“For a one-woman show, there’s a lively crowd on stage.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

We live at the low point of human stupidity. Our ancestors may have lived lives nasty brutish and short – but they didn’t own any plastic Harry Potter wands. No seriously. Think about it. What is a wand? It’s a stick. Where do sticks come from? Trees. Sticks literally grow on trees. Trees are everywhere. But we are so stupid that we part with our hard-earned cash (or as likely dip deeper into debt) in order to purchase plastic likenesses of sticks possessing none of the magical properties that transform a stick into a wand. All that expenditure. All that economic effort. All that tapping of petroleum-based science, and for what? It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

In this context, the city of Cambridge is growing. We pretend that Cambridge is growing because of the booming biomedical science sector. But, in truth, a city that makes its living selling little pieces of paper certifying that the bearer is not stupid, cannot help but grow in times such as these. This exponential growth creates a problem. Cambridge has an international reputation as a rather nice place. Not quite Venice, but certainly not Houston. Stupidity will obviously spoil Cambridge. And, once spoiled by flagrant stupidity, it is unlikely that those locally-sourced little pieces of “I’m certifiably not stupid” paper will retain their global prestige and value. If you are reading this 50 or 100 years hence, chances are that the Cambridge bubble has long since burst and been forgotten. Cambridge, it will be recorded, was monumentally, uninspiringly slow to adapt, post-pandemic, to new and better economic models that regarded overconsumption as a failure not the purpose.

‘Last Stand on Honey Hill’ is one woman’s effort to narrate in real time the sound and feel of a changing landscape. Through songs, storytelling, and audio/visual accompaniment Liz Cotton walks us through proposals to relocate Cambridge’s main sewage treatment plant further downstream and into her backyard. As can be imagined, folks in the affected villages and lovers of the greenbelt are far from delighted at a prospect which seems to be one more aspect in the multifaceted, yet strangely faceless, overdevelopment of Cambridge.

According to the local paper, “The new facility is proposed to replace the existing plant in the north of Cambridge, in order to free up the land for the North East Cambridge development, which could see over 8,000 new homes and around 15,000 jobs created.” Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?

‘Last Stand on Honey Hill’ is also the story of an empty nest, a neglected mother, a marriage drifting into the sunset. It’s a conversation about life, the universe, and everything even as the Vogons Destructor Fleet looms over the horizon. Liz’s rapport with the audience is spontaneous while her playing is well-rehearsed and faultless. Her timing and delivery are perfect. Her staging is flamboyantly intentional yet stylishly minimal. Along the way, we are introduced to the many colourful local characters organising to resist. For a one-woman show, there’s a lively crowd on stage.

In the bar afterwards, I suggest that a better, more descriptive name for the show would be ‘Sweary Menopausal Woman Sings Songs’. There are shows at EdFringe which are timeless. This isn’t one of them. This is a show very much of a particular moment in the human story, a chronicle of the faulty transition into a bright future mostly undertaken by dim people with questionable motives. Come for the auld fashioned guitar-based protest singing. Stay for a lively and engaging protest singer. Get your green wellies, green hats, and green coats on and go see this.

FULL DISCLOSURE: The author, Dan Lentell, is an independent, opposition District Councillor at South Cambridgeshire.