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Singing Into the Dark

 
Paul Fisher Cockburn Review by Paul Fisher Cockburn 5 Published: 4 Aug 2025 Paradise in Augustines Show Dates: 2 Aug 2025-9 Aug 2025

The sound of jackboots outside. A ruined theatre. An actor staggers into the gloom, clearly shocked and horrified by the sight of his fellow performers’ costumes and props, strewn across the stage like detritus. Then he notices us, an unexpected audience lurking in the literal dark, waiting for a performance. While, in truth, he is more the impresario and Master of Ceremonies than a performer, he feels obliged to give us one, defiantly recreating his missing friends’ acts while ever waiting for the return of those jackboots on the steps outside.

Duthie's performance is a powerhouse, full of raw emotional power

That is the opening scenario of Singing into the Dark, a show loosely based on the fate of the Eldorado Club in 1920s Berlin – home to a “Kabarett” (cabaret) which had featured a pre-Hollywood Marlene Dietrich, singers such as Claire Waldoff, and the Weintraub Syncopators jazz band. With the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, however, the venue’s avant-garde proclivities became the outrageous talk of the town – until, that is, theatres and cabaret venues were shut down and their performers persecuted, forced to flee or simply “vanished” into what eventually became the prototypes for the concentration camps.

This solo show, written and performed by Bremner Fletcher Duthie with great skill and dexterity, comes to Edinburgh with a certain reputation for greatness – and it is a reputation that is extremely well deserved. Duthie’s performance is a powerhouse, full of raw emotional power and heart; he possesses a remarkably strong baritone voice which seldom actually needs any artificial amplification. Arguably, he does not just sing the songs, he performs them – fiercely, boldly, sometimes almost attacking us with lyrics you do not always necessarily understand if your German or Russian is not up to scratch. Yet the sense of those lyrics remains clear and undeniable.

As Duthie points out in his show notes, at one point the “actor” talks of the Nazi goal of security for Aryan German culture and the importance of the purity of the family – both biological and social. It is a collage of a speech made by Adolf Hitler on freedom and culture, along with one on the same subject made by an American MAGA activist. This may be a story set some 90 years ago, in a chaos that we might hope is safely “in the past”, but Singing into the Dark remains a worryingly relevant warning. As Duthie points out, those two speeches “fit together frighteningly easily”.

There are certainly other current echoes: for example, when resurrecting the cabaret’s “disappeared” comedian – well known for his dangerous habit of forming his own opinions and crossing the line when speaking truth to power – Duthie’s character describes him as “a weapon of mass destruction”. These are no mere anachronisms; rather, they help underscore the timeless issues of individual freedom and the challenges of continuing to speak out and be true to ourselves.

This is an extraordinary solo show, and a performance that deserves to be seen – a prime example of what the Fringe can bring to Edinburgh.

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The Blurb:

In a ruined theatre, an actor tumbles onto a dark stage. His fellow actors have disappeared – arrested – and only their torn costumes remain. The actor defiantly sings into the chaos, recreating his friends' acts and proving how celebration and humour, rage and delight, can be acts of resistance. Performed around the world and winner of a dozen best-of-fest awards. 'Breathtaking' ***** (BroadwayBaby.com). 'Laughter and jaw-dropping physicality... a must see' (TheaterJones.com). 'Fringe theatre, nay theatre itself, doesn’t get much better' (CalgaryHerald.com). 'Incredible one-man show' (PBS). 'Stunning theatrical accomplishment' (InTheVue.com).