With a whip-smart script from Brian Watkins (Outer Range) and produced by Edinburgh Fringe hit maker Francesca Moody (Fleabag, Baby Reindeer), Weather Girl was always going to do well at this year's festival. However, this fable of American apathy, celebrity culture and climate change is an absurdist masterpiece.
Stacey is the weather girl at a small Fresno news station, sporting a winning smile and gripping a Stanley cup as she reports on a series of wildfires sweeping across the state. As the heat closes in, something burns inside Stacey too: her difficult childhood, low self-esteem, the pressure to maintain beauty standards and her desire to expose the truth about what is happening to a population who don't want to hear it until it's perhaps too late.
Julia McDermott's performance as Stacey is pitch-perfect, balancing her ditsy on-screen persona with the brooding darkness within, delivering many of the most extreme moments with an upbeat perma-grin that only serves to emphasise the character's failing mental health. When the city becomes engulfed in flames, the play takes a surreal, dreamlike turn that sees Stacey reconcile with her past and find her superpower.
The production put me in mind of a breadth of influences from Juan Rulfo and J G Ballard to Legally Blonde. Featuring exquisitely crafted comic moments alongside a dramatic urgency, Weather Girl fully deserves all the attention it's currently receiving, and more.