Cathy – Traverse Theatre

Tommy never appears, we don’t see him alive, in flashback or even in a photograph. Yet by the end of Eilidh Loan’s beautifully observed new play, I felt I knew him.

That is quite some trick.

Tommy is dead before the story begins, leaving Cathy to negotiate that peculiar new country called widowhood. Elaine C. Smith, making a heroic return to the Traverse stage after 26 years, gives us a woman whose stoicism is matched only by her capacity to find humour in the darkness.

And Cathy is surprisingly, wonderfully funny. Not polite theatrical chuckling, but genuine laugh out loud funny. Loan understands something fundamental about grief and perhaps about Scottish families: sometimes you laugh because the alternative is crying. During this performance, plenty of people did both.

Tommy is reconstructed for us through fragments. Musical theatre provides one of the loveliest threads, connecting generations through Amy’s memories of singing and performing alongside her grandfather. Songs become memories, and memories allow someone who has gone to remain briefly in the room.

But Loan’s cleverest moment may be much smaller.

After Tommy’s death, Cathy finds herself working in a second hand shop, surrounded by racks containing some of his old clothes. Someone picks out one of Tommy’s suits. Cathy holds onto it for dear life and remembers his infuriating habit of stuffing empty crisp packets into his coat pockets.

Then she puts her hand into the pocket.

There is a crisp packet.

It is an extraordinarily simple piece of theatre. Something Tommy touched has unexpectedly travelled back into Cathy’s world. For a moment, he is there.

And that’s the great achievement of Cathy. Loan never sentimentalises Tommy or Cathy and never tells us how to feel. There is no photograph to manufacture sympathy and no ghostly husband appearing conveniently from beyond the grave. We construct Tommy ourselves from the traces he has left behind.

Smith is superb, but she is surrounded by fine performances, while Kenny Miller’s design, Grant Anderson’s lighting and Gary Cameron’s composition and sound give Loan’s writing precisely the space it needs.

Cathy understands that grief isn’t simply about losing someone. It’s about discovering them everywhere after they’re gone.

Sometimes in a song.

Sometimes in a suit pocket.

And sometimes, wonderfully, in an old crisp packet.

Playing until August 30th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026CATHY

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 9^th August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:

Running time – 1hr 10mins