Tempus Fugit: Troy and Us by NMT Automatics – Army @ The Fringe, Edinburgh

Army at the Fringe, a programme staged at the 52nd Lowland Army Reserve Centre, is an unlikely but always welcome addition to the festival. Here the Army has hosted a wide range of companies presenting pieces that deal with the relationship between society and the military, often exploring difficult questions, none more so than Tempus Fugit which draws lines between a modern soldier, Alec and his wife, Bea, and the doomed Trojan Hector and Andromache. Directed by Andres Velasquez and devised by NMT Automatics creative team, the production tells a story with an inevitable, dark ending in straightforward but very effective style. Noah Young as Alec and Genevieve Dunne as Bea are both very sympathetic characters, meeting as students and being drawn, via Alec’s determination to join the Army, into a life of separation and constant anxiety that controls their lives. The two performers constantly rearrange crates on stage to create the various settings, while also giving the impression of a battle to organise their lives to make them liveable. Between scenes they don masks to enter the events of Greek myth, via a production broadcast on the radio. Tempus Fugit pulls no punches, neither in depicting the psychological impact of Afghan tours on a soldier, nor the equally brutal effects on a soldier’s partner. It’s an honest, difficult and impressive piece of theatre that makes its characters very real and provides insight that feels completely convincing.