Heroin(e) For Breakfast

This is the latest production from the highly acclaimed young company, Horizon Arts – their third to premiere at the Edinburgh Festival.  Set in a shabby Northern flat, we find ourselves intruding on a domestic drama of Hollyoaks-like proportions: all sex, shouting and regional accents. Tommy, his flatmate Chloe and girlfriend Edie are living a strained, if seemingly normal, life. The girls bicker about what they want for breakfast, Tommy cracks some filthy one-liners and spews out ream after ream of cod-philosophical nonsense. Just for a moment, we could be anywhere in the country. But everything changes when Tommy’s package of heroin arrives.

Heroin(e) is an astonishingly intelligent piece of work. It’s postmodern leanings toy with theatrical convention, openly mocking the removed, coldly academic manner that middle-class patrons adopt while watching theatre in a series—ironically enough—of fourth-wall busting monologues delivered straight to the audience. This is more than a technical device trying to be smart for smart’s sake – in fact, it produces the show’s most harrowing moment as Chloe, at the height of her desperation, screams: “Why are you just sitting there. Please help me!”  Sitting at home, hours later, I still wish that I did….

Sexy, funny and yet truly horrible, Heroin(e) For Breakfast is made all the more compelling by some genuinely superlative performances. But the true stand-out display comes from Craig McArdle as Tommy, a captivating and charming portrayal of a fun-loving yet alarmingly dangerous hedonist who fancies himself as a revolutionary, a prophet and a philosopher. His final, heart-breaking monologue is likely to be my stand-out memory of the 2009 Fringe.