, while Ed Saunders bathes each timeline in spectral pools of light; together with Sarah Spencer’s supple score, the production acquires an atmosphere that flits between lecture hall and liminal haunt.

There is a brief density spike during a particularly esoteric start. The opening section piles on the scientific references with abandon, so newcomers to physics may feel they’ve stumbled into a particularly cryptic piece of theatre. However, once Howlett shifts from exposition to propulsion, the play attains the clarity of a good lab result, making dark matter metaphors land with both intellectual heft and emotional zing.

By the rousing finale, the audience is left contemplating Vera Rubin’s quiet revolution – and how many other invisible pioneers may yet tilt the cosmos. Aether doesn’t pretend to pinpoint the universe’s missing mass; it invites us to relish the chase for its discovery, and to honour those whose curiosity outran convention. That invitation rings out long after the house lights flare – proof that good theatre, like physics, thrives on the spaces between the known and the possible.

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An existential PhD student hunting dark matter, a disillusioned illusionist, a medium with a secret and a murdered mathematician star in the greatest unsolved mystery of the universe. Following their acclaimed and award-winning Her Green Hell and Sisters Three, TheatreGoose presents AETHER, a show about the unknown and our insatiable desire to define it, asking why are we so desperate to know what happens behind the curtain and who gets to decide what lurks there? Part-science lab on the cusp of discovery, part-Victorian seance, part-unauthorised Nobel Prize Ceremony, AETHER explores faith, physics and magic in rich theatrical spectacle.