Fringe Festival plays don’t always have the ability to hold an audience’s attention. But the intrigue of one of this week’s offerings at Bats Theatre, Euthermia/ Hyperpyrexia does just that in a most original and creative way. 

Euthermia is a medical term for normal body temperature and Hyperpyrexia is the term for abnormally high body temperature, usually seen as fever. 

The normal and the abnormal although the play is more abnormal then normal.

Employee number 20233 starts the show by relating a story about his grandfather as a medic in the First World War. We then discover that he is Charley (Andrew Clarke), a new recruit into what appears to be a medical institution but where there are no patients and no medical staff other than a robotic Doctor (Amy Griffin-Brown) and a group of orderlies. Although having actual names the Doctor refers to them by their employee numbers. Some have been there for many counts, a form of time, and move from rotation to rotation, like shifts, waiting for wounded soldiers to arrive “somewhere in the foreseeable future”.

It is somewhere in the desert where the sun never sets.  The environment is claustrophobic and sterile looking, emphasised by the green panels around the walls.  As the orderlies move from rotation to rotation, the tension builds and the intrigue increases as we try and work out who these people are and what their purpose here is.

There is Employee 20211, Steph (Katie Boyle) who is in charge of the group. Then there is Employee 20213, Jamie (Martin Quicke) who had a thing going with Steph. There is also Employee 20217, Jessica (Jess Old) who is selected over the more competent Employee  20255, Simon (Tom Kereama) to look after the one patient that turns up, Patient number 597 (Maggie White).

While the whole atmosphere created is that of some futuristic world it is anchored in the here and now by the orderlies relating stories about their grandfathers in the Great War and the very human emotions expressed by the characters especially towards the end when tensions rise and tempers flare. And there is a surprising twist at the end that adds even more mystery to the overall fascination of the piece.

The co-direction team of Tony Black and Jonny Crawford have done a sterling job in working the cast into a well-oiled ensemble creating lots of energy and pace to keep the play moving and holding the audience’s attention to the very end which is what Fringe Festival plays are all about.

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In a prologue, a young man we later come to know as Charlie – played by Andrew Clarke, the writer of Euthermia / Hyperpyrexia – tells us about his great grandfather, who refused to sign up as a soldier in the First World War but did sign up as a medic. He recalls and interprets the old man’s smile, while sleeping, as happiness that he had maintained his integrity in the face of the horrors of war; an ‘all about me’ perspective and perception that belongs more to the young man’s age and stage, I suggest, than to the old man’s.

The substantive play takes place in the dystopian climes of a remote wall-bound field hospital in a desert during a contemporary war which promises to deliver “the wounded in the near future” but none arrive. Until one does …

Medics who have been trained and come to the hospital ready to serve and are therefore desirous of “the wounded” (not that such dark humour is exploited) have, instead, found themselves stripped of their names, assigned an Employee number and obliged to obey the dictates of a robotic Doctor (Amy Griffin-Browne): seen by us but only heard by them.  

When they are not standing at their stations to wait for the wounded, they do treat each other as human and use real names. Steph /Employee #20211 (Katie Boyle) and Jamie /Employee #20213 (Martin Quicke) are in love but her position as team leader, primarily answerable to the Doctor, creates inevitable stress. Jessica /Employee #20217 (Jess Old) is keen to progress but vulnerable to the dark humour resorted to bySimon /Employee #20225 (Tom Kereama), not least as a response to their not having seen the sun for years.  

Into this ghetto of variously disaffected medics comes the new recruit, Charlie /Employee #20233 (Andrew Clarke), whose humanitarian idealism comes into question when he too becomes upset at the failure of “the wounded” to materialise.

When it becomes apparent Patient #597 (Maggie White) has in fact arrived and been assigned to one Employee that another believes should be him, further upset arises … It would be a spoiler to say what ensues.

What is real and what is not in this deeply unnatural environment comes into question. Indeed the efficacy of making something from nothing (a reasonable description of theatre-making in itself) is a recurring theme and held up, it seems, as the answer … to whatever the question is.

Despite the strongly purposed and focused performances throughout, co-directed by Tony Black and Johnny Crawford, I become confused as to the point of the play in itself at the very time thematic clarity and resolution should be in the offing.

Perhaps the play is simply an allegory for how graduates fare and feel when they enter the workforce and suffer from unfulfilled expectations. If that’s the objective, however, a bit of humour might well be employed to point up and enhance the satire. The question of the characters’ self-involvement seems relevant here. I may have been inclined to see it as a function of their institutionalisation if Charlie had not already shown that tendency in the prologue.

‘When in doubt check the title’ is usually useful at these moments but here it only increases my confusion. Euthermia is normal body temperature while hyperpyrexia is abnormally high fever. How either or both relate to the play as presented eludes me which leads me to guess it has undergone such vast changes in the development / rehearsal process that its original purpose was lost. But that, as I say, is a guess.  

That said, there is lots of talent on display: the work of all the actors is as good if not better than what I’ve seen them do before, both as individuals and as a team. Anna Robinson’s set, lighting and projection, and Flinn Glendall’s sound design add value to the overall feel.

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