Badgers is an ambitious but ultimately flawed effort to explore the art of letting go and the ethics of true crime. It is the story of the efforts of Meles Costas – a failed podcaster – to find out what happened to a musician who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier. Her questions lead her to the reclusive Bridget Brock, and an unsettling folk horror story.
The play’s biggest flaw is that for most of its run time, it is hard to understand why Badgers is a theatrical production at all. It is framed as ‘a hybrid theatre piece blending spoken word and live music’ (aren’t most plays?). However, it would have worked just as well, if not better, as a radio play. Long periods are spent listening to pre-recorded voices anyway. It is a profoundly untheatrical piece of theatre.
However, if one can look past this frustrating aspect, there is a lot to like about Badgers. It has a genuinely weird, witchy vibe which is effectively unsettling at times. Malaika Kegode – who also wrote the play – puts in a heroic stint performing what is effectively an hour long monologue, and does so with verve and charm throughout. This is particularly impressive as the central character – Meles – is profoundly unsympathetic.
The music – composed by Joe Williams with Beth Roberts – is also excellent. It veers from sadboi indie of a sort painfully familiar to anyone who came of musical age in the 2010s to haunting, ancient-sounding folk melodies. Much of the music is performed on stage by Williams and Roberts, a reminder of the power of live performance in a production that relies so heavily on pre-recordings. Likewise, the play’s most theatrical moment – a profoundly unsettling dream sequence – is gripping, and gestures to what might have been.
Badgers is not really about badgers, for all that they feature prominently throughout. Like all horror, it is a medium through which to explore challenging human emotions. It is a meditation on grief, and how to let someone go. It interrogates the competing pressures to both be yourself and live up to parental expectations. The true crime aspect is both a bit of fun and a critique of a media that can find scapegoats in anybody who deviates slightly from the norm. The choice of the oft-maligned and culled badger as the spirit animal of this play is no accident.
As a radio play, Badgers would have been brilliant. The story, writing and music also have considerable potential as a piece of live theatre. It is just a shame that it gets caught between these two stools, making for a tantalising but unsatisfying folk tale.
Performed at the Traverse Theatre on 19 August as part of the Edinburgh Fringe
Until 30 August, see website for dates and times
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes, no interval
Written and performed by Malaika Kegode
Directed by Jenny Davies
Composer: Joe Williams
Set & Costume Designer: Rebecca Wood
Sound Designer: Jack Drewry
Co-Lighting Designers: Mike Gunning & Natalia Chan
Video Designer: Christopher Harrisson
Musicians: Joe Williams and Beth Roberts
Voiceover Artists: Dinita Gohil, Stephanie Jacob, Hanora Kamen, Joseph Tweedale, Mary Woodvine
Transfering to Theatre Royal Plymouth and Bristol Old Vic