‘The Ceremony’ is a rare novelty in the Fringe calendar: it’s anything you want it to be. We meet at 9:45pm, down the vertiginous Summerhall stairs to the vaguely claustrophobic Female Locker Room. Our host, Ben Volchok, waits to receive us. In time, it becomes clear that though you think he’s simply sitting waiting for his guests, he’s disconcertingly mirroring our body language.
The show starts and things get stranger. Mr Volchok doesn’t speak a word. Instead, he ‘conducts’ us in the narrative. Initially, this means sound effects. We stumble through some lip-reading. Then he hops onto a computer and invites us to read pre-prepared Powerpoint slides, projected above him. He outlines what a ceremony is, (sort of) explains how the show will work, then invites us to share our memories.  And he fashions our ceremony around them.

It’s a gently mesmerising endeavour. Volchok himself is enormously endearing and it’s endlessly surprising that he manages to convey so much simply with his arms and some Powerpoint slides. He’s incredibly quick-witted, thinking on his feet to weave the disparate suggestions into some sort of order that offer a sort of resolution by the show’s close.

Quality control is obviously a problem when you’re relying on your audience for the content – there’s no whisker of a suggestion that any of the unfolding proceedings are in any way rigged. And you can see that some performances could be dripping with heart rending tributes to lost loved ones. This audience seemed sufficiently Friday night boisterous that they were greatly entertained by Volchok’s invention but while quietly intriguing and sometimes charming, this show lacked some of the momentousness that might expect from something so boldly badged.

‘The Ceremony‘ is at Summerhall – Former Womens Locker Room until Mon 25 Aug 2025 at 21:45