I’m not sure what’s more remarkable – the fact that The Ceremony ends with thirty-odd people making chicken noises at full volume in the Summerhall courtyard, or the fact that this is the second show I’d seen tonight to feature a chicken. I’ve been reviewing theatre for many years, and I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word “chicken” before. Tonight, it comes up twice. Make of that what you will.
It starts innocently enough. I arrived early, take my seat in the front row, notepad at the ready. Unfortunately, the front row plus notepad is like wearing a neon sign reading “critic” – and Ben Volchok, our master of ceremonies, clocks me straight away with a knowing wink and a smile. The premise of the show is disarmingly simple: the audience and the performer create a ritual together. That’s it. No script. No safety net. Just a loose framework of Past, Present, and Future, and whatever the room throws into it.
From the off, Volchok is in full control, the kind of performer who can throw a glance that feels like a spotlight. He does not talk but instead steers the collective without forcing it, mining suggestions for comedy, absurdity, and the occasional flicker of truth, all with the power of gesture. This isn’t theatre you “watch” – it’s theatre you’re in, whether you like it or not.
As the evening takes shape, it becomes clear that the point isn’t to make a “good” story, but to make our story. Each choice – however silly – is locked into the ceremony. Someone suggests omelette, someone else decides by association that chickens are the perfect symbol for whatever it was we are making. And before I know it, I am flapping my elbows and clucking like an idiot, surrounded by equally committed strangers.
Then comes the finale. Volchok herds us, still clucking, out of the performance space into a basement courtyard. We are a ragged choir of poultry, loud enough that a real crowd gathers above to watch us, peering over the stone balustrade into the darkness, mystified. It is ridiculous, joyful, and strangely unifying.
And here’s the thing: two hours earlier, I’d been at The Lyceum watching Works and Days, a vast, wordless epic about humanity’s relationship with the land. That show begins with a live chicken. Two very different productions, both speechless, one high-art and the other high-chaos, but both anchored by poultry. If you’re looking for patterns in the Edinburgh Fringe, I wouldn’t have bet on “chickens” as the motif of the night – but there it was.
Was The Ceremony profound? In its own way, yes. The point wasn’t the content of the ritual so much as the act of making it together. The clucking, the laughter, the feeling of being in a group doing something utterly pointless yet oddly bonding – that’s where the magic sat.
I still don’t know why chickens came up twice that night. But I do know I’ll never hear one again without thinking of that courtyard at Summerhall, full of strangers who, for a few minutes, were my flock
21:45 Daily (except 11th and 18th) Till 25th August
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-ceremony
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 7th August 2025
North West End UK Rating: 3
Running time – 1hr