Phoebe Eclair-Powell on Epic Love... and Torch

A couple of years ago there was a script doing the rounds. It was titled Wink and revolved around a teacher and pupil baiting each other from behind social media masks before they became tangled in their digital cross wires. Though remarkably fresh and up-to-date, structurally Wink seemed to owe a debt to good old stage farces, with its mistaken identities, escalating complications and a plot that zipped along to a shit-your-pants funny crescendo.

What really singled this script out, however, was not its quality but just how funny it was on the actual page – just as funny as when later performed at Battersea Arts Centre. So much of comedy relies on timing, intonation and the visual gag that it doesn't come across until performed, but if the purpose of writing is 'to see' then playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell could bring the most turgid instruction manual to vivid life. Now, she brings two very different plays to the Fringe.

Powell on her two Fringe shows

"Epic Love and Pop Songs is in the same vein as Wink," says Eclair-Powell: "I am a bit obsessed with schools; Epic Love is set, in a way, in the same school with two other teenagers. I do have this weird fabric in my head of one school with many, many stories. School is such a holding pen of that cusp from teenager to adulthood, with everyone finding out who they are."

The play also keeps both Wink's sense of humour and modern sensibilities; its plot centres on a lie and the snowballing cover-up that ensues – and it’s all set to a soundtrack by Charley Mackley, DJ at London's famous club Fabric.

Her second play at the Fringe, Torch, is something of an altogether different production in mood and execution.

"That's been the one which has messed with my mind the most. It's made me question who I am a little bit. I'll be really honest, it's the one that makes me the most nervous, because I feel like it is quite exposing. It is a much more nebulous and chameleon type of show."

Torch started with at least a hint of comedic intention. As with a previous production, Eclair-Powell used an online survey to research material: "Before we were asking people about their sex lives – and the answers were just fascinating and hilarious and rude and just brilliant. We had fun with that sort of material!"

On the "deeply personal" Torch

The questions for Torch, however, were on female identity, eliciting answers that went in a different direction, one that was harder to process than Eclair-Powell had expected: "We wanted to make a celebratory, emancipatory play about freedom of expression. I still think we've done that but we couldn't ignore the responses from these questionnaires."

She continues: "Some answers were full of strength, sisterhood and camaraderie but others of insecurity and anxiety. There was an overwhelming sense of fear and confusion. It has felt like a conversation between a lot of women rather than just my thoughts. It has been really different from the way I usually write and a huge challenge – but it's going to be interesting, I think it will find its feet in Edinburgh."

Despite the range and difference between these two plays, it is identity that unites them and to a certain extent makes Torch something of a natural next step, with the dilemmas of youth in Epic Love giving way to questions of young adulthood: "With Torch I think the biggest thing was it really had to be deeply quite personal, it had to reflect being a young woman today and reflect all the contradictions of how you pull together an identity."

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Epic Love and Pop Songs, Pleasance Dome (10 Dome), 3-29 Aug (not 15), 4.20pm, £6-10
Torch, Underbelly Cowgate (Big Belly), 4-28 Aug (not 16), 8.50 pm, £6-10