BECAUSE YOU NEVER ASKED
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★
“captures many moments where the sounds and movement line up meaningfully”
Because You Never Asked by We All Fall Down is a visually captivating piece set to the backdrop of a co-creator Roger White, and his grandmother, Marianna Clark about her experience as a Jewish girl living through the Nazi regime. The piece presents an urgent message against the oppression of migrants and persecuted minorities, and stirs images of hope, sorrow, and loss which catch the breath of its audience in one fell swoop.
The strongest element of Because You Never Asked is by far the endlessly impressive physical theatre of an impenetrable ensemble of four. Emilie de Vasconcelos-Taillefer, Marie Leveque, Max Ipadapixam, and Lina Nampts work seamlessly together to capture Marianna’s memories as the tide turned against Jewish people under the fascism. Each performer brought a different strength and idiosyncrasy to physical storytelling and impressively interprets Clark’s memories into fascinating and unravelling movement. Displaying feats of strength, balance, and control across the hour, the performers interpreted the words filtered through a soundscape into fast-paced but considered movement.
As with lots of movement theatre, there are admittedly some sequences which linger on repetitive movements for a touch too long. Because You Never Asked falls into a trap of opening with a slower burning sequence, which is eventually broken up by Leveque’s verbatim monologue which portrays a bittersweetness of time during and after the war. The soundscape, mostly, creates a pouring tension and glow amongst the raucous of frantic and mournful movement. It could be argued that the interviews could be brought out more clearly and more equal in volume to the music so an audience can follow Marianna’s anecdotes more solidly, rather than relying on snippets which are heard here or there.
Tiffanie Boffa’s lighting design creates atmospheric and chilling moments of clarity and ambiguity. One moment of three pairs of hands reaching into the light in the first half of the show plunged slowly into darkness, as one person is left apart from the group, gives a striking message against them and us rhetoric used to isolate marginalised groups. When moments like this come to fruition in the piece, it really works.
At points where the tight ensemble brings together overlapping of exerts and anecdotes, raising their voices and closing in on the audience, the piece feels on the cusp of raising hairs but is let down by carrying itself away. However, this is not to detract from the focused and laser-sharp gesture and facial expression of the ensemble when addressing the audience. Furthermore, the sequence using of raincoats as puppets creates appropriately chilling tableaux.
Because You Never Asked captures many moments where the sounds and movement line up meaningfully, giving way to considered messages about grief and loss which permeate narratives of displacement and oppression, which the team seek to highlight in relation to current global issues. The relationship between White and Clark and their intergenerational connection, is something that could be explored further throughout the performance and perhaps would bring home these issues more precisely.
BECAUSE YOU NEVER ASKED
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 25th August 2025 at Main Hall at Summerhall
by Molly Knox
Photography by Do Phan Hoi
