Review: Illuminated Lies, Fringe 2024

Why is there a black cab inside George Square? Can you hire it? The greenlit black cab is a new Festival Fringe installation that opened today.

You can’t hire the cab as it’s not going anywhere until the end of the Festival, but you can walk up and experience some illuminated lies for free, or you can book a special black cab experience.

I was lucky enough, with my dinky little press pass around my neck, to get one of the first ‘trips’ in the cab.

This is an interactive experience. The phrase “audience participation” doesn’t make sense. You talk to fellow passengers, you speak to the ‘taxi diver’ / actor/host, and you are the experience.

What sort of conversations have you had in taxis? With friends, partners or even the driver themselves? Is the cab an oasis of safety at the end of the busy day? It certainly has been for me.

The idea is powerful and straightforward. In Illuminated Lies, Greg, the driver, will, after a bit of chat, suggest he put on a podcast, which will play you a real-life story. There are a few stories, different for each ride, but the theme is always misinformation.

In our ride, a woman explained why, as COVID-19 first raced through Italy, she decided not to have the vaccine. Why not? In part, it was because she was pregnant and the vaccine maker suggested she should not, and how she was then labelled as an anti-vaxxer. She got COVID-19. In the cab, we had a debate. Some felt she was entirely right, others disagreed.

Liana Patarkatsishvili, Founder and Concept Creator of Medea, and Tayyaba Jordan, Company Director and Creative Lead, are the pioneers of the idea. Edinburgh theatre producer Michelle McKay and multidisciplinary artist  Aoife van Linden Tol work alongside them to make the project come to life. Medea is a live event company that provides purpose-driven work.

Tone

My experience was collaborative and polite. We disagreed but did so without rancour. It was a conversation, a debate. I hope so, as I was the contrary one in the cab!

It was easy to forget you were being art or participating in a coordinated experience because the topic was engaging. You’re also toe-to-toe with others, which makes them hard to ignore.

There are rules of engagement, like no touching, before getting into the cab.

However, misinformation is a spicy topic, and some debates will be robust. It’s a fantastic Fringe adventure to get to know someone.

Ultimately, the tone of your Illuminated Lies experience will be up to you and your fellow passengers. With social media, where you can publish anything, there’s some responsibility on anyone who climbs into this taxi.

What to expect

Look for the green taxi sign by the Assembly venues around George Square. There’s an outside cinema screen and a black cab parked in front.

The ‘ride’ is around 20 minutes, but I imagine there will be a queue at busy times. Tonight, that queue was very well staffed, and everyone was looked after, but it was opening night, and the number of reporters, influencers and reviewers was very high!

The black cab seats five, and the host/cabbie is up front behind the familiar safety screen.

The driver will lean around, introduce himself, confirm where you want to go, and then orchestrate some banter that will lead to the topic of misinformation.

We’re even invited to share suggestions, so this geeky blogger mentioned NewsGuard, a way to have your web browser flag a warning if you stray onto a dodgy or fake news site. Hey, maybe that suggestion helped one of my four fellow passengers.

I actually had the chance to speak to one of the people behind the real stories captured in the ‘podcast’ episodes the driver could play, and she had had her medicial condition dismissed inappropriately by a doctor. It turns out lots of doctors were making similar errors for women of colour across the country. People who hear her story might learn important information.

I think you can expect Illuminated Lies to be provocative, and it might well be educational too.

Overall

I was in two minds about Illuminated Lies even as I approached the taxi rank because I’m not really an up-close-and-personal sort of person. I’m a geek. Don’t phone me—email me. Just what would I make of an interactive experience?

As it happens, I enjoyed my time in the taxi. Perhaps it helped I sat with people who seemed even equally cautious as me. It definately helped that the driver/host was good at guiding the conversation while making us feel safe.

I think Illuminated Lies is the sort of “Well! That was different!” experience that makes the Festival memorable and worthwhile. More of this sort of thing.