one4review | On 12, Aug 2024

Edward’s Talk is exactly what it says on the blurb – a speed awareness talk, complete with audience participation and lots of facts and figures, featuring Andrew Bruce-Lockhart as Edward (never Ted).

We, the audience, are told that we are taking part in a driving awareness course, because we have all been caught speeding. Edward arrives on stage like the worst kind of presenter, having forgotten his laptop, so no PowerPoint slides, and resorts to an old-fashioned white board and a series of crumpled cards with notes in his pocket. He then takes us through the dangers of driving, before introducing us to Bridget Driscoll, who, in 1896, was the first pedestrian recorded as being killed in a collision with a motor car in Great Britain. We are asked to guess the speed that the car was going at the time. There are lots of statistics about travel distances at certain speeds, throw distances and other not terribly interesting facts, complete with audience participation. Throughout, there are moments when Edward mimics driving while receiving voice and text messages, not therefore practising what he is preaching, leading to an inevitable and dramatic conclusion.

This is clearly a pastiche of the kind of dreadful presentations that we’ve all sat through at various times in our lives and careers, but it was difficult sometimes to work out where the pastiche started and the dreadful presentation ended. It lacked any real humour or energy and was pretty dull at times. The audience was sparse, and several walked out during the show. Edward’s soft delivery made it difficult to hear what he was saying, especially against the pounding rock music coming from an adjacent venue. Edward may, of course, be having a laugh at us by deliberately trying to create a terrible show. By all means, do go to see this show and check it out for yourselves, and you might just be able to say that you’ve seen the worst show on the Fringe. We still talk about a dreadful show that we saw back in the early 1990s, now as one of our all-time Fringe highlights!

*
Reviewed by Howard
theSpace@ Surgeons Hall
18.35 (50mins)
Until 17th August