In Bed With My Brother, made up of Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn and Kat Cory, or as they introduce themselves, NORA, DORA + KAT, return after six years with ‘Philosophy of the World’. They open not with a scene but with a housekeeping announcement. Cheerful and welcoming, they tell the audience this will not be the messy, chaotic, tits-out style of their earlier shows. That, they say, no longer works in commercial theatre. Instead, they promise a neat, linear, biographical three-act play based on the best worst girl band, The Shaggs.

To convince the audience how ordinary this will be, they show us the script and introduce the stage manager, played by guest performer Nigel Barrett. They also explain there will be costume changes and point out the fire exit on the left-hand side of the stage, warning that there won’t be any fake alarm tonight. When the ‘play’ begins, the trio reappear wearing wigs like the Wiggin sisters and oversized T-shirts featuring their album cover.

In the first act, they follow through on their promise. Under the stage manager’s orders, they practise, perform badly, play gigs, remain bad, then practise and gig again, mirroring the Wiggin sisters’ own journey. Their father Austin did not allow them to have social lives, friends or even to attend school, forcing them instead to fulfil a prophecy that his daughters would form a world famous popular band. At one point, the audiences are invited to throw Pepsi at them. This replication of Wiggins’ story unfolds almost in the style of a Wikipedia entry.

Moving into the second act, they appear freed from the rigidity of the first, as the death of their father Austin gives them more freedom to breathe. They play with the stage lighting, the fire exit, Nigel’s shirts, and tool belt, only to discover that their father’s ghost will not leave them alone. Nigel, now channelling Austin, repeatedly comes back to life to do some really violent yet funny stunts with the girls on stage.

By the final act, the original housekeeping promise lies in tatters. Nudity becomes a constant, the fire exit is thrown open again and again, and smoke and fire alarms fill the space. The stage is overtaken by their own interpretation of The Shaggs’ life, a feminist thread of parallels, and a feeling of pure anger. The chaos resists structural analysis, yet within this show it somehow works. Everything from the first two acts, even the housekeeping rules, is woven into the madness of the ending.

So what kind of philosophy of the world can be examined in a sixty-minute run time? In truth, it is impossible. As In Bed With My Brother begin to question the meaning of the show itself, and the meaning of presenting a biography of someone else’s chaotic life, they point towards the danger of imposing order or philosophy onto disorder. This way of telling a story can enact the systems of patriarchy and a kind of colonising authority that seeks to frame other people’s lives within imposed meaning. That is exactly what In Bed With My Brother push against, embracing instead the chaotic nature of the world and the human condition, where structure, standards and imposed systems are constantly challenged. In their hands, chaos is not a flaw to be fixed but a truth to be lived through our own chaotic messy body.

‘PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD‘ is at Summerhall – Red Lecture Theatre until Mon 25 Aug 2025 at 22:45