Cuckooed @ Traverse Theatre

Faith is the most powerful belief that human beings are capable of having. People will go to endless wars over it, devote their lives to it, and sacrifice everything for it. So what happens when that faith is tested? For faith is more than just religion: we place copious amounts of faith in our family and friends.

When Mark Thomas, a leading activist for Campaign Against Arms Trade, learned that one of his closest friends Martin was accused of working for the enemy BAE systems, Britain’s biggest arms manufacturer, he outright denied it. His faith in his friend left him blind to the evidence against him. After a year of denial, Thomas realised the proof behind the accusations was irrefutably true. The best coping mechanism? Cuckooed: a play based on the deceit of Martin’s friendship; pull out all the comedic stops, take the act all the way to the Edinburgh Fringe and watch the enemy squirm uncomfortably in their seats.

Thomas begins the show by utterly captivating the audience as he demonstrates protests he executed during his earlier years as an activist; he struggles comically to fit a bicycle lock over his neck and chucks the key to someone in the front row. Managing to sustain the same level of entertainment throughout the whole hour is rather problematic, but Thomas’s energy never falters despite the serious subtext behind the humour.

A wittily-crafted play, which, amongst the laughter, raises questions of the faith that the people place in government; who can we trust if everyone is spying on one another? The whole audience will have been cuckooed by Mark Thomas’s performance as his fearlessly funny investigation is brought to an end at the Traverse Theatre.