REVIEW: A Small Town Northern Tale, Northern Wind Theatre Co, EdFringe 2025 ★★★★★

“No mate, I mean… where are you really from?”

Nathan Jonathan’s A Small Town Northern Tale is a deeply human and hilarious solo performance that gut-punches you the hard-knock truth. Stuck between being Jamaican and English, moving from the inner city to a small northern town, we embark on David’s tale set against the backdrop of the mid-2000s. Here he discovers what is holding him back and how to survive being not white enough and not Black enough in a place where difference is magnified. From curry goat to turkey twizzlers, Nathan Jonathan invites us into his world.

Stage-left upstage sits a sofa draped in a blue blanket, while stage-right holds a computer desk set-up. These become portals into different moments in David’s life. In an Adidas tracksuit with yellow touches, Nike shoes, a white shirt and silver chain, David animates the stage with dynamic physical storytelling. He embodies a range of characters who shaped his childhood, from the smooth charm of his Windrush-era Jamaican grandpa to the casually racist teacher cracking up mid-sentence to Kevin with his chewed-up works and constant stank face to the savage bullying of girls whose “tehees” spiral into venom. Intimate details like how nose twitches with the same anticipation it does when his granny’s cooking fills the air builds a truly earnest, giddy character.

Lighting becomes an emotional score as bouncing lights on stage-right mimic the TV, pulling focus away from household conflict, while a deep blue backlight captures his father’s temper and the fear that follows. Throughout, Nathan Jonathan taps into his cultural context. Free school dinners are name-checked alongside Marcus Rashford, and early internet nostalgia unfolds in a slideshow of “Early Internet 101 w/ David,” taking us from Limewire to MSN.

A dusty box lingers onstage, a visual gag when David blows away the dust, the particles hanging in the air like the unspoken story of his father’s abuse. When the truth finally emerges, Jonathan’s restraint makes the moment land with devastating weight. Coming of age moments burst with colour and contrast like when his first crush, Hayley-Jade, appears under a purple wash, his body leaning to one side, wrist limp, snapping back and forth into the awkward, eager puppy-like energy of his teenage self.

Despite literally breaking his bully’s bones, the real catharsis arrives in poetry. Delivering John Agard’s Half-Caste during his GCSEs, David punches out each word in a Guyanese Creole rhythm that knocks him back into his seat in a moment of pure self-recognition. It is transformative for both performer and audience. Jonathan honours the generosity of Agard’s words and the poem’s life-changing potential.

A Small Town Northern Tale is storytelling at its most alive: funny, painfully honest and culturally tapped in. You can help to reminisce in nostalgia yet feel so stirred by the urgency of stories like this.

You can catch A Small Town Northern Tale until Sunday 24th at Iron Belly at Underbelly, Cowgate from 12:40 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.