I was particularly drawn to this show because, aside from being a piece of theatre created and performed by neurodivergent artists, I was really intrigued to see what they meant by ‘a relaxed show’, and how this would work in a fringe setting. There are a large number of shows at the fringe that have included ‘relaxed performances’ in their schedule, but what makes this different is that it has been designed with accessibility at the heart, and therefore created in a way that leans itself to all performances being able to exist with a relaxed atmosphere, rather than having one specific dedicated showing. The Rickety Fidget team have a video social story on their Instagram, it would have been lovely to see the organisers partner with them on this and share it with all bookers in advance of their performance along with some information about the show and relaxed performances.

Before beginning, Aidan Watson, comes onto stage introduces themself as the director and Ellie Atkinson as the performer, sharing that while they both use they/them pronouns, the character of Hanna uses she/her. Aidan gives a short introduction to the show, as is commonly seen with relaxed performances, and explains what their version of a relaxed showing is going to entail. The house lights will be left on low throughout the show, the audience are invited to stim, tic, move, make noise and generally respond in whatever way is natural for them. They also explain that there will be a small moment of audience interaction and what that will involve, and shows us a signal audience members can give to Ellie if they don’t wish to participate. They explain that people are welcome to leave and re-enter the space without judgement at any point and then goes on to give a brief description of what audiences can expect from the show.

Souvenirs is a unique and clever lens through which we meet Hanna (Ellie Atkinson) after her latest experience embarrassing herself in a social situation she didn’t understand, and takes to the motorway to hide from society. Hanna likes motorways, they’re uniform and don’t require a huge amount of intense concentration and focus. This show ingeniously mirrors Hanna’s physical journey with her emotional one, with a video projection from inside a moving car heading down the M6 behind her to aid this. I do feel the video projection was a necessary feature of the show, fundamentally creating the connection between Hanna’s physical journey and emotional one. It would be incredibly easy to get lost in the stories Hanna is telling and forget where she is and why, missing a central underlying message of the piece. There are times however that it gets a little much, and this gal who is prone to travel sickness did feel a little nauseous towards the end. While I know I could’ve left at any point, I was totally immersed and didn’t want to miss a moment.

There is an increasing amount of neurodivergent art out there, and with a storyline of a young woman coming to terms with her autism diagnosis, it had the potential to be rather cliche; however, refreshingly, it goes the other way. What makes this piece different is that it doesn’t shy away from addressing some of the harder ‘ugly truths’ about autism and being autistic. There isn’t really any structured storyline to follow as such, we are just observers with an insight into Hanna’s raw and honest inner monologue. It often feels like shows about neurodiversity are created for those who do not have personal experience to learn and gain a little understanding and compassion for those around them which, of course, is an absolutely essential tool for educating society. However this piece feels different, as if it’s been created primarily as a safe space for autistic and other neurodivergent individuals to exist and feel seen and heard, with an invitation extended to others to come and learn and experience the show alongside us, with a strong emphasis on them being a guest in our space. This is by no means to say that allistic people shouldn’t see the show because its a wonderful insight into what the struggles of having an autistic brain can look like and its imperative that neurotypical people are engaging with disabled-led art, its just my experience of the atmosphere that the writing and performance creates.

You can tell that El brings a lot of themself into the role which is a brave and vulnerable thing for an actor to do especially in a piece like this, and it really helps bring the character of Hanna to life and makes the journey she is on a lot more real and relatable. The performance felt so raw and real and like they were talking to me as themself, that if it wasn’t for the fact that the character occasionally refers to herself using she/her pronouns I would have entirely forgotten that they were embodying a character. It really did feel as though Hanna was talking directly to me as an individual, the nature of this show means that there could be 2 or 20 or 200 people in the room and it still feels like you’re being spoken to personally.

It’s incredibly difficult to put on a relaxed performance in a setting like the Edinburgh Fringe, which doesn’t really allow for a lot of the elements that are necessary to make a performance ‘Relaxed’. While I’m not entirely sure that any of the ‘relaxed performances’ that are on as part of the festival truly tick enough boxes to be marketed as ‘Relaxed Performances’, in this case the company absolutely created a relaxed environment successfully, and did their best to include as many elements usually associated with a relaxed performance as possible, with the facilities available to them. This show was the perfect example of ‘less is more’, creating so much power in it’s simplicity.

You can book tickets to see Souvenirs, here.

Review by Rachel