There is something particularly satisfying about watching a young theatre company begin to find its feet. Earlier this year, I reviewed GUTTER.’s first production, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, in this same upstairs room at the Assembly Roxy. I admired the ambition, enjoyed the show and suggested this was an Edinburgh company worth watching. Six months later, Eurydice represents another step forward.
There is an interesting connection between the two choices. Stoppard takes two peripheral characters from Hamlet and gives them their own story. American playwright Sarah Ruhl does something similar with the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. We all know Orpheus: the great musician who descends into the Underworld to retrieve his dead wife, only to lose her again when he turns to look back. But what if Eurydice is actually the more interesting character?
Erin Jederon-Hogg certainly makes her so. Her Eurydice is funny, curious, intelligent and completely engaging, carrying us from the exuberance of young love and marriage into the much stranger territory beyond death. It is a beautifully judged central performance.
Ruhl also gives Eurydice something largely absent from the familiar myth: her dead father. John Beattie brings a lovely stillness and warmth to the role, and the gradual rediscovery of their relationship becomes, for me, the emotional heart of the play. Watching with my own daughter, I find myself unexpectedly more invested in this father-daughter relationship than in the celebrated romance of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Shaun Hamilton’s Orpheus almost feels deliberately less substantial. He is the famous one, yet in this retelling he is not necessarily the most interesting man in the room. His attempts to communicate across the boundary between life and death are, however, beautifully realised. Letters are written behind a translucent screen and slipped between worlds, one of several simple theatrical ideas that GUTTER. uses extremely effectively.
The Underworld itself is wonderfully peculiar. Three Stones – Amelie Berry, Aodhán Mallon and Lisa Gilham – become an absurd, petulant Greek chorus, informing us of the rules of death and policing this strange new existence. “Stones don’t feel bad for dead people,” they moan together. Their deadpan reactions, physical comedy and occasional bewildered glances towards the audience provide some of the evening’s biggest laughs.
The design is economical rather than elaborate: metal frames, fluorescent tubes and translucent material create a place where the boundary between worlds can be crossed, glimpsed through or communicated across. It is a good example of imaginative fringe-scale theatre, where an idea is often far more valuable than an expensive piece of scenery.
And then there is Jimmy Kavanagh.
Appearing first as the wonderfully named Nasty Interesting Man and subsequently as the Lord of the Underworld, Kavanagh gives perhaps the evening’s most gloriously eccentric performance. His arrival in the Underworld – a lanky young man perched on an absurdly tiny tricycle – is an image I suspect will stay with me for some time. His altered voice, rhythm of speech and physicality somehow turn something inherently ridiculous into something simultaneously funny, unsettling and faintly sinister. I simply write “magnificent performance” in my notes. I see no reason to revise that assessment.
There is a great deal going on beneath all this visual invention. Ruhl plays with memory, language, grief and what remains of us when the familiar reference points of life disappear. There are moments of genuine sadness, but she repeatedly punctures them with surreal humour. GUTTER. understands that balance remarkably well.
My only significant reservation is one of length. The performance runs to around an hour and forty minutes without an interval and, after being completely absorbed for most of it, I feel the final ten or fifteen minutes begin to drag. There is perhaps one ending too many. The production almost knows exactly when to leave us, but not quite.
That, however, is a relatively minor criticism of an altogether very enjoyable evening.
Most encouragingly, there is a palpable hunger about GUTTER. You can sense when everyone involved in a young company is pulling in the same direction – actors, directors, designers and technicians committed to making something work – and Eurydice has that energy in abundance. It reaches across the stage and takes the audience with it.
The sustained reception at the curtain call suggests I am far from alone in feeling that.
Six months ago, I suggested GUTTER. was an Edinburgh company worth watching. Eurydice rather emphatically confirms it.
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 2nd October 2026
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr 40mins