EDFRINGE REVIEW: In the Land of Eagles (Natalie Allison Productions)

In the Land of Eagles - ★★★★★ – Breathtaking

Natalie Allison Productions
30 Jul-25 Aug
Review by Rebecca Mahar
 
In a Fringe debut from writer and performer Alex Reynolds, In the Land of Eagles sweeps into the Baby Grand at the Pleasance for a full run, capturing and breaking hearts with its intimate portrayal of family, diaspora, and coming home.
 
“I know what you were doing at six,” Reynolds says conspiratorially to the audience, “the age. Not the time.” And she’s off, buzzing about the stage as she retells an adventure she had at age, in the exotic wilds of the back garden and the woods beyond. And of Grandpa, who comes every week for Sunday roast, talking her out of the tree she’s climbed and making her promise, in exchange for not telling Mum, to take him on the next adventure.

In the Land of Eagles. Pic: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.

Suddenly she isn’t six anymore; she’s eighteen, Grandpa is seventy-eight, and after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, says that he wants to go home. Not home to his semi-detached down the road, but home to Albania, which he left as a young man when the country was gripped by the brutal communist regime of Enver Hoxha and has not seen since. But he cannot do it alone, and she volunteers to go with him.
 
Reynolds is joined on the stage by a single chair, and by a wall of stacked clear-plastic bins at the back wall. Many are empty, but scattered throughout are items that appear unassuming, but a clearly relics of the story unfolding: a can of Coke, a Qur’an, a teddy with one eye, and other things strange and ordinary.

In the Land of Eagles. Pic: Robin Mair.

As she and Grandpa explore Albania, the meaning of each of these objects becomes clear, and together we learn the truth of Grandpa’s past, his family, and Her understanding of what it means, as someone whose cultural identity has always been obscured: “a feeling grows— that heritage is something you had long before you had a home.” 
 
There is a frenetic nature to Reynolds’s performance, an excitement and an urgency to her storytelling that expresses itself in superb physicality and precision, under the expert direction of Martha Geelan. The play never lets up, with Reynolds’s embodiment of each additional character, crisp chair choreography, the layering in of Rachel Sampley’s excellent lighting design, and Nicola T. Chang’s evocative sound design all coalescing into something that feels larger than one person and the intimate space it inhabits. It is never too much, earning both its quiet moments and its final triumphant build.

In the Land of Eagles. Pic: Robin Mair.

In the Land of Eagles is a deeply personal story, but captures so much that is relevant to anyone whose family history is diasporic. The mysteries and questions, the brick walls and open doors, the longing for something inherent but unknown, and the struggle to reconcile heritage and home. Who is Grandpa, really? Who is his mother, whose name is Her middle name, a woman of spider-silk strength? What answers can be found there, in the land of eagles, for Grandpa and for Her?
 
Joyful, wistful, and devastating, In the Land of Eagles is an extraordinary writing debut from Reynolds, performed with the utmost heart, and sure to leave every audience gasping from its truth.
 
Running time: One hour and ten minutes with no interval
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), 60 Pleasance EH8 9TJ
30 July-25 August 2025 
Time: 3:00pm
Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/in-the-land-of-eagles