Stacey is a weather girl for a TV station in smalltown California. Acres of blonde curls, impeccable make-up, a hot pink tube skirt and a winning smile, she does her best to keep her cool as a house burns on screen behind her, engulfed in an encroaching wildfire. But temperatures across the state are rising and no-one seems to care.

Weather Girl is a magic piece of theatre. From a distance, every aspect of Stacey’s life appears like the archetypal Californian dream but if the camera were allowed a close up, the fissures would start an earthquake. Brian Watkins’ script is fast, funny and surprising. Inventive is a really over-used word in August in Edinburgh but this production is that in spades. The set’s simple enough but nicely evokes a life lived under a lens. Constant cicadas evoke simmering heat and the gobbling sound of distant burning grows ever louder.

Julia McDermott‘s performance is stellar: composed but with a contained hysteria that is strangely captivating. Whilst the plot veers into what might be considered outlandish, her sincerity makes her exploits seem sensible. Pacey, unsentimental direction (Tyne Rafaeli) makes her final meltdown magnificent. This is an ear worm equivalent of a show – you’ll find yourself pondering it long after the final thrilling moment of trickery before the blunt black out. What was real and what was only in Stacey’s head? How much is this the future and how much is this all too real, right now?

This reviewer sat next to a lady visiting from California. ‘It’s happening,’ she said, Cassandra-style, at the end of the show. ‘It’s getting hotter, we’re in a drought, we have been for three years and people keep on using the water.’ Quite so. But more theatre like this and we’ve a fighting chance of interrupting wildfires before they become the new norm.

Weather Girl is at Summerhall – Cairns Lecture Theatre until Mon 26 Aug 2024 at 18:00