Fan fiction is the beating heart of the science fiction community. Without it, Star Trek would have just been some ’60s sci-fi show; the Hugo Awards would be a lot shorter, and countless careers in TV, film, audio, and theatre would have faltered at the first hurdle. Cringe, subtitled #NoBetaWeDieLikeMen, is a love letter to fan fiction, slash fiction and fandom in general. It is also a remarkable and delightful piece of theatre.
Cringe opens with a short audio, expounding on some of the key arguments about fan fiction. An arrogant male voice decries the practice as lazy, a point swiftly rebuked by more intelligent voices. We then see two rather attractive men in rather revealing ‘space explorer’ uniforms; it feels like a homage to a classic SF show, but something is a little off; they’re a little too close, almost as if they’re, in fact being written by a horny young lady.
Which, of course, they are. The narrative pulls out to reveal that it’s the late ’60s, and a small group of bored suburban women have gathered together to watch their favourite SF show, one that they love so much that they have made art and written stories for. They even have their own club with its own little puppet mascot. As wild and as silly as they seem, they’re a strong depiction of countless SF clubs of the time.
We then flit to the 2010s, where two bored teenagers bond over a shared love of an old TV show and the fan fiction they write. We are introduced to the two sexy space explorers again, and these characters are the playthings of our protagonist, safe yet sexy figures that can be rewritten and reimagined constantly as our fan-fic writers work through some things.
The narrative moves between the two groups; the delicate fandom of the sixties balances against the more robust twenties-tens. Things have changed in terms of technology and opportunity, but the human heart remains the same, and fan fiction is still the balm for the soul it always has been.
Cleverly staged and bitter-sweet in places, Cringe succeeds where many shows about fandom have failed. It wears its dorky heart on its sleeve, and that sleeve is part of a Starfleet uniform.
Decidedly queer and very much about the female gaze, the script is crammed with little references to the broader world of fandom. Cringe is a love letter to worlds of fannish joy, a superbly realised celebration of the love of geeky things and fannish lore. Fabulous. Hilarious. Filled with (slightly awkward) love.
You can pick up Edinburgh Fringe Tickets here, and find out more about the production (and future tours) here.
