Coma
‘Coma is an injection of adrenaline that won’t leave you for hours’ - Frankie Goodway, Fest ★★★★ - Full review here
‘An immersive experience like no other’ - Phoebe O’Brien, The Sunday Times - Full review here
‘A popular explanation of the enduring popularity of horror is that it provides “a rehearsal for death”. That’s just what Coma is’ - Rory Ford, The Scotsman ★★★★ - Full review here
’It is technically astonishing, completely uncanny, and deeply unnerving' - Holly Williams, The Independent ★★★ - Full review here
‘COMA can lay claim to being the most unique production of the festival’ - Brett Herriot, ScotsGay ★★★★★ - Full review here
‘COMA is the immersive company’s best yet - with off-the-chart production values that make this weird journey of pills, dreams and unconsciousness incredible’ - Greta April, Arthur’s Seat ★★★★ - Full review here
‘Coma is sensorially sensational’ - Erin Roche, Edinburgh Guide ★★★ - Full review here
‘The whole experience seemed to stretch the time and space around me. I couldn’t believe we’d been in there for 25 minutes it felt like 2’ - Sarah Jane Booth, on4review ★★★★ - Full review here
‘Laying in the dark for fifteen minutes, we almost feel separated from our body’ - Marianna Meloni, Everything Theatre ★★★★ - Full review here
‘Unique, innovative and utterly unnerving’ - Tamarin Fountain, The Wee Review ★★★ - Full review here
’An immersive, heart-pounding experience … magnificently crafted’ - Deborah Chu, The List ★★★ - Full review here
‘The set up makes for an entirely idiosyncratic experience, playing on individual paranoia and insecurities’ - Bethan Sexton, Deadline News ★★★★ - Full review here
‘I find it slightly improbable that audio-based experiences inside pitch-black shipping containers have become somewhat of a Fringe institution’ - James Witherspoon, London Student ★★★ - Full review here
‘They place the audience member in the centre of a live experience, creating work that is immersive and challenging to the mind and body’ - Mirren Wilson, The Skinny ★★★ - Full review here
‘The novelty of walking into a shipping container will never get old' - Rachel Baker, A Baker’s Opinion - Full review here
'Well worth the time’ - Robert Iles, UK Theatre Web ★★★★ - Full review here
’It sits just the right side of creative to make you feel that things are not good until you leave’ - Donald Stewart, Fringe Review, Highly Recommended Show - Full review here
’It’s the perfect trip’ - Anna Rieser, EdFest ★★★ - Full review here
‘What I will say is that the experience was exhilarating and left me feeling more alive than when I entered. Darkfield have created a unique and groundbreaking form of theatre’ - Dominic Cooper, Brig News - Full review here
‘Coma is a visceral whole-body experience' - Artfilla - Full review here
‘I can report it kept me fully awake’ - Lyn Gardner, StageDoor - Full review here
‘“Coma” was intense’ - Dillon Stein, On The Fringe - Full review here
‘The feeling lingers that a coma may not be emptiness at all, but quite the opposite’ - Tom Bolton blog - Full review here
‘A purely sensory experience, a kind of virtual reality fairground ride’ - Dorothy Max Prior, Total Theatre - Full review here
‘Whilst waiting to enter the container an American coming out uttered the immortal phrase "Holy Crap", which I think is a quotation for the poster’ - DarkChat - Full review here
‘Darkfield have mastered yet another cutting-edge drama' - Josephine Balfour-Oatts, Broadway Baby ★★★★ - Full review here
Die or Run
‘Die or Run is both a frighteningly authentic representation of anxiety and a surreal trip that feels like sitting on the edge of a panic attack. It might be one of the weirdest nights at this year’s fringe, but it might also just be one of the best.’ - Francesca Peschier, The Stage ★★★★
‘A bewildering, boldly-executed stream of consciousness performance-piece, Die or Run grapples with panic attacks, disco tracks, and the still searingly-radioactive fallout of Thatcherism.’ - Dave Fargnoli, Exeunt
Flight Paths
‘For those blind or partially sighted, this aims to offer a richer than usual experience. In doing so, it also gives the whole audience an unusual and entertaining presentation of international talent.’ - British Theatre Guide
‘At once satirical and moving; thought-provoking and exciting, this Anglo-Japanese production is multi-cultural, multi-sensory and multi-layered.’ - Disability Arts Online
‘A show that has gentleness, kindness, humour […] and honesty woven into its subtle tales’ - East Midlands Theatre
‘Extant and Yellow Earth Theatre have pulled off an ambitious feat, marrying acrobatics, partially sighted performers and Japanese culture’ - Japan Society
Flight
‘What Rosenberg and Neath do with Flight is to harness the very uncertainty of pretending, and in doing so create an experience that’s properly exhilarating. It’s a perfectly programmed high-art theme park ride, a reminder of one’s closeness at all times to death that spits you out into the sunlight feeling palpably, certainly, alive’ - Ben Kulvichit, Exuent Magazine - Full review here
‘Now Darkfield are leading intrepid audiences somewhere even further out of their comfort zones’ - Alex Needham, The Guardian - Full review here
‘Fears are tapped in an unsettling 20-minute experience that takes place in total darkness’ - Natasha Triply, The Stage 4★★★★- Full review here
’20 fear-inducing minutes in a faithfully recreated airplane interior’ - Niki Boyle, The Scotsman 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘It’s a truly singular and provocative piece of art; one you may well walk out of shaken but will ultimately feel enriched by the experience’ - Evan Popplestone, Cinema’s Fringes 5★★★★★ - Full review here
‘Flight taps into every flier’s nightmare, and the use of headphones isolates each member of the audience in a solitary world of unease that will leave you flabbergasted at the remarkably detailed world that can be created by sound and darkness’ - Agnes Carrington-Windo, Plays To See 5★★★★★ - Full review here
‘One can only hope that this is the future of all live entertainment’ - Siri Hedreen, EdFest Magazine 5★★★★★ - Full review here
‘What follows is something like the thrills of the Big Dipper with lashings of existential angst’ - Jackie Fletcher, British Theatre Guide 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘It’s hard to describe how we felt stepping out of that shipping container. ‘Changed’ would be the best word! The closing couple of minutes had wormed their way into our thoughts more than we’d expected them to…’ - Scare Addicts 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘Flight is an original, clever show. The soundscape and the sensory deprivation create an all-consuming experience that takes you away from the busy streets of Edinburgh and into a different reality’ - Hannah Wright, The Wee Review 4★★★★ - Full review here
'An exploration of a strange, surreal facet of modern human experience that provides some food for thought, whilst also being a wild, immersive thrill ride' - James Witherspoon, London Student 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘In flickering between plain sailing and plummet, it catches the persistent nagging notion of imminent death us aerophobes know all too well’ - Matt Trueman, WhatsonStage 3★★★- Full review here
‘It’s a neat synthesis of physics with people’s paranoia about flying’ - Tom Wicker, Fest Mag 3★★★ - Full review here
‘This show is a testament to the sheer power of audio and imagination’ - M Johnson 3★★★ - Full review here
‘It does leave you thinking, with things occurring to you long after the piece ends, and is very cleverly executed with a pro set-up to boot’ - Robin Winters, Reviews Hub 3.5★★★★ - Full review here
Séance
‘Séance is Rosenberg and Neath’s best collaboration to date, a creepy and manipulative miniature which unsettles and makes you question not just your senses but what you actually believe’- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian 4★★★★ (Latitude) - Full review here
’It was brilliant, mischievous audio trickery’ - Harriet Fitch Little, Financial Times (Latitude) - Full review here
‘Seance felt perfectly contained and completely absorbing, spine-tingling’ - Lauren Mooney, The Stage 4★★★★ (Latitude) - Full review here
‘If you've got the spine, Seance brings the tingle’ - Cameron Woodhead, Sydney Morning Herald (Melbourne) - Full review here
‘Fortunately, it has a slew of performances every day, otherwise people would be climbing over each other trying to bag tickets’ - Rory Ford, The Scotsman 4★★★★ (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘The experience created is so intense, immediate and startling that it's really quite overwhelming’ - Tamarin Fountain, Fringe Guru 4★★★★ (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘Imagine all the terror and trepidation surrounding horror films, following sympathetic characters we know are due an undeservingly gruesome fate. Now double, triple, quadruple it, and you’ll be somewhere close to the effect of Séance’ - Katy Minko, The Student Newspaper 5★★★★★ (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘Stupendously sinister, suspenseful immersive theatre’ - Claire Wood, The Wee Review 4★★★★ (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘#SeanceSummerhall is a gripping sonic encounter, accomplishing in 15 mins what many productions struggle to do in 1hr. Utter immersion’ - Fringe Biscuit 4★★★★ (Edinburgh)
‘It is hair-raising, chilling, freaky, and quite different from anything else you’ll see’ - Robbie Armstrong, The Skinny 4★★★★ (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘This all feels like it’s been done before’ - Chris McCormack, Exeunt Magazine (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘A spine-tinglingly sensory Halloween treat’ - Heather Kincaid, Whats On Live 4★★★★ (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘Neath and Rosenberg carve a space where we are left to reflect on our own tendency towards superstition. By depriving us of our bearing and control, one’s ability to rationalise rapidly deteriorates; within minutes, you’re in an almost pagan state of anxiety. Séance demonstrates a virtuosic ability to disorientate and freak out’ - Sean Gilbert, Theatre Full Stop (Latitude) - Full review here
‘I love to be spooked, and this is spooky done right’- Will Amott, Stage Talk 4★★★★ (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘A fully immersive audio experience that takes place in complete darkness, Séance was wonderfully inventive, clever and above all deliciously eerie fun’ - Hannah Marsh, A Younger Theatre (Latitude) - Full review here
‘Glen Neath and David Rosenberg are pioneers of binaural sound art, and it works a spooky treat here’ - Holly Williams, WhatsOnStage - (Latitude) - Full review here
‘Séance is an unnerving experience. It’s spine-tingling, shiver-inducing, hair-stand-on-end stuff’ - Hannah Brierley, Redbrick (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘Fancy being locked up in a shipping container for 15 minutes and having your very sanity and sense of perception undermined?’ - Giles Logan, Birmingham Wire (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘This has to be the most immersive and genuinely terrifying productions we have ever visited’ - Scare Tour UK (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘I love the paranormal as a theme, but it’s extremely hard to get it right … Séance, however, did not have that problem’ - Scarefix and Thrill (Birmingham) - Full review here
‘Anticipation of being surprised creates the atmosphere and suspense and cleverly staged audiovisual used to create a sense of a larger scene in the small set provides the rest’ - Nicole Evans, Reviews Hub (Latitude) - Full review here
‘Still, I’m not sure the storyli- SOMEONE HAS STARTED TALKING LIKE A BEAST FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL AND IT’S SO DARK IN HERE AND I KNOW IT’S AN ACTOR BUT THIS IS HORRIBLE I’M SCARED I’M SCARED AND I WANT IT TO STOP NOW PLEEEEEEEEEASE ah phew hmmm cough wow’ - Maddy Costa, Exeunt (Preston) - Full review here
The Arabian Nights
‘Neath’s text is light, witty and inventive. Instead of a straight approach to the stories, he has weaved in a modern take as an Arabic scholar, Ata Madri, goes in search of a copy of the stories. Hers is not a traditional journey! The Arabian Nights offers a complete picture: great stories, good acting, excellent writing and beautiful music and effects to accompany’ - Graham Kirby, Tribune
Fiction
‘As soon as it's over - even earlier, in fact, while it's still going on - it starts to lapse from your memory, fading like an afterimage on your retina. It's the equivalent of a self-destructing letter. It exists to disappear. That's a fascinating prospect: a self-defeating show; theatre so ephemeral it might as well not have happened... Fiction makes for a unique theatrical encounter about the power of suggestion and the workings of your subconscious’ - Matt Trueman, Whatsonstage 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘The piece is disorientating and incredibly, intentionally slippery’ - Natasha Tripney, The Stage 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘It’s terrifically clever, cunningly manipulative, and fun – provided you’re not scared of the dark’ - Lyn Gardner, The Guardian - Full review here
‘The production is slick. It’s beyond slick; it’s incredible. At one point we walk into a room and it fucking smells different’ - Mary Haltom, Exeunt Magazine - Full review here
‘Fiction embedded me in a lucid dream that filled me with anxious fantasies of a shared reality, counting down towards something unknown’ - Lucy Orr, The Register - Full review here
‘Crikey. Reviewing David Rosenberg and Glen Neath’s ‘Fiction’ is a bit like reviewing an acid trip: it’s an intense and intensely surreal experience that almost seems so out of its creators’ control that it’s hard to know what to ascribe to them and what to your own subconscious’ - Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out - Full review here
‘The effect is disquieting, disconcerting, and at times overwhelming’ - Ruth Hargreaves, The Londonist - Full review here
‘We're still not sure what happened in Fiction - baffling, unsettling & compelling stuff’ - CultureWhisper - Full review here
‘Directors David Rosenberg and Glen Neath (also the writer) explicitly set out to create a 'dream-like experience', and have succeeded in spades. It is wonderfully disorientating’ - Henry St Leger, Broadway Baby (Edinburgh) 5★★★★★ - Full review here
‘Fiction is the kind of thing you want at the fringe: a unique and memorable experience; a strange story to tell’ - Ralph Jones, The Observer (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘...a fascinating and enthralling immersion into a world of sound, smell and even touch’ - Graeme Strachan, British Theatre Guide (Edinburgh) 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘This is, however, a unique and interesting concept, completely different from everything else on the Fringe’ - Jaclyn Martin, The Public Reviews (Edinburgh) 4★★★★- Full review here
‘David Rosenberg and Glen Neath's binaural experience grips uneasily, threateningly, uncompromisingly’ - Colin Snell, remotegoat (Edinburgh) 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘By far the most impressive piece of work I’ve so far seen at this year’s Edinburgh, Fiction is an overwhelming, challenging and nourishing experience – and one I won’t forget’ - West Camel, Culture Compass (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘The experience is like being trapped in a David Lynch wonderland’ - Zoe Atherfold, EdFestMag (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘Fiction is a brilliantly unique theatre experience’ - Christine Lawler, Fringe Review (Edinburgh Recommended Show) - Full review here
‘A cinema of attractions for the ear’ - Robert Dow, TV Bomb (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘Surreally, it often felt that I was being dreamt, that I was an imagining of the voice’s dream rather than the voice being an imagining of mine’ - Patrick Galbraith, Three Weeks (Edinburgh) 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘Playing out almost entirely in complete darkness it is an exercise in courage, patience and self-control, exploring what it feels like to walk between the waking and dreaming world’ - Jafar Iqbal, A Differing View (Edinburgh) 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘If you can sit through the first ten minutes curbing the impulse to bolt through the doors, you may well have one of the most memorable experiences at this year’s Fringe’ - Udita Banerjee, Fringe Guru (Edinburgh) 4★★★★ - Full review here
‘I would have welcomed an opportunity to fall asleep at several points’ - Duska Radosavljevic, Exeunt (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘If David Lynch had written Inception, it might be a little like Fiction’ - Catherine Love, Fest Mag (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘A rollercoaster ride of Artaudian theatre of the senses for those who dare’- Dorothy Max Prior, Total Theatre (Edinburgh) - Full review here
‘From almost literally nothing, the director and writer have created a performance which suspends reality with alarming ease. It’s strange and almost unique, and by its very nature has as many potential facets as there are people in the room’
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-Wesley Freeman-Smith, Slate the Disco (Cambridge) - Full review here
‘I have no doubt that for many, this will be one of the most striking theatre visits for a long time, and I admire the bravery of the creators for doing something utterly different from the norm’ - Amy Rainbow, Behind the Arras (Malvern) - Full review here
‘I am still not sure if I slipped into actual sleep and dreamed some of the show, but I remain mostly bemused that I have been able to experience something so very different to any other theatrical or artistic happening’ - Mark Blackham, The Fine Times Recorder (Bournemouth) Full review here
Ring
This is experiential theatre in the true sense of the word, and is a powerful and provocative work … Works like these redefine theatre … I urge you to take part in this unique and innovative work. I guarantee it will be unlike anything you've experienced - Emma Cole, One Stop Arts 5★★★★★
This piece is disconcerting, unnerving, intense, captivating, extremely clever, intriguing and unique … I cannot recommend it highly enough, this is an absolute must “see” - Rhiannon Lawson, Whatsonstage 5★★★★★
I was left with a deep sense of unease that followed me from the shadows for the rest of the evening. I’m still not entirely clear what happened in that room, but I haven’t been affected by a show as profoundly in a long time - Olivia Solon, Wired
What makes Ring so brilliant is how it exposes the weaknesses of the human mind and perception. It pits reality against realistic construction of reality, and common sense against physical senses. Great theatre might sometimes make you think, but Ring goes one step further ― it manipulates your very ability to do so. The outcome is totally unnerving but completely thrilling, and allows audience members to share a completely unique experience that is truly one of a kind … Ring shouldn’t be missed - Geri Silver, A Younger Theatre
With the theatre’s own information simply describing this as theatre in pitch black, I confess I had dismissed this as a gimmick – “surely that’s just radio” I think may have been the phrase used – how wrong I was … Reviews are often prone to hyperbole and exaggeration but it is no overstatement to say this was one of the most intense theatrical experiences I have had. - Nick Hitchens, Local Guardian
...with clever writing, a careful setting, and the use of binaural sound technology creating an engaging and heavily visceral experience for the audience. Enabling an entirely personal encounter for each audience member and evoking fear, intrigue and uncertainty, Ring left me feeling utterly satisfied – having scarcely seen a performer, I felt like a star - Tara Boland, Total Theatre Review
What our role is, and how we work out what’s going on, is the investigation at the centre of the show and it creates an engaging experience that leaves you exhausted despite its brief 50-minute duration … unnerving and unmissable - Edward Lukes, The London Magazine
Scenes change, funny and horrible things happen, and how it effects you depends upon your own level of paranoia … The imagination is best served by suggestion, which is what makes this unnerving experience so effective - Eleanor MacFarlane, The Upcoming 4★★★★
This 'must see' show is not one that I will forget any time soon - Sarah Flinton, Westend Broadwayworld
To compare Ring to traditional theatre is foolish, which makes a critical review rather difficult; ‘utterly engaging’ would be an understatement … This is a theatre experience you will kick yourself if you miss, and start to dream differently if you do - Daisy Thurston-Gent, Whats Peen Seen? 5★★★★★
Key to the show's singularity is the way it helps you realise how you might feel in uncertain situations by challenging the everyday use of your senses. It grounds you in your own body, plays with the notion of presence and provokes questions about perception and trust - Naima Khan, Spoonfed 4★★★★
It redefines the horribly overused term “immersive”, completely submerging us in a disturbing experience from which we cannot escape - Catherine Love, Love Theatre
This is new writing at its absolute best. I am still baffled by how cleverly this show comes together - Everything Theatre 4★★★★
But gradually a real threat of violence creeps in and engulfs us all. More frightening still, this threat seems to be coming from within. The person who everyone is frightened of is us. We're left sitting alone in the pitch black with nowhere left to run - Miriam Gillinson, Culture Wars
A ringing endorsement for any immersive experience, and especially true in this case. It was unique, terrifying and exhilarating - Matthew Mills, Evnt Magazine
Occupied
‘Occupied was an angry play, collapsing the distinctions between fiction and actual events to dramatize the resentment of ordinary people against a government (and the capitalist system it represents, including senior managers at the BBC, who are often squeamish about supporting those who criticize the ruling oligarchy) that seems largely indifferent to the realities of daily life. Its chief virtue was that of immediacy: I felt that the drama was being created in spontaneous reaction to contemporary events, rather like the chap-books penned by Robert Greene and Thomas Heywood in the Elizabethan period’
-- Reviewed by Laurence Raw for radiodramareviews.com
Free Show (bring money)
'Hannah Ringham... the love-child of Tommy Cooper, Sarah Silverman, Karl Marx and an imbecile.' - Tim Crouch
'As well as being intelligently anarchic and curiously touching THE FREE SHOW BRING MONEY is, I think, a significant theatrical exploration. It undermines and unsettles its audience's relationship with the whole process of consuming theatre. In that sense it feels strikingly timely. That it does so with such charm and wit is a real achievement. Written with grace and clarity and performed with as poised directness, it feels like a brilliant cross between Les Dawson and Samuel Beckett..' - Simon Stephens
'A brilliant parody of the Free Fringe and all the awkwardness that comes from deciding how much to pay.' - Sally Stott, The Scotsman 4**** (Fringe Top 10)
'Ringham plays the audience for all she is worth, offering sob stories, fairytales and the promise of a return on an investment... she made about ￡70 an hour the night I was there - and yes, she was worth it.' - Lynn Gardner, The Guardian 4**** Full review here
‘Ringham is surely committed, but I think what she and writer Glen Neath are doing here may be quite subtle.’- Craig Singer, What’s on Stage 4**** Full review here
‘Ringham’s performance is mesmerising, actually showing us little of the ‘show’ she is trying to elicit money for but showing us the dark side of a performer on the edge.’ - The Public Reviews 4**** Full review here
‘I’m still not sure if this is satirising venality, or deconstructing the financial transaction that is our everyday life, or merely an artist looking for a new way to make money. I dare say the ambiguity is all part of the fun.’ - What’s On Stage 4**** Full review here
‘I keep changing my mind about whether Hannah Ringham’s Free Show (bring money) is offensively bad or ingeniously profound.’ - Xandra Burns, oxfordtheatrereview.com 2** Full review here
‘She gives a series of excellently performed bad performances, pulling off the awkward actor perfectly with a persona somewhere between nervous stand-up and confessional one-woman show. ‘ - Billy Barrett, A Younger Theatre Full review here
‘A fan of the old anti-climax, Ringham offers very little of the performance that she wishes us to pay for... Nonetheless, she still tries to convince us to pay.’ - Sam Kingston Jones, Broadway baby 3*** Full review here
‘As someone with a particularly high threshold for eccentricity, I can unreservedly say this show is bizarre.’ - Anna Eberts, Three Weeks Edinburgh
‘On the other hand, Hannah Ringham makes it really hard to like her.’ - Mary Brennan, The Herald 3*** Full review here
Hello for Dummies
‘Personally, I found the experience invigorating, exciting and emotionally challenging... this was an 'in-your-face' - well, not quite because you can't look at each other - incident that, like all participatory activity, has the potential to change lives. In the 40 minutes this sublime interaction took to evolve, I experienced emotions ranging from acute anxiety to deep affection, from bewilderment to lucidity, from awkward embarrassment to personal buoyancy, and all within the framework of an evolving and thrilling truthfulness... Do I recommend it to you? I certainly do!’ - Lexie Matheson, Theatreview.org.nz Full review here
'Hello for Dummies is … exciting and harrowing. The many tensions in the piece — the conversation is scripted but also unpredictable; the interaction is intimate but also impersonal; the performance is public but also private — create a conflicted experience of vigilance and surrender. Entering the cloistered space of shared headphones with a stranger, the actual environment is illuminated like a stage, full of mythic action…' - Mark Mann, Blouin Art Info Full review here
'The writing is full of a sense of adventure that illuminates the possibilities presented by every new meeting' - 8/10 --- Carly Maga, The Grid TO Full review here
'It's a fascinating experiment in human communication' 4**** - Jon Kaplan, NOW Toronto Full review here
‘Author Glen Neath and Ant Hampton ... are masters of facilitating startlingly intimate, exhilarating, yet carefully controlled encounters that awaken the voyeur and performer in us all.’ - Lee Webster, ...might be good, art e-journal Full review here
‘Such works have a certain intimacy built into them, yes, but they also take that quality beyond putting you close to the staged action – they develop it into a bond among all the members of the audience who have shared the work with you.’ --- Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle Full review here
'The piece’s narrative allows users to both act as characters (by repeating lines) and as “themselves” (answering questions honestly). It flows through realistic and abstract explorations of self-hood and presentation, and questions assumptions of identity and interaction. Because of this, it is well worth any awkward or uncomfortable feelings it may induce. Hello For Dummies also creates some very beautiful moments.' --- Lisa Amerongen, She does the City Full review here
Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival, premiering this week, is shaping up to be more avant-garde then usual... Leading the pack on this is Hello for Dummies.’ - Joel Fishbane, The Charlebois Post
The Fat Plan
‘Readers tired of traditional narratives will be pleased by Neath's latest offering. His first novel, THE OUTGOING MAN, was praised for its originality, and his second book is deserving of the same. THE FAT PLAN is at once upbeat, quirky, difficult and dark’ - The Big Issue
The Breach
‘In a closet-like pitch black room in one of the fortress' outbuildings we hear a recording of British novelist Glen Neath reading The Breach, a marvellous spoken-word piece that, by way of a neurotic, internal monologue, likens the body to a fortress or submarine that is vigilant against a rupture, sealing off any internal breach as it occurs before the whole thing is overtaken’ - artnet magazine
‘Here 10 writers including Adriana Cavarero, Arundhati Roy, Thomas Meinecke, and Glen Neath contributed texts inspired by the venue’s history and symbolism; spoken by actors, these were installed there as sound works. The massive architecture was filled with nothing but voices, whispered narrations, echoes, and pauses, transforming each building into the perfect set for a play about memory, fear, paranoia, and control. The radical use of sound alone—except for five silent movies by Harun Farocki, Karø Goldt, Larry Gottheim, Karl Kels, and Michael Snow, screened at the complex’s core—turned the overused concept of site-specificity into a profound and joyful perceptual experience. The blend of theatricality, fiction, and public recollection was absorbing, the conceptualization of recording techniques and emptiness refreshing compared with the current abuse of the image of the “phantom” in the contemporary art debate. This was a convincing and sensitive allegory of Europe’s ambivalent inner nature, expressed through multiple voices, fear, and self-protection’ - Modern Painters
‘What is outstanding in all sections of the show is the use of the different spaces, how the environments play an important role in each of the exhibitions. The most striking of all is certainly the Fortress in Fortezza, a defence bastion from the 1830s, for which all the curators worked together on the exhibition Scenarios, that is formally divided into sound, light and film. They asked novelists, philosophers and artists – among them Renée Green, Glen Neath and Arundhati Roy – to contribute texts that are somehow related to the site or to the process of experiencing this exhibition. These were translated and read by actors, and are played in the different rooms and spaces of the complex that is otherwise left bare. A few chairs by Martino Gamper, put together from old furniture, provide seating; through some of the windows falls artificial light from a piece by Philippe Rahm that exactly mimics the natural light conditions. In a separate building, five silent films are shown. The whole place is a beautiful sensatory experience, of which the original architecture, the recent extensions, the lights and the sounds of the pieces as well as the views and sounds of the surrounding nature are inseparable parts’ - axisweb.org
The Outgoing Man
'A perky greeting card from hell' - Magnus Mills
'A clever left-field debut... surreally witty, it recalls the same European sense of experiment at work in Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Magnus Mills...' - The Metro
'We are in a mysterious "organisation" at the Salvador Dali level of reality... This is a little bit like The Prisoner, mixed in with a dash of Are You being Served?' - The Times
'Quirky and blackly satirical, The Outgoing Man emanates a Kafka-esque stench of stagnation and claustrophobia. Neath shows how even the most banal kinds of human interaction take us deep into the realms of the insane, the surreal and the grotesque' - Time Out
'The Outgoing Man, Glen Neath's first novel, is an attempt to do something different... a hint of Kafka, a smidgeon of Beckett, a few drops of Auster...an unusual and original novel' - Josh Lacey, The Guardian Full review here
'Ultimately, if The Outgoing Man can be said to be truly Kafkaesque it is because it cannot be bullied into any single interpretation. Metamorphosis alone has reputedly produced some 130 different readings. Neath's debut is unlikely to yield so many, but it will surely tantalise and delight those who try to unravel its numerous narrative threads' - Scotland on Sunday
'A refreshingly different, lively story' - The Herald
'His brilliant novel reminded me most of the Prix Goncourt-winning Jean Echenoz. Neath has that same eye for detail, coupled with the ability to analyse the here and now in a parallel fictional reality' - The Bookseller
'It's like being stuck in a lift with a deadpan comedian, waiting for a punchline that never comes. You have to keep going, or you risk losing any grip' - The Independent
Romcom
‘Resembles one of Godard's 1960's movies, full of jump-cut montages between close-ups of blankeyed lovers and excursions into heavily captioned symbolism. And, as well as comedy, it's a complex study of compatibility and communication’ - Glasgow Herald Full review here
‘But there’s another kind of purity in the way it kicks the foreshadowing of text into the foreground, subjecting the present to its predetermination - a live experiment in pinning down each possibility at each turn, actors huddled together like rats in a narrative maze where somewhere above/below/within the test results are being calmly fabricated. And the text is just like this fucking elephant that’s loosely wandered into the room, no one’s ever spoken about it and now it’s too late, and it pushes all the air out of the room so that the need to be doing something beyond text becomes absolutely crucial, and in that surfeit everything begins to crack with this thousand tonne freedom’ - Daniel B Yates, Exeunt Full review here
They crash against one another, blundering through a script which would seem opaque on paper but becomes extraordinarily fecund, open ended and contradictory. Waves colliding with the cliffs. I saw three ROMCOM’s, each entirely unique, the stars aligning at different points, moments getting totally lost and the resonance in certain pockets being born of total chance - pomegranate pip instants of delightful improvisation and the potential of language to mean different things in different mouths . Glen Neath sat with his head in his hands on the edge of his seat with no idea what would unfold from what he had pre-ordained. It is an easy and satisfying to associate ROMCOM’s removal of agency with the power of love – alongside rage, the emotion in which we are the most blind and powerless. More troubling and touching is the schism that arises between the inexorable and the unpredictable. When I watched ROMCOM(s) I laughed but in hindsight it makes me sad. The implied meaninglessness rendered from a loss of control, as though all life was spent fumbling in a dark room, injuring one another without realising, missing the mark, growing apart without being able to explain why or when you’ve stopped loving someone. Everything hinges around infinite, miniscule variables. ROMCOM whispers with regret for miscommunication and failed expression. Our language is clumsy. We are blunt. Forlorn is a sadder word than distraught.’- Rosemary Wagg (blog) Full review here