Of the 30-odd shows I’ve had the pleasure of seeing so far this Fringe, Dreamgirl is certainly the sweetest.
To look into the eyes of Norwegian clown and theatre-maker Karen Houge is to look upon someone searching, perhaps even pleading, for a safer, more open and friendlier world. Right now, that particular voice sometimes seems in danger of disappearing into the void.
Houge originally intended to make a clown-burlesque show, and indeed first appears in the feathers and glitter of the costume intended for it. I’m rather glad she changed direction. Instead, Dreamgirl grew from her experiences during the 2015 refugee crisis, when she travelled alongside Syrian refugees making their way through Europe.
What follows isn’t really a play and certainly isn’t a lecture. It’s a conversation.
Come with an open mind and an open heart and you’ll be asked to sing, talk to your neighbour, make reasoned judgements about difficult questions, build a tower from Lego and decide what kind of vegetable you might be if you were a vegetable.
Quirky? Absolutely. Quaint? Certainly. Sweet? Undoubtedly.
One of the cleverest exercises involves Houge making extraordinarily rapid judgements about people she has only just met. Within seconds, body language can suggest aggressive or friendly, open or closed, trustworthy or otherwise. Somehow vegetables become part of this too. It sounds ridiculous, yet underneath is a serious question: how quickly do we make similar judgements about strangers?
That leads naturally into Houge’s experiences travelling through Europe. As a blonde Norwegian woman, she could cross borders and encounter authorities very differently from the refugees beside her. We learn how attitudes towards refugees vary between countries, where settlement and integration are possible and how those attitudes have changed.
Is Dreamgirl theatrically powerful enough? No. Did it make me cry? No. Did it make me laugh particularly often? Not really.
But not all theatre has to.
There is a danger that the show’s constant diversions dilute the seriousness of its subject. Lego, vegetables and clowning are precarious tools with which to explore displacement and the treatment of refugees. Tonally, it doesn’t always cut through.
Yet there is something rather lovely about spending an hour in a room open to possibilities, interaction and conversation. Dreamgirl lets go of some of the preciousness, and frankly some of the seriousness, that can surround the Fringe.
Houge asks an intriguing question: if you were given an hour in which people genuinely listened to you, what would you say?
This is her answer.
Would I recommend Dreamgirl to my friends? Absolutely.
Perhaps that’s the biggest compliment I can give it.
Playing until 23rd August, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026DREAMGI
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 13th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr