Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Provoke and joke is the David Ireland way. Whether it’s republican politician Gerry Adams reincarnated as a baby girl in his Troubles satire Cyprus Avenue or his experiment in offence Ulster American, where two guys trade rape jokes, shock value is part of the ride, wrapped in black humour and serving some bigger point about society. There is a weight of expectation on world premiere The Fifth Step, then, part of the Edinburgh International Festival, to appal and make us laugh plenty while doing so.Luka (Slow Horses star Jack Lowden) is lonely, alcoholic, worries he’s an incel and masturbates up to 20 times a day. Older, wiser Alcoholics Anonymous member James (Sean Gilder) becomes his sponsor. Then Luka meets Jesus — or possibly Willem Dafoe — in a gym and converts to Christianity. So, yes, this is very much Ireland territory. But the play seems quieter and more searching than previous work. The title refers to the fifth step of the 12-step programme: admit the things you’re ashamed of to someone else and to God. The play digs into all of that: shame, the act of opening up to someone else, and how and why God comes into it.As Ireland flings zinging lines back and forth, it is clear he still has a knack for capturing the outrageous ways people — especially men — talk to each other in private. His writing shines in the shifting balance of shame between Luka and James, the exchanges directed tightly by Finn den Hertog and performed stunningly by Gilder and Lowden.Lowden is all anxiety at first, fidgeting constantly, keeping himself pinned close to the wall, as if ashamed of how much space he occupies. After his encounter with Jesus (or Dafoe), he loosens up, nervousness ceding to brimming energy as he stays poised on the balls of his feet. It is remarkable to watch and Gilder provides a good counterpoint: softer and more relaxed, until Luka provokes him to rage. As the two characters bare their souls, Milla Clarke’s smart rotating set starts to disintegrate. Panels become loose, walls transparent, and the boundaries between the discrete rooms start to break down.But while the set breaks down, Ireland builds the play up, flinging more and more stuff at us: consent, faith, sex, sexuality, masculinity most of all. And where does it get us? Ireland had a problem with alcohol as a young man and has recently converted to Christianity, but despite being so close to home, the play never works out what it wants to say. It certainly isn’t a proselytising piece. Where his big hits were far more explicit in unpicking ideas around ideology, idolatry and faith, The Fifth Step has those same preoccupations but are more lightly held. For all it churns up, there is this sense that, ultimately, any seriousness of purpose always gives way to a good gag. ★★★☆☆Meanwhile, seeing shows on the Edinburgh Fringe this year has often felt like being in a collective panic attack. Anxious monologues have abounded, such as Brian Watkins’ Weather Girl, from Fleabag and Baby Reindeer producer Francesca Moody, where a breezy Californian weather presenter has a meltdown as wildfires scorch the land around her. It boasts the best performance of this year’s Fringe from Julia McDermott, and Watkins’ language is almost otherworldly: quasi-mythical, funny, but never less than ferocious in its takedown of blithe attitudes towards climate change. ★★★★★Unflinching rage, too, in Stuffed, a clown show about food banks. That may not sound promising but in the hands of physical theatre company Ugly Bucket it becomes an inventive invective despairing at the political choices that have led to so much poverty. Daft humour sits alongside a deep questioning of purpose: what can a physical theatre show do about anything, but how can you justify doing nothing? A remarkable piece of theatre. ★★★★☆Rage is justified in 16 Postcodes, the debut storytelling show by Jessica Regan, who talks us through the 16 places she has lived since moving to London 20 years ago and the impossibility of finding a permanent home in the city’s expensive rental market. And yet Regan opts for gentleness and humour instead. Yes, it is one of many monologues about personal problems, but it doesn’t feel like the rest. It is too carefully, too endearingly done. The city’s housing crisis shows up all the more starkly for Regan’s lightness of touch as she shows how simplicity can house complexity. ★★★★☆eif.co.uk, edfringe.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
