A kitschy tribute to fan fiction, and its often overlooked cultural significance, Fishmarket Theatre’s ‘Cringe’ is an ambitious eight-person play centering two will-they-won’t-they romances, between a pair of sci-fi loving women in 1969, and teenage girl besties in 2012. Their parallel storylines are connected by a shared passion: writing fanfiction about a 60s sci-fi TV show. The production’s tongue-in-cheek humour shines, as their stories’ imagined scenarios spring energetically to life, introducing us to a third queer (potential) couple: the cartoonish glitterball-helmet clad heroes of the (surely-it’s-not-Star-Trek) franchise. ‘Cringe’ celebrates fan culture with low-budget charm, but the show’s 50 minute run-time leaves the stories unsatisfyingly lacking depth, with too many characters and plotlines for any of them to be fully fleshed-out.

theSpace @ Niddry Street, until Aug 20.
tw rating 3/5 | [Bizz Holmes]