REVIEW: The Strongest Girl in the World, Dark Skies Ensemble / Forgotten Ones, EdFringe 2025 ★★★

My first ever Fringe show and review for Binge Fringe is for the one woman show The Strongest Woman in the World currently playing at the Gilded Balloon Patter House. This is a story about Truly Siskind-Weiss, and her father who passed away , but also a story about her experience as a young girl at summer camp. It’s premise is exactly what you see with the simple set of a small chair and a bookshelf with various intricate pop up books and origami detailing the lives of Truly Siskind-Weiss herself, her older sister Jordan, her mum and of course her father who she doesn’t quite remember but has all the stories to show.

Truly Siskind-Weiss truly (pun not intended) pours her soul to the intimate audience of less than 50 in the underground rooms of the Patter House, her story and passion is from her core and as an audience we feel that and it’s almost like a conversation with a long time friend. 

With the Edinburgh Festival Fringe you get all sorts of shows in many different stages of development, with this particular production while it is an award winning production in it’s own right and does show incredible promise for future runs, it does seem to be slightly unfinished. What I saw in the first five minutes in terms of writing style shifted in the next 30 and back to the original style in the end and while I did enjoy it, it was something that was expecting to see throughout almost as half poem half monologue and I struggled to determine which it was throughout and if any of these starting motifs would return. 

The details of the audio involved to portray her father, older sister, uncles, aunts etc, the character shifts Truly shows in herself and the settings with the beautiful lighting design with less than 10 lanterns really brought us in and painted a very real picture of a young girl and what she went through, with humming her favourite campfire songs to hating the therapist she had to see for a year, we could empathise with her so much, I just felt it needed a bit more time.

You can see The Strongest Girl in the World at the Gilded Balloon Patter House at 14:20 (60mins) playing from now until the 25th August. Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.