Beans on ToastMemory is not linear and it is not reliable. Memory is slippery, fragmented, mischievous. And the further away we move from the moment something happened, the less whole and the less complete our memories are. Even if they are about someone we once loved.

Beans On Toast is a theatrical scrapbook by Patch of Blue theatre in which six performers re-enact moments of the relationship between Jen and Scott. The room is small, warm, intimate. A photograph sits on every chair, and plenty more dot the edge of the performance area. Around a central sofa are lamps, bunting and fairy lights, like a trendy student flat.

Three men play Scott, three women play Jen – all roughly the same age, but bringing different personalities to the same person. In an intimate, chummy performance they sing sweet folk songs, play multiple instruments, make darts out of crayons and even tap dance. This is a micro-variety show and the six multitalented, multitasking performers have plenty to offer.

Each scene, introduced by a crudely drawn placard, plays with some different medium. The opening, ‘Bios’, has each cast member reveal a little detail about Scott and Jen, drawing a doodle of it onto a blackboard – a guitar, a cigarette, darts – and together the little pictures turn into the crude image of a man and a woman. Matthew Marrs, while drumming on a cajon, changes into tap shoes, performs a tap dance and then – without a pause – sits back down again to play on his drum box.

An MSN chat between Scott and Jen shows how funny the play is, too. They agonise over the minutiae of their messages, like how many kisses Jen should put or why it keeps saying Scott’s typing and then not typing. An ending that is less innovative and more expositional than the rest of the show is not as moving as it could be – a scene at a bus stop suddenly seems to drop the playful narrative techniques that make the rest of it so enjoyable.

The multiple actors mean that there is no time wasted in changing scene as one Scott or one Jen becomes another. This fluidity between each scene and the fractured chronology represent the act of remembering – not in sequence and not with blackouts between scenes, but with a sparky, jumpy continuity. But each scenelet is only one part of a whole and together the Jen collective and the Scott collective each become a whole, complex person. Like the drawings on the blackboard, composite images form something complete.

As well as being wonderfully warm and funny, Beans On Toast also suggests something profound by breaking the conventional love story out of its narrative bonds. In doing so, Patch of Blue has created something beautiful.

Tickets: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/beans-on-toast