Cliff Cardinal peeks through the red curtains with a glint in his eye, a winning smile, and a stage presence brimming with puckish mischief.
It’s a look that suits him: Cardinal, a Cree and Lakota playwright, has made his name in Canada as a “controversially subversive” cultural provocateur.
He begins with a “land acknowledgement”- a bland institutional statement made before events, recognising that a piece of land was taken from the Indigenous people who first lived there. Once started, his explanation takes on a life of its own, forged into a scalpel to expose the emptiness of official apologies without restitution and the brutality of histories polite society prefers to soften.
To call this an angry rant would do it an injustice. The work is carefully constructed, pitched somewhere between performance lecture, stand-up, and theatre as provocation. The black humour is sharp, and the stagecraft deliberate. Cardinal doses out laughter as medicine, coaxing his audience into rethinking the stereotypes they carry. Yet as the lights fade, so does the mirth, giving way to the darker territories of imperialism and historic injustice, Indigenous identity, systemic racism, and a host of hard truths. The historical detail lands heavily: the “biodegradable” label for Indigenous women; communities poisoned by poor water supplies; the thousands of unmarked graves discovered at religious residential schools (or “camps,” as he calls them).
He darts from one side of the stage to the other, striking a dramatic pose, a theatrical “jazz hands”, always one step ahead. In addressing contemporary issues, he goads the audience members, playing with their trust and using provocation to force them to confront what they might prefer to avoid. He skewers ideas one moment, then turns them inside out the next, creating awkward silences as telling as the laughs.
In Britain, the effect is double-edged: enlightening but softened, since audiences aren’t settlers on unceded land and land acknowledgements are unfamiliar. The provocation can feel repetitive, yet the historical truths - forced assimilation, systemic neglect, families scarred across generations - remain urgent, still necessary to hear.
His barbs may not dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven, but they are not malicious. Still, not all endure the slings and arrows: an older audience member heckles, a woman shouts “f*ck off!” before storming out - an eruption almost unheard of at the genteel Edinburgh International Festival. Others quietly slip away, but for those who remain, the tension is electric. The performance concludes not in bitterness but with a substantial standing ovation and a reminder that “We are supposed to be family.”
Invoking “The Mousetrap” pact (the title borrowed from Hamlet’s play within a play), Cardinal asks the audience not to reveal all the “radical” elements.
This may not be As You Like It, but it is defiant, surprising, challenging and unforgettable theatre.
Show Times: 20 to 23 August 2025 at 8pm.
Tickets: From £25 to £30 (concessions available).
Suitability: Show contains themes of war, colonisation, sexual violence, mass murder, suicide and strong language.
Note: Supported by The High Commission of Canada in the UK, Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.