PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD

Aug 13 2025 | By Hugh Simpson More

★★★★☆ Focused anarchy

Summerhall (Venue 26): Sun 3 – Mon 25 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson

PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD, late night at Summerhall throughout the Fringe, promises to be a biography, then threatens to descend into anarchy, while always remaining a stupidly smart jab at patriarchy and at performance itself.

The show from IN BED WITH MY BROTHER takes its title from the album by The Shaggs, the ‘best worst band of all time’. The group comprised the three Wiggin sisters Dot, Betty and Helen, formed in 60s New Hampshire at the behest of their controlling father Austin.

Philosophy Of the World. Pic: Alex Brenner.

Despite having no interest in being in a band, the sisters were dragooned into practising daily, playing a weekly concert to jeering locals, and eventually releasing what some regard as the worst music ever recorded. Long after Austin’s death and the end of the band, they were lauded by Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain as a brilliant example of outsider art.

It’s a compelling story in itself; Tom Cruise apparently has the film rights, but since he’s been sitting on them for two decades it doesn’t seem that movie will be arriving any time soon.

the rules are soon broken

The Shaggs’ biography only serves as a jumping-off point. We are solemnly assured at the start by the three company members (Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn and Kat Cory) that this will be a purely linear narrative, with a proper three-act structure, with no messing around and no undressing. It is then hardly surprising that those rules are soon broken, as the production degenerates into apparently barely controlled but thoroughly intentional chaos.

As well as nudity, the production features the audience being instructed to throw empty Pepsi cans at the performers, and the repeated murder of ‘stagehand’ Nigel Barrett, who plays Austin Wiggin. (Barrett’s long-time collaborator Louise Mari is listed as dramaturg).

Philosophy Of the World. Pic: Alex Brenner.

The stage is awash with detritus and fluids, the sound design of Brain Rays & Quiet and the lighting of Lily Woodford-Lewis go from disquieting to overpowering, and there is an angry, almost desperate monologue about Valerie Solanas and Mark Zuckerberg. Projected captions give way to writing on a blackboard as the very fabric of the theatre is threatened.

As well as the show’s creators, movement director Dana Chmielewska and fight director Ruth Cooper-Brown deserve great credit for their part in orchestrating this riotous assembly.

designed to aggravate

Beneath this apparent mess is a series of serious points about the intentions of art, the role of the audience, how artists are perceived, and about how the patronage of the more famous male musicians ignores the sisters’ own story.

It isn’t anything as simple as a ‘reclaiming’ of that story, nor is it a celebration. It’s clearly designed to aggravate as much as it is to entertain, and it manages to do both these things while being funny, disturbing and not a little exhilarating.

Running time: One hour and 10 minutes (no interval).
Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre), 1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL. (Venue 26).
Sunday 3 – Monday 25 August 2025.
Daily (not 11, 18): 10.40 pm.
Also at Summerhall Dissection Room on Wednesday 20 August: 5.30 pm.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Book here on EdFest.com.*