News

The girl and her balloon

The Girl and Her Balloon

Stick Balloon Theatre, theSpace on Northbridge

by Flora Gosling

Middle-class ideas about the “starving artist” and the joys of drinking during the day really come to the fore during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but as The Girl and her Balloon points out those ideas are glamorised for some people and demonised for others. Written by and starring Amy Wakeman, this solo performance introduces us to an unnamed homeless woman who sells balloons adorned with her own scribbled paintings of houses, stick people, and elephant bums. Perched outside her tie-dye draped tent and drinking from “tinnies”, she speaks about life on the street, PTSD, addiction, and compassion.

Wakeman is a performer in her element. Her accent is so thick it is as though she applied it with a towel, but that is easy to overlook when she is as amiable and engaging as she is. She knows just where to place the emphasis in her delivery; always on the details that make her character proud and knowledgeable, and less on the harsh living conditions that she thinks of as normal. It creates an impression of a woman who is eager to have an audience and holds on tightly to the things that make her herself.

The performance is punctuated by sweet (if pre-recorded) shadow puppetry showing a girl and her balloon blowing from place to place. Wakeman is strongest in her descriptions and imagery, but take a step back and the performance does not hang together as well as each individual anecdote. It finishes on a note of calm tragedy that makes for a satisfying conclusion, but it does not feel like a destination that the whole performance has led up to. But even though the overall effect may be slightly unfulfilling, Wakeman’s writing and performance are more than enough to make up for it.

Three stars.