Review: EDINBURGH 2024: FLIGHT, Pleasance Dome

“There are many worlds in which this plane lands safely”

If you’re afraid of flying, this may not be the right show for you. Flight, one of two Darkfield shows playing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024, originally ran in 2018 and had been performed at the Fringe in 2022. Before entering, you are given a boarding pass by a member of the crew, purposefully selected to make sure that you are not seated with any members of your party that you are going in with. One of the highlights of the show is actually stepping into the shipping container itself, pulling back the curtain and entering what appears to be an actual airplane. 

Once seated, you are instructed to put on your seatbelt and to read the in-flight safety manual. It all feels very much like you are about to take an actual flight, especially for those like me who wear noise-canceling headphones to tune out the world of the flight around them. Before the plane “takes off,” passengers watch a safety video, which seems to alternate between two versions of the same women, warning them that this is their last chance to leave before the flight begins. 

And then, in classic Darkfield style, you are plunged into complete darkness, guided only by the sound in your headphones. Without going into too many spoilers, as Darkfield shows really should be experienced without too much prior knowledge, Flight dives into the world of quantum mechanics and the concept of multiple realities, wherein one can be both dead and alive at the same time. The audience becomes Schrödinger’s cat, only this time the cat is passengers in an airplane inside of a shipping container, with those wandering past outside wondering what exactly is happening inside. 

One of the main concepts of the show, as illustrated in the show’s description, is that there are always two ways that a situation can go. When taking a flight, there are only two conclusions that one can arrive at - you will arrive at your final destination or you won’t. Flight explores what it may be like to be caught in between these two outcomes, though quite a bit of it is left to your own imagination. The soundscape makes you feel as though you are flying in a plane, the engine rumbling and fellow passengers and cabin crew murmuring, but there was never really a point in which I felt fully immersed in the journey I was on. There is one show-stopping moment that only lasts for a split second, though I won’t spoil it for those who might take a journey on a flight in the future. 

Ultimately, Flight is a show with an interesting concept of alternate universes and life and death, but it fails to present a compelling story to draw audiences in. 

Flight ran until 26 August at Pleasance Dome - Potterrow Plaza - Container 1.