TESTO

Purcell Room

★★★

“pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform”

Award winning drag artist, Wet Mess, closes the 2025 tour of their first full length solo show, ‘TESTO’, in London. Dismantling the boundaries of gender, transition, performance and more, this surrealist fever dream is as cocky as it is vulnerable. Self-described as “horny for your confusion”, the abstraction and pacing do lose me in places. However, the work remains provocative, inventive and daringly experimental – the kind of theatre we need more of.

Out of a green haze, the words ‘tell us about a dream’ glow red before taking us on an erotic journey involving butter that sets the tone for the evening. ‘TESTO’ explores transmasculinity in a dreamlike structure, weaving searching questions and real life interviews with movement and lip syncs. Themes surface in waves, some provocative, some reflective, others more ordinary. Only it’s not a dream.

Created by Wet Mess and produced by Metal & Water (Nancy May Roberts & Lucia Fortune Ely), ‘TESTO’ is anarchic and affecting. Beneath the swagger and spectacle lies a yearning to be seen, with all the contradictions and mixed emotions visibility entails. The closing sequence cycles the words ‘you are afraid but awake,’ anchoring the surreal in stark reality. Wet Mess also fulfils one interviewee’s wish to be mundane by fashioning a sofa from all that’s been discarded and cracking a beer. That said, it isn’t always layered, such as the giant gender sausages and defiant nude lip sync of Loreen’s ‘Euphoria’. Some of the more surreal sections elude me entirely – I’m looking at you butter bath. The pacing also falters: most sections linger a beat too long and a couple of passages seem to run out of development, creating gaps in momentum.

Wet Mess’ movement is an almost continuous thread, marked by strong shapes, intriguing lines and bursts of frenetic energy. However, it feels surprisingly restrained in places. The surreal butter dream, for instance, doesn’t lead into a dynamic grand entrance but some slightly anticlimactic swaggering. The sequence of jerking and humping risks becoming repetitive after a while. Though perhaps this is a deliberate subversion of expectations.

Wet Mess delivers an arresting performance, brimming with cockiness yet tempered by rawness and vulnerability. It is an assured, literally bare all display marked by precise lip syncs, strong movement and polished delivery. The lip syncing itself is cleverly varied, avoiding predictability, with controversial recordings sharpening the piece’s edge.

Ruta Irbīte’s set design is striking: a vulva like red curtain gives way to a phallic catwalk. Oversized sausages playfully suggest symbols of gender identity.

Baby’s evocative sound design weaves voices, vocalisations, synth and textured noise into a distinctive soundscape that shapes the atmosphere of each section and underscores the deeper messages.

Joshie Harriette’s lighting design conjures dreamlike illusions through deft combinations of smoke and light. Inventive spotlight positioning creates striking contrasts between light and shadow, while bursts of flashing intensify key moments.

Lambdog1066’s costume design is artful and layered, opening with a high fashion boxing cape – reclaiming a traditionally masculine symbol – and closing with a curtain repurposed as a robe – underscoring the interplay between spectacle and intimacy. Ultimately, the stripping away of all clothing functions as a powerful rejection of gender conformity.

‘TESTO’ pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform. But does it work as a cohesive show? I’m less sure. Still, that uncertainty doesn’t diminish its impact and the spectacle is worth witnessing, even if we never get to the bottom of the butter.

TESTO

Purcell Room

Reviewed on 28th November 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Lesley Martin

TESTO

SAP at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★★

“Jessica Lazar’s luminous direction allows plenty of room for the performers to transform their bodies, and our imaginations”

Rafaella Marcus’ first full length play, directed by Jessica Lazar, for Atticist, and Ellie Keel productions, is a dazzling debut. The whole thing is performed in seventy minutes, with just two performers, outdoors in a tent at the Summerhall in Edinburgh. All of which just adds satisfying layers to this complex and thought provoking theatrical experience. At its simplest, SAP is a modern retelling of the Apollo and Daphne myth. SAP manages to retain the love and predatory desire of the original, as well as the tragedy. Performers Jessica Clark (as Daphne) and Rebecca Banatvala (playing all the other roles) are riveting as the pursuing, and the pursued.

Greek myths told in a new way is a perennially popular choice for playwrights. What makes Rafaella Marcus’ retelling so intriguing is that SAP confronts human sexuality in non binary forms, and in a very contemporary way. The language of SAP is rich and evocative. Metaphors are used lavishly, which suits the method of presentation — that of an extended monologue told by Daphne, and short scenes with two characters that round out the story when needed. Plants are described as images of transformation, but these are not gentle or passive examples of vegetable life. In the character of Daphne, Marcus explores the idea of metamorphosis as a metaphor for bisexuality as well. In the first of several unexpected plot twists, we discover that Daphne’s lovers are brother and sister. She has a casual fling with the brother, then meets the sister, and the two fall passionately in love. But Daphne’s lover is unsympathetic to the idea of bisexuality, and Daphne gets trapped in the first of several lies as she has to hide who she really is. When she meets her male lover again at a family wedding where both siblings are present, the meeting is catastrophic.

There is so much for a couple of talented performers to work with in SAP. Jessica Clark and Rebecca Banatvala are more than up to the challenge. Banatvala takes on the supporting roles, including those of the rival brother and sister. But the play begins and ends with Clark’s non binary character Daphne. Jessica Lazar’s luminous direction allows plenty of room for the performers to transform their bodies, and our imaginations, using the vivid language of Marcus’ script. Banatvala’s ability to shift character with the twitch of an eyebrow or shrug of a shoulder, is particularly breathtaking to watch. But the energy that drives the whole comes from Clark as Daphne. The production is complete and satisfying, and that includes costumes and set (Rūta Irbīte) and the work of sound designer and composer Tom Foskett-Barnes. Catch this production while you can in Edinburgh—and hope that it gets produced elsewhere, and soon.

Tag Archives: Ruta Irbite

TESTO

★★★

Purcell Room

TESTO

Purcell Room

★★★

“pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform”