What if Kurt Cobain was trans? He wasn’t. But what if she was? From this opening hypothetical, Emma Frankland takes us deep into the soul of a person who spoke for a generation. Dressed (at first) in the exact clobber Cobain wore for ‘MTV Unplugged’ in 1993, Frankland successfully approximates Cobain’s signature rasp as she interrogates what a world with an openly trans Nirvana frontwoman might have looked like. But her ambitions are greater, and the show becomes yet more powerful, railing against the societal pressures that mould us, that prevent people from living as themselves. Frankland is a formidable performer, totally focused on doing and saying exactly what she wants to do and say. Remind you of anyone?

Summerhall, until 24 Aug.
tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]