ROCKPOOLS
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★★
“a smart and worthwhile watch, teaming with potential and swimming with wit”
An immediately funny and thoughtful one-woman show, Rockpools interweaves a dysfunctional story of marriage, hoarding, and endometriosis. Directed by Gracie Davie and Ivan Hamshaw-Thomas, this piece is filled with heart and quirky detail. This is definitely a play to bump up on your Edinburgh Fringe “to see” list this August.
From the first word, Molly Windust is a likeable and energetic comedic force. As she skirts between the clutter of her character’s life and unpicks the messy details of her psyche, Windust makes waves of laughter ripple through the audience. Sporting a long lichen-eaten dress, Windust creates detailed worlds on her small stage, bringing forth a claustrophobic picture of what it takes to hide a beach-themed shopping addiction from one’s spouse.
Buying only pre-21st century items which would suit a seaside cottage and move her emotionally, Windust’s protagonist gathers the outdoors into her cyclical hoarding habits; bringing the idea of a watery expanse into her hard-to-burst bubble. Painting a sad yet darkly humorous image of a marriage-on-the-rocks, Rockpools is a staunchly “lived in” show, elevated greatly by its relishing specificity. The visual storytelling is paramount to the piece’s emotional success, as well as its tight comic timing and phrasing. As Windust portrays a character shimmying through her collection of porcelain sea creatures and fishy wall features, she paces the script carefully and allows the audience to slowly uncover the magnitude of her character’s unravelling.
My largest critique of the piece lies in its predictability. Throughout the hour Windust displays the utmost vocal and physical talent, cycling brilliantly through eccentric characters and scenarios, and leaving never a dull moment. She has a unique way of pulling threads on character traits and letting the rope unravel all the way out to sea, that allows her to hold the room in the palm of her hand. It is this talent that leaves me wondering where Rockpools could soar to if it was simply pushed to endeavour in more dramatic risk, perhaps experimenting even more with non-linear plotting. The play is simple yet effective, but it’s predictable beats admittedly leave me asking what more could be done to shift the audience onto the edge of their seat. Furthermore, the exploration of the protagonist’s endometriosis is something worth giving further space to breathe in future (and perhaps longer) iterations of the play, to fully expand this aspect as successfully as themes around marriage and hoarding.
Rockpools benefits greatly from its understated and beautiful sound and lighting design. Blue lights swallow the room and music franticly overlays waves and whispering, as she play lets the navy shadow of the shore creep closer to Windust’s home. The minimalist staging of the show grounds it firmly, pouring the audience’s imagination into every grain of sand and every knick-knack conjured by the script. As the sand trickles through Windust’s fingers – her first contact with any prop besides a solitary black chair – this gesture to future hope is gorgeous. On this, the stellar writing of the conclusion and it’s marvellously “extreme expanse of blue” offers a magic which solidifies the stunning precision of Windust’s debut.
Overall, Rockpools is a smart and worthwhile watch, teaming with potential and swimming with wit.
ROCKPOOLS
Pleasance Courtyard at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Reviewed on 21st August 2026
by Molly Knox
