Pioneer

We're happy to report that Curious Directive, the much touted, prolific young company (mission: "to explore life through the findings of science”) have come good on the ample signs of promise shown on previous outings.

Appropriately enough, Pioneer sees the outfit push their performance in terms of ambition, scope and spectacle (“our largest piece to date” notes the handout) but most vitally, nail down the human microplots that underpin the scholarship and slick theatrical wizardry.

It’s 2025 and humankind’s first mission to Mars has vanished without trace. Some time later, take II begins in circumspect fashion, with the eyes of the world—not to say mysterious billionaire funder Mrs Singh—on Dutch co-pilots Imke and Oskar.

Back at mission control, the strain of ensuring success wears heavy on Flight Director Shari and the decisions she and her slippery sidekick Rudi make might mean the difference between failure and success. Though what exactly constitutes success anyway? What drives that essentially human proclivity to peer into the darkness, to curiously press on, to pioneer?

The Curious Directive staples are all present in the telling: criss-crossing, time-shifting storylines, the Big Idea and an international roll call of characters calibrated to collide. But there’s a previously missing coherence here, which, alongside the elegant, predominantly white staging, video projections and microphones, slowly unpacks a wide-angle story to satisfy both head and heart.

The ending is an extremely moving departure, articulated by an impressively sharp ensemble who are occupying a space all of their own at this year’s Fringe. Go forth and explore.