AETHER
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★★
“a fascinating piece much like the women it presents”
If you’re intrigued by the idea of particle physics presented as a cabaret show involving four energetic performers stepping in and out of a variety of roles, Emma Howlett’s Aether is for you. Sixty minutes on the subject of an inscrutable universe will also give you a glancing introduction to female scientists from Hypatia in ancient Alexandria to Vera Rubin, who discovered dark matter. Meanwhile Sophie, the high powered PhD student and our protagonist, attempts to juggle particle physics and a troubled relationship with her physician girlfriend in the present day.
The feminist angle to Aether is important because it highlights perennial problems faced by female scientists working in fields dominated by men. From Hypatia’s brutal murder in ancient Alexandria to undeserved obscurity for ground breaking discoveries in recent times, women’s discoveries have been ignored or even erased. Sophie, on the other hand, has begun her career as a physicist by talking herself into a prestigious research programme that has included time at CERN, the place where every ambitious PhD student hopes to work. She is further encouraged to keep going by her tough and determined supervisor, even when Sophie is tempted to quit because she isn’t finding any answers in the enormous amounts of data she has to work through. But is it the unanswerable nature of the questions she is asking about the universe the real reason Sophie wants to quit, or is it her faltering relationship with her girlfriend? It’s not a dilemma that male scientists have admitted to in the past. Nor is it likely to gain much sympathy in any academic field where the stars are on track to win a Nobel Prize early in their careers.
There’s almost too much packed into the sixty minutes, even with the inventiveness of performers Gemma Barnett, Sophie Kean, Anna Marks Pryce and Abby McCann. Aether is part lecture, part drama. Some of the women we’re introduced to, such as magician Adelaide Herrmann, or medium Florence Cook, fit uneasily alongside a detailed explanation of Plato’s Cave, and a list of quarks to memorize. The show dazzles with the sheer amount of information presented, but there’s a risk of audience burnout. It’s not hard to identify with Sophie’s description of protons being hurled out of a Large Hadron Collider. Perhaps a longer play, and a slower pace with the lecture parts, might give the audience a chance to catch up. It is about important themes, and Sophie’s ambition, like that of playwright Howlett, deserves a chance to find the answers that every woman working in a difficult field deserves.
This play is a fascinating piece much like the women it presents. If it sends you out of the theatre with more questions than answers, don’t feel disappointed. Aether reminds us that good theatre, like good science, is worth the work it takes to understand. There’s a large universe out there, just waiting to be explored.
AETHER
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 8th August 2025 at Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall
by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Giulia Ferrando | TheatreGoose
