Nesting review - Old Lab at Summerhall, Edinburgh ★★★☆☆

Peter McCormick’s new play, Nesting, grabs you like a seagull might take hold of your chips and fail to let go. Francis (Billy Mack) has just found out he’s to become a grandfather, but rather than caring for his daughter, Emma (Francesca Hess), as she approaches motherhood alone, the tables have turned. He wants to build a crib for the baby, but a weakness in his hand that’s beginning to spread up his arm warrants repeated hospital visits to determine its cause.

Despite his upbeat nature, Francis is devastated when he is diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease. His experiences of caregiving for his elderly father cloud his view, and Emma struggles to cope as she juggles pregnancy, her job and caring for a man who needs help but doesn’t want it. The diagnosing consultant, Dr Bell (played by McCormick himself), is on the receiving end of Emma’s powerful monologue on the reality of caregiving - it’s wonderful writing, which is matched in its delivery.

So far, so typical, until a seagull (Michael Guest) mews and struts its way into Francis’s life, offering companionship and then an alternate route through his disease. It says something of Guest’s performance that this absurd appearance feels practically normal. His voice traverses gull-like shrieks and Cockney barbs, and every movement suggests his bird form. The gull quotes Emily Dickinson: ‘‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers’, but as Foy Vance sings, ‘hope deals the hardest blows’, and the gull has a few blows of its own up its sleeve… and wings.

Director Ben Standish almost avoids letting the surrealism overwhelm the play by giving the moments between Francis and Emma space to breathe while keeping interactions between Francis and the seagull pacey. He can’t avoid the inevitable, though, as McCormick’s text gives him a particularly challenging ending to navigate.

You leave the theatre on a bum note, which is a real shame given the power of Mack and Hess’s performances. They give us a touching, visceral portrayal of a parent-child relationship in the most challenging circumstances: when a parent loses the ability to care for themselves and finds themselves being cared for by the people they most feel they should be supporting.

Nesting is at the Old Lab at Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 31 August 2026 as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe