Review: Baby Mash-Up – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

It isn’t often that a protagonist attempts to resolve her existential dread by climbing into a washing machine. Yet, in Stillpoint Theatre Company’s Baby Mash-Up, What On Earth Are You Doing?, this peculiar evasion quickly feels like the only logical course of action.

Written by Sally Hobson and originally conceived during her Playwriting Masters at Edinburgh University, this 90-minute production is a bizarre, defiantly strange piece of theatre. Traditional, linear narrative is out. In its place sits a fragmented, pinball exploration of inherited trauma, migration, and the shadows cast by post-Troubles Belfast.

The result? Something like a theatrical fever dream which leaves the audience asking what on earth they just watched, even as they reach for the tissues.

Written by Sally Hobson and originally conceived during her Playwriting Masters at Edinburgh University, this 90-minute production is a bizarre, defiantly strange piece of theatre.

Anchoring the Absurd

At the centre of this vortex is Claire Lamont as Baby Mash-Up. Here is a woman trying to colour inside the lines of a life that simply refuses to hold still. Lamont’s performance is magnetic. She anchors the play’s escalating surrealism—a caper involving involuntary tap-dancing, lip-syncing to ‘The Great Pretender’, and heated arguments with the ghosts of James Joyce and Ludwig Wittgenstein—with a sharp blend of adult cynicism and wide-eyed, childlike curiosity.

She is backed by a remarkably elastic ensemble that shape-shifts through the chaos without missing a beat. Benny Young brings absolute gravitas to the Father, wandering intermittently through the action like a bewildered Gloucester out of King Lear. Jasmin Gleeson delivers sharp, focused work as the Sister, whilst Paul Gorman and Cristian Ortega provide a relentless, infectious energy as a pair of guardian angels—and occasional backing singers—determined to hit the reset button on Baby Mash-Up’s life.

**Claire Lamont (Baby Mash-up) and Pauline Goldsmith. Photo Credit Kat Gollock**

However, the production’s emotional high-water mark undoubtedly belongs to Pauline Goldsmith as The Mother. Amidst clapperboard scene changes and absurdist comedy, Goldsmith delivers a devastating monologue exploring the liminal space between life and death. It provides a moment of profound, necessary stillness in a wildly kinetic show.

Controlled Dislocation

Director Nicholas Bone deserves immense credit for keeping Hobson’s sprawling, ambitious script on track. A play juggling the horrors of Bloody Friday and the heavy weight of memory could easily collapse under its own surreal mechanics. Bone’s tight pacing ensures the narrative chaos remains entirely deliberate.

However, the production’s emotional high-water mark undoubtedly belongs to Pauline Goldsmith as The Mother. Amidst clapperboard scene changes and absurdist comedy, Goldsmith delivers a devastating monologue exploring the liminal space between life and death.

This sense of controlled dislocation is vividly realised by the design team. Cal Owen’s twisted, dreamlike set—complete with mounds of earth, a trapdoor grave, and hanging bedsheets—provides a stark, visually arresting playground. Dick Straker’s video design pushes the space further, projecting title cards and rippling imagery across the linens. It is a constant, clever visual cue to the fractured nature of memory.

Baby Mash-Up, What On Earth Are You Doing? is not in the business of handing out easy answers. It is challenging, disorienting, and completely unapologetic about its own strangeness. Yet, beneath the tap shoes and philosophical debates lies a deeply moving exploration of how we process the past. It is a bold, fiercely original piece of Scottish theatre, and well worth your time.

Featured Image: stillpoint presents Baby Mash-up, what on Earth are you doing_ by Sally Hobson. Actor – Claire Lamont (Baby Mash-up) Photograph by Kat Gollock