MARIUPOL

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★

“a gem of a short play, and Katia Haddad draws the audience in with great skill”

Mariupol, Katia Haddad’s poignant drama set against the backdrop of the Ukrainian War, is currently playing at the Pleasance Courtyard Beneath. It’s a beautifully constructed drama about a Russian, Galina, and “Steve” a charming Ukrainian sailor. With deft direction by Guy Retallack, and starring Oliver Gomm and Nathalie Barclay, this is a play you won’t want to miss.

Thirty years pass from that first meeting of these two star crossed lovers in Mariupol. Steve, who got his name playing Stevie Wonder songs for his merchant navy friends, meets a beautiful Moscovite who he playfully nicknames Moskalka at his best friend’s wedding. Steve and Galina are immediately drawn to one another, and their connection is deepened by a night spent by the beautiful Azov Sea. Galina nearly drowns taking a sea shell during a night swim but Steve is there to rescue her, and bring her back to land. Despite the connection, however, Steve isn’t ready to leave the merchant navy, and they part. Galina returns to Moscow, where she puts her shell on a necklace and wears it during the years of teaching, marriage to a Russian, and motherhood to a son, Sasha. When Steve and Galina next meet, it is under less happy circumstances. The shadows of an impending war between Russia and Ukraine have already begun. What started as a light hearted dance at a wedding morphs into something more intense, and tragic. The stage is set for their third meeting in a bunker in Azovstal in 2022, as Russian bombs rain down on the ruined city. Galina is there frantically searching for her POW son, and begs Steve to help her.

Mariupol is a gem of a short play, and Katia Haddad draws the audience in with great skill. She has her own memories of Mariupol and its people to help her, and this shows in the fully rounded characters. They are sympathetically portrayed by Oliver Gomm and Nathalie Barclay. Gomm in particular charms with his initial playfulness, and then makes a convincing shift to the older Ukrainian warrior, haunted by everything he has lost. The whole production is designed to focus the attention on the performers, with a compelling sound track that mixes both the sounds of war with the sounds of the sea. The passing of time is skillfully sketched in by swift costume changes on stage—a jacket added, the tie of a dress untied and tied. These light touches allow the audience to focus fully on Haddad’s words, and the unfolding tragedy.

The show covers a lot of ground in an hour, but it’s time well spent. It is a vivid testament to the consequences of war—not just in ruined cities, and destruction of a way of life, but in the price that people pay with their own lives and the lives of those they love. Memories of a happier past are like the seashell Galina wears around her neck—infinitely precious, but fragile. As the world becomes more unstable, Mariupol is a powerful reminder of all we could lose if we ignore the tragedies unfolding around us.

MARIUPOL

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Reviewed on 3rd August 2025 at Beneath at Pleasance Courtyard

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Tom Crooke

MARIUPOL

★★★★

“two hours after the first internalised ‘humbug’ we’re all singing ‘Have Yourselves a Merry Little Christmas’ with the cast and feeling impressively jolly”

The first question is ‘Why?’ Why take on the challenge of Dickens’ mawkish seasonal classic, with its rich recipe of bustling streets, vivid characters and hovels packed with rosy-cheeked urchins with four actors above a pub? Nevertheless, two hours after the first internalised ‘humbug’ we’re all singing ‘Have Yourselves a Merry Little Christmas’ with the cast and feeling impressively jolly.

The group’s secret appears to be twofold. One, to approach their task as strolling players, chivvying up spirits by strumming instruments and carolling in a vaguely Victorian manner. Two, and not quite so successfully, relying on our imaginations. So stretched are the consummate performance skills available that the ghost of Christmas future is played by a human-shaped structure with a sheet over it. Doubling up is part of the fun, of course. Bridge House Theatre regular, Jamie Ross, copes with both extremes of the optimism spectrum in bright-eyed Bob Cratchit on one hand and decomposing Jacob Marley on the other; he is also Musical Director. Ben Woods navigates a similar stretch between Scrooge’s nephew and Young Scrooge but does so effortlessly. Saorla Wright mops up the female roles and the ghost of Christmas Past with cheeriness and agility, literally jumping between parts at times, whether Mrs Cratchit, Belle or atmospheric cello.

Best of all, the central role of Scrooge is played by Rachel Izen, by some reports the first female to play the role, and it is the originality and force of her performance that keeps the venture from ever looking like coming off the rails. Playing him as a more contemporary, bullish capitalist rather than the shrivelled old fun-sponge usually depicted lifts this familiar yarn and steers it away from the gothic spookiness that’s often wasted on modern audiences anyway.

In service of Scrooge’s emotional journey, Director Guy Retallack’s own adaptation pushes the action along and allows for joyous interludes like a game of charades with the audience, a threat of participation which brings the only true scary moment for many. His adaptation also demands great discipline and support from the creative and technical departments, outstanding among which is the Sound Design from Phil Lee, who is kept especially busy evoking a roomful of invisible children and howling winds whenever a door is opened. The puppetry (Consultant, Jo Elizabeth May) is a good solution to space and cast issues, but an inanimate Tiny Tim is as hard to love as it’s possible for a sickly child to be. This is awkward given his job of delivering the tear-jerking last line, but by then everyone has caught Bob Cratchit’s spirit of forgiveness and is ready to join the singalong. Why? Because ‘Christmas’.

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

Tag Archives: Guy Retallack

MARIUPOL

★★★★

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

MARIUPOL

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★

“a gem of a short play, and Katia Haddad draws the audience in with great skill”