Edinburgh Fringe: Love Letters to the Public Transport System – Assembly Rooms

Writer: Molly Taylor

Reviewer: Deborah Klayman

The Public Reviews Rating:

Having decided she had reason to thank the people responsible for transporting her via public transport on a daily basis, Molly Taylor began writing to transport companies in an attempt to track down and thank drivers who had taken her on important journeys in her life. Doing so became somewhat of an obsession, and pursuing it gave rise to a number of new experiences in Taylor’s life, including penning her popular one woman show, Love Letters to the Public Transport System.

A mix of personal accounts and tales from other people’s perspectives, this piece sits awkwardly between verbatim and new writing. The dialogue is lyrical and the delivery strong, however Molly’s own experiences sometime lack the drama and drive of the other stories. Perhaps this is because her attempts at contacting these people were thwarted by an unhelpful system, designed as she says with criticism and not praise in mind, or maybe it is just that the fact that an experience happened to you and meant something does not make it intrinsically dramatic. The accounts of Maggie and Gavin, however, have a wonderful tension and characters to really care about – partly because we can see first hand Molly is alright so the unknown quality of the others is more intriguing.

Although Molly comes across as energetic and likeable, the fact is that this piece is not really about her letters but the personal adventure it takes her on and the people she meets along the way. This is perfectly legitimate and at times very engaging, but this diarised narrative told from a static position is not really sufficient to hold the audience for an hour. It does however leave the audience on a nice, upbeat note, and surely many a bus and train driver will be glad for the positive endorsement.

Until 27^th August

Edinburgh Fringe: Love Letters to the Public Transport System - Assembly Rooms, 5.0 out of 5 based on 4 ratings