Edith has a void. She has no idea what to put in it. You might, though.
Romanian clown and theatre-maker Edith Alibec brings her debut clown hour The Void to PBH’s Free Fringe at the Banshee Labyrinth this August. A purple clown walks on stage with a problem she cannot solve on her own: there is a void inside her, and she has absolutely no idea what to put in it. Edith asks the room what fills the void, then tries everything they suggest – work, love, snacks, dopamine – live, with total sincerity.
Every answer becomes part of the show, so no two performances are ever the same – and there is no guarantee any of it works. Will the room manage to fill the void before the hour is up? Will Edith? Or will we all go home having laughed a lot, carrying the same tender emptiness we walked in with – and discover that, maybe, that’s okay?
Edith Alibec is a Romanian clown, actress and cultural producer working between Romania, Germany and the UK. She trained at the Athanor Akademie in Germany under David Esrig, and specialised in contemporary clowning through intensive London workshops with Julia Masli, Dan Lees, Dr Brown and Furiozo. She brought Tea and Milk to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 (★★★★ The Scotsman, ★★★★★ Broadway World UK; a recipient of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Keep It Fringe fund) and returned in 2024 with Glitch at the Assembly Festival.
Less Red Bastard and more Purple Idiot, The Void, directed by Dana Paraschiv, is about fragility and the need to feel whole, the things we reach for to fill our inner emptiness, and the strange tenderness between a clown and a room full of strangers. In an age of doom-scrolling, burnout and the quiet loneliness of being always online, it asks what we actually stuff into that deep place inside us – and how responsible we are for it.
‘Incredibly funny, with a darkly sarcastic worldview’
★★★★★ Broadway World UK
Title: Edith Alibec: The Void
Venue: Cinema Room at PBH’s Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/edith-alibec-the-void
Fringe Venue Number: 156
Dates & time: 8-30 August (Not 19 or 26) @ 8:55pm / 20:55
