THE DISTANCE
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★★
“something almost cinematic that has us wholly invested”
Ben Norris delivers a tour de force performance in The Distance which premieres as part of Summerhall’s programme at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Former GB Athlete Norris, also the play’s writer, tells us Chris’s story. Chris didn’t really have friends growing up, so ended up getting involved with cross-country at school because, as he puts it, you don’t need teammates and no one needs to like you. At school, he was the best cross-country runner on record, and with thanks to support from his teacher, Mr Gunter, he starts taking it seriously. He races his way through local and national competitions, and if he keeps going at this rate, he might even make it to the Olympics. What happens next, well, you’ll need to see the show to find out.
On stage, a treadmill in a cubed structure made of scaffolding; in the earlier parts of the production, the structure acts as an almost-cage, but as Chris gains more strength it becomes his playground, which he swings on, off and upside down from, his journey with athletics giving him the freedom to escape, of the great big sky and the horizon. He grew up in Nottingham, but tells us ‘I am from here, but I am not of here’, showing a desire to escape and do better than what he believes the life he was born into would enable.
Chris also nominates a member of the audience to be his mum; tonight, it’s Hilary. It’s always a bit of a risky thing casting someone from the audience, and I wasn’t convinced at first, but it allowed Chris to be talking with us rather than just at us, and had a great payoff with a scene towards the end of the play that was genuinely very moving.
Norris’s writing balances the drive of plot with the beauty of metaphor, seamlessly incorporating poetry into the narrative in a way which never feels distracting or misplaced. He paints a clear picture of the other people in his life, particularly Mr Gutner and his endurance coach Dwayne. Some of the journey feels a little too easy and the stakes could be increased in the first part of the play; Norris is engaging enough that we keenly follow along but heightening what he’d gain from getting to each consecutive stage, whilst also making clearer what he could lose if he fails, would make the eventual outcome even tougher for him, and us.
The play never becomes too focussed on some of the minor themes touched on; his family’s economic status which sees his mum selling the car to pay for his kit, or his romantic relationships which we get a peek into, but the little details create a fuller, more rounded version of his life. There is also a lot of sweat in this show; seriously, a lot of sweat. Each scene, another layer of clothing comes off, the shorts becoming shorter, as each sweaty vest top piles up on the floor in front of tonight’s nominated mum.
Direction by Julia Locascio creates a dynamic, fuelled staging, with Norris’s developing relationship with the scaffolding and the handling of the play’s rhythm and pacing from page to stage being particularly impressive. Locascio presents a bold and compelling vision for the play, which absolutely serves the writing whilst elevating it to something almost cinematic that has us wholly invested in Chris’s story from the start to the finish line, and beyond.
THE DISTANCE
Main Hall at Summerhall at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 26th August 2026
by Joseph Dunitz
Photography by Mihaela Bodlovic
