Stolen Voices - Neyire Ashworth - Underground Venues, Buxton Fringe

Good storytelling gives space for uncertainty and disunity. A sense that there is no one clear story that is being told. Stolen Voices, at its best, does just that. This simple and uncluttered performance, a one-woman show, is gently elaborated by Neyire Ashworth. It is an autobiographical piece, but focuses as much on the other figures in her life as on her own life. Never hurried, Stolen Voices offers a small encounter with figures and stories from Turkey and Turkish people living in Britain.

We see glimpses of the past, of a people. The performer interacts with her clarinet, speaking and playing intermittently, making the instrument an extension of her voice. It creates a sort of echo of the stories we are hearing, the voices we encounter. Morphing from one character to the next, Ashworth clearly examines each player in her life, drawing them out with generosity. "I don't know the answers", she says, "but I think it is worth asking the questions" - a fine sentiment indeed. And this is, thankfully, a performance that does not provide too many answers at all, rather allowing the questions to hang over us.

There are moments when perhaps too much is explained, pointed out to us, and these moments would be best left silent. Is there, perhaps, a little too much of the political context, not allowing the personal stories to stand out? Only a touch if at all. Movement wise the performance was not as strong as in the vocal or textual areas, Ashworth lacking a little confidence perhaps to claim the physicality of the piece in the way she can clearly claim the musicality of it. As a professional clarinettist, this is hardly surprising, but more work needs to be done to address the balance.

This show does remind me of Veronica Needa's performance, Face. This also uses curious storytelling techniques to examine ideas about identity and a culturally awkward position between sometimes contradictory backgrounds. Both performance raise interesting questions for audiences of all cultures.

Perhaps my only major criticism is of this show is the title. "Stolen Voices" seems so very emotive and exploiting a simple, eye-catching claim on political justice. This performance is so much more than that - if anything it allows those voices to be heard, gives them space to speak and be celebrated. It eschews political simplicity for cultural complexity and deserves a stronger and more honest title.

Still, it is a fine performance and deserves much more attention. I hope that the half-empty venue is not repeated elsewhere on this show's journey through Edinburgh and at the Arcola as part of Grimeborn 2009.

A good start, then, to the observatory's stay at the Buxton Fringe. We are mainly resident in Underground Venues, and will be reviewing from here for the next week or so. Many of these shows will be in Edinburgh, so for a preview of some of the best (we hope) Fringe shows, keep watching.

- James Grogan