Edinburgh Fringe 2022: Pash at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

Max has one week until her 25^th birthday; her mum keeps asking her what she would like to do, how she would like to celebrate; her best friend is planning a surprise for her. But the only thing she really wants for her birthday is to have her first kiss. Performed by Olivia McLeod, Pash is a romcom-esque show about the pressure to catch up with everyone else and the (often unrealistic) expectations of romantic love we set for ourselves.

Growing up watching films like The Sound of Music and The Phantom of the Opera, Max dreamed of having her first kiss in a gazebo while rain poured down outside, or with a mysterious masked man who would teach her to sing and simultaneously fall in love with her. With these fairytale scenarios in her head, Max has waited for her own to develop in order to have her first kiss. Yet now she is nearly a quarter of a century old and she is tired of waiting. As Max, McLeod delivers an insightful performance as a twenty-something trapped between her childhood desires and the perceived demands of the encroaching adult world. She is witty and relatable, as she reenacts scenes from her life. She tells the audience about terrible first dates and complains about being dragged to Zumba classes where everyone was too keen. Her never-ending energy sustains the one-woman show.

Pash is produced by Australian theatre group Seemingly Wholesome Productions, who are known for highlighting and putting forth shows created primarily by female and queer artists. McLeod’s Max is both. As she navigates the seven days leading up to her birthday and tries to find someone to kiss who will give her the “fireworks” feeling she’s always imagined, Max embarks on a journey of self-acceptance and self-discovery. Things may not happen exactly as she thought (or hoped) they would, but good things never come easily. 

This is a show that celebrates love in all its various forms: that may be romantic love between a man and a woman or between two women or between people who identify as neither; it may also be the love that exists between friends or family members, the small ways in which this love is shown in everyday life despite its lack of prioritisation in the media and popular culture. It may also be the difficult, not-so-easy to attain love we eventually find for ourselves. Pash acknowledges the pressures and hardships associated with all of these types of love. Yet ultimately, it offers a message of hope that whatever form of love we may find will be worth it in the end. 

Madison Sotos

Pash is at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose from 26^th August until 28^th August 2022. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch some clips from last season’s Pash here: