You Fancy Yourself. A finely wrought recreation of Childhood.

Maja Ardal. Photo: Andrew Fox

You have to be tough to survive childhood. If you’ve forgotten that fact, Maja Ardal’s solo show, a finely wrought recreation of childhood life in 1950s Edinburgh, will remind you in a hurry.

Semi-autobiographical, the play opens with four-year-old Elsa arriving in Scotland after immigrating from Iceland with her parents. Gregarious, self-possessed and with an outsized imagination (just one of the meanings of “fancy” revealed during the show), Elsa quickly pals up with a neighbouring child Adele whose perennial uncertainty and impoverished life have thwarted the growth in her of those critical childhood allies, fantasy and hope. “Make a wish,” Elsa tells her at one point. “What for?” responds Adele.

Ardal, playing 11 characters in all, ushers us from that point through Elsa’s first few years in Edinburgh. She gradually populates the little girl’s world with a rich cast, from the frightening old crone who scrubs the stairs of the tenement building in which Elsa, Adele and their families live to classmates at the red brick school that Elsa and Adele attend.

Those classmates include little David MacDonald, a lonely child with a severe case of runny nose; the obnoxious teacher’s pet June Macready; the power-tripping Frances Green. We also meet the children’s teacher Miss Campbell, a tight-lipped type with a cruel streak, few illusions about her ability to teach these children, and a special dislike of little boys………READ MORE……..

You Fancy Yourself

A Contrary Company Production

At the Great Canadian Theatre Company/Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre

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