REVIEW: Come Back Home, Fadi Murad, EdFringe 2026 ★★

Come Back Home has puzzled me. Fadi Murad has crafted a work which is dense and enigmatic, yet also feels incomplete in its concepts. I think there is a remarkable strength in proposing a work of such formal ambition, and one that refuses to explain itself. Too often in Fringe theatre is the work explained didactically — not here. Murad’s hour dances around itself to such a degree that its connections never let me in. 

Symbols permeate the work. We begin with waves on a blackboard, associated with Palestinian hope, then we move to a checkpoint scene, then there are experimental films with striking mise-en-scène (perhaps the best element of the work).

Later, there’s a puppet of Murad’s mother who passed away, the muse of the emotional heart of Murad’s piece. Water is present time and time again, the performer covers himself in holy water. These elements are strung together with a neat poetic logic. 

What is apparent is Come Back Home is primarily about Murad’s relationship with his mother. The home videos make the piece semi-autobiographical. I wager there may be a difference between autobiography and documentary that makes autobiography too impenetrable.

There was a remarkable honesty in Murad’s performance but the format meant it was too insular. If we were brought to his wavelength, we’d be let in, but the performance has too much going on, and gives so much to interpret that we’re locked out. 

Murad’s use of multimedia is intrinsically overwhelming. Video in theatre was once described by the Polish master Jerzy Grotowski as kleptomania. I wouldn’t go that far, but when you’re establishing a meditative effect and using multiple forms of media in quick succession – video to clown to drama to video again to ritual to video to puppet – the effect is immense. Whilst can be used to great effect, here it is fighting against Murad. 

Murad is a brave performer and his work is genuinely intelligent, but I feel far away from it. Too far away. Still, take a chance on it if you’re a fan of performance art — you might connect with it in a way I have not. 

Recommended Drink: Grab a coffee before this one. 

You can catch Come Back Home at Summerhall (Anatomy Lecture Theatre) from August 16-31 at 13.15 (60mins). Tickets available through the EdFringe box office.