Albert Einstein: Relativitively Speaking[author-post-rating] (3/5 stars)

The basic problem with this show is that the nuclear bombs detonated on Hirshima and Nagasaki just aren’t funny. A light-hearted romp through the life of Albert Einstein, Relativitively Speaking struggles to marry its entertainingly frothy first 45mins with its rather sombre last 15.

Styled as Einstein’s inaugural lecture after he moves from Germany to the USA in 1933, the show starts with a hugely energetic, beaming Einstein welcoming us all to the show and thanking us for coming. The show kicks off with an amusing amalgamation of songs about the USA, including ‘Surfing USA’, ‘American Idiot’, ‘I Like to be in America’ and ‘New York, New York’. Einstein sings and dances – I can tick “Einstein doing the can-can” off my Edinburgh Fringe bingo card. There’s some serious science smuggled in under the absurd and very silly humour, too; we get a whistle-stop guide to relativity, coupled with a wincingly terrible rap from “MC Squared” complete with hand gestures. There aren’t many Fringe shows which test your knowledge of the speed of light or your mental arithmetic.

There’s rather too much audience participation and one-too-many of the jokes relies on a cod German accent for its humour, but on the whole Relatively Speaking is a piece of well-judged silliness. The songs are gently amusing and the lyrics occasionally mange to be properly funny. There are some nice touches in the staging, too, with our Einstein pouring talcum powder over his head to make his hair greyer and show the passage of time. He also tells us that he spends a lot of time backcombing. It’s not earth-shaking stuff, but it’s an entertaining way to spend an hour. Where it falls down, however, is in its treatment of the splitting of the atom. Having taken the view that Einstein was culpable for the creation of the atomic bomb, this piece tries to show him wrestling with the moral dilemma of whether it’s OK to build a nuclear bomb in order to get there before the Nazis. Some half-hearted audience participation (we’re asked to vote) here feels misguided.

Having built us up to a point where we’re entirely given over to the silliness, which it does very well, the show then tries to make us reflect. Trying to consider an impossible ethical question in this frame of mind feels jarring, and sort of spoils the jollity of the previous 45 minutes. As an irreverent and entertaining look at Einstein’s output, this show is a successful piece of nonsense. As a deeper, more dramatic look at humans’ infinite capacity to hurt other humans, it doesn’t quite work.

Albert Einstein: Relativitively Speaking is at Pleasance Courtyard until 26 August. For more information and tickets visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.