EDINBURGH FRINGE: Cathy at the Traverse, Traverse 1**** (1 hr 20 mins)

Elaine C Smith is up there with Billy Connolly when it comes to making Scots laugh, so when young writer Eilidh Loan’s grandmother insisted she play her in her granddaughter’s play about her it was a big ask.

But such is the quality of Loan’s writing that Smith is indeed playing her grandmother in this black comedy about grief and how a family deals with it.

The play, also directed by Loan, begins with a hauntingly beautiful, unaccompanied rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone at her grandfather’s funeral by Cathy’s granddaughter Amy.

And Chloe Hodgson, as Amy, carries on giving an impressive performance as the young girl who is pivotal in making the peace in a family which is divided by loss, hurt, and things unsaid. Her character is mature beyond her years and Hodgson also shows great maturity in her acting.

Cathy is hard-hitting, dealing with a woman who is not coping with her husband’s death but, at the end of the day, this is a comedy and, even in its darkest moments, we laugh out loud at the cynicism and sarcasm.

As Cathy learns to live with her grief by way of the charity shop in which Amy works, helped by the cheery manager (Sally Reid), the birth of Amy’s baby brings new life and new beginnings into Cathy’s world and we see her starting to live again.. 

Image: Mihaela Bodlovic

Cathy is at the Traverse, Traverse 1 until Aug 30 at various times