EDINBURGH 2026 Review: TURN YOUR F*CKING PHONES OFF, Summerhall
Runs until 31 August.
Hannah Maxwell returns to the Fringe with one of the most relevant, urgent, and vital shows you will see at the Festival. As she details how her weird, dark, secretive pandemic job in strategic communications changed her perspective and exacerbated her screen addiction, Maxwell weaves a revelatory reflection on our relationship with technology. The gist is: we should be fuming, and frightened, and decisively more proactive when it comes to protect ourselves from the dangers of technofeudalism (if you don’t know what it is, look it up and educate yourself!). In pure Maxwell brand, the show is in itself a truly thrilling, engaging piece of theatre.
Short, snappy scenes, seemingly created to ease our attention deficit, are intervalled by TikTok videos. Rug-cleaning content and ASMR restocking, therefore, become the transitions between the bleak reality of cyber surveillance and the morally corrupt (but totally legal) practices. The cognitive dissonance between Maxwell’s candid, honest, glacial recollections of how tech companies manipulate the public and her jolly delivery is deliciously disturbing.
Her deadpan sarcasm and magnetic personality produce a thoroughly captivating production. She involves the audience in silly games to make them waste time while she changes, mirroring how Big Tech and governments can pull our focus away from what’s important. We are entertained, but at what cost? Her examinations are punchy and ruthless, alarming and eye-opening in the exhilaration of their truthfulness. The project is genuinely anxiety-inducing one moment and utterly hilarious the next.
Her empathy and humanity is disarming as she indicts the megalomaniacs who are pulling the strings, refusing to preach to us consumers in principle. Her suggestions, almost meek and self-chastising, don’t provide any final answers. We remain on the same boat, but we exit the room with a renewed awareness.
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