Camden Fringe 2023: Fickle Weather at Hope Theatre

Camden Fringe is back (for the 17^th time in fact!) and bringing its usual blend of weird and wonderful to North London. Fickle Weather, at the Hope Theatre, fits more into the former of those two buckets and less into the latter.

The plot of the production is… Well, who knows? It’s a woman who makes weird noises into a microphone and occasionally plays with sand.

The blurb on theatre’s website makes big promises: “Inspired by theoretical ideas of queer time, cyber feminism and utopias, Fickle Weather explores how a body can exist in a world seemingly not built for them.” But it’s difficult to understand where any of this interesting stuff actually comes in.

Snippets of radio news readers are mixed with creepy songs (if one can call them that – they’re more a series of noises repeated on a loop) and occasional monologuing. There’s a lot of fiddling about with a computer or the sound mixer, which probably accounts for about 20% of the hour-long show. 

It’s dark and it’s twisted and it seems to have something to say, but just isn’t very good at saying it – kind of like a 15-year-old writing poetry, thinking they’re dark and edgy.

Perhaps Fickle Weather is one of those pieces where, if you’ve been brought along in the thought process and understand all the concepts and choices, there’s probably some really intelligent thinking behind it and maybe even an important message or two about people and society. But going in cold, it’s just meaningless weirdness. 

Those who want to see a piece of art that takes an enigma machine to decode might like this, or friends of the show who have had every step of its creation explained to them. For everyone else, it’s best avoided.

Jim Compton-Hall

Fickle Weather is at Hope Theatre from 31^st July until 1^st August 2023. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.