Review: Trans People are Awful (Edinburgh Fringe)

I reviewed Trans People are Awful at Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard, and have to wonder if there would be a more fitting place for this particular show at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As the story is set in a garage and the visible props as we entered the room gave an instant air of menace, it was the perfect venue.

Boy (Ros Watt) bursts into the room, and he is fired up. There’s no other way to describe it but the energy is instant, constant and relentless. The character is sharing his thoughts not only with the audience present but with the world, via a recording he’s making explaining a true crime as it happens, and we, the audience get to watch this video being created.

Boy is transgender. This we are aware of from the show description. But he’s desperate to become the person he believes he deserves to be, and decides to steal body parts from cis men in order to do so. Even though he knows the final surgery will kill him. As Boy introduces himself to us, it quickly becomes apparent that he is also autistic. Some autistic traits were shared through performance, but he also makes a statement to clarify this diagnosis.

This is a fast-paced journey through someone’s mind. Someone who is not thinking how people are expected to think, and not because he’s transgender or autistic, but because he’s been pushed beyond the point of no return in his mission to become the man he wants to be, feels he deserves to be and will stop at nothing to be. There were rapid changes of storytelling style at times, from opera to ballet, discussion about Boy’s favourite spoon and collection of scrapbooks and, notably, his reasoning behind his choices of victims – attempting to justify most of them - even as we recoil from his tales of butchery. This sense of chaos felt like a visual representation of what must have been jumping around in Boy’s mind for him to be able to reach this current moment.

This show will not be for you if you find medical dramas or gore distasteful.  At one point the table in the room is covered in specimen jars, containing body parts that Boy has considered for his project. The situation is not dissimilar to being in a medical museum or biology lab. Some of these items do not remain in the jars for the run of the show and I did see one person walk out and several others shut their eyes as a result… these visceral reactions were impossible to ignore.

But here is the thing that is completely jangling my brain. This character does some awful things. There is not even a shard of doubt about it, he’s confessing all to a video camera as well as the audience. And yet, firstly there were so many things in the narrative that were funny. Properly laugh out loud funny. Even more confusingly, at times I also felt empathy for him. I’m actually still trying to process these feelings a day later.

I will not be forgetting about the experience of watching this show any time soon. It was truly unforgettable.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Secure your tickets as quickly as you can as this show is selling out on a daily basis at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. If you’re quick you may get tickets on the Ed Fringe website.

Trans People are Awful is then moving to London in October. You can book tickets here.

If you would like to see my curtain call photographs from this and other shows, please visit my Instagram.

I was gifted a ticket for this show in exchange for an honest review.