Lash at Pleasance Courtyard – Edinburgh Fringe review

Sonny is going out on the lash.

In Philip Stokes’ hour-long late-night play, the Gen-Z vagabond (played by Jack Stokes) has necked the pints, popped the pills, thrown on the gear and has fled his job bang on six. The club awaits – though a small spot of blood between his shoulder blades leaves an ominous note.

There’s a lyrical, almost poetic boisterousness on offer here – Stokes writes with an exuberant, maniacal energy as Sonny freewheels through his night, some contemporary Alice in Wonderland, bumping into a cavalcade of characters – far-right thugs spoiling for a fight, balding co-workers caught up in the frantic joy of a night out, or a drug dealer nicknamed Pusher, lining up lines of coke to give Sonny an extra kick: eat me, drink me, sniff me.

Performer Stokes, drenched with sweat that plasters his Lauryn Hill t-shirt to his body, appears as some jackal with a wide, wild smile. Nods to absent parents and generational angst sometimes appear with ungainly prominence but then fade back into the booze-soaked aether.

If anything, Stokes’ play keeps it too safe – the lyrical genius on offer hampered by a story that could be more ambitious. Nevertheless, both Stokes deliver a late-night blinder, the rocket-fuel chaser to a boozy day at the Fringe.