Scotland

Supposing – Traverse Theatre

Supposing you fell down a hole. Supposing, shortly afterwards, you began hearing voices, seventeen of them in fact, a kind of Greek chorus taking up residence inside your head. And supposing you became convinced that falling down that hole had somehow allowed you to see into the future.

Written and directed by Zinnie Harris, Supposing takes this curious premise and turns it into a clever, funny and increasingly unsettling examination of reality, marriage and what happens when nobody believes what you believe to be true.

At its centre is Nicole Cooper as Sally, married for fifteen years to Richard, played by Richard Conlon. Cooper establishes an immediate connection with the audience, helped enormously by one of Harris’s simplest and most effective theatrical devices.

On Alisa Kalyanova’s set, a circle marked on the floor contains Sally’s physical reality. Chairs, tables and other objects appear within it, but Sally can also step outside. When she does, she frequently breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to us. We become her confidants, perhaps even additional voices inside her increasingly uncertain world.

Richard never does.

Conlon remains firmly within the dramatic reality of their marriage, giving him a solidity that Sally increasingly seems to lack. It is a clever piece of theatrical grammar. We understand the rules almost instinctively without Harris ever having to explain them.

After Sally falls down a hole outside a theatre, the wheels begin to come off. She believes she has been cursed, the voices become increasingly intrusive and the apparently ordinary world around her becomes decidedly less ordinary. Cooper handles these shifts beautifully, moving between comedy, certainty, fear and confusion while retaining our sympathy.

But Harris is clever enough never to give us the easy answer. Is Sally mentally ill, or can she genuinely see into the future? Is Richard the stable one, or simply incapable of seeing or believing what Sally can see? As her world becomes increasingly populated by frogs, are they real or merely another manifestation of a mind coming apart?

The Greek chorus, the circle and Sally’s conversations with the audience are more than theatrical tricks. They allow us to experience her uncertainty from inside rather than simply observe it, and that makes Supposing: considerably more interesting than a straightforward story of psychological deterioration.

Cooper and Conlon make a compelling pairing, while Harris keeps shifting the ground beneath both them and us. Just when we think we understand what sort of play we are watching, another possibility presents itself.

Supposing: asks some big questions about truth, belief and whether seeing something that nobody else can see necessarily makes you wrong.

And then there is perhaps the greatest unresolved question of all.

Will Sally ever overcome her allergy to cheese?

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

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 7^th August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: