travestiTwo years ago, Chris Goode and Company made a piece in which the words of children were spoken by a cast of adults. In Travesti, the new piece from Unbound Productions, something similar happens – but instead of children and adults, it’s women’s voices in the mouths of men.

Travesti is a verbatim play. It takes real women’s stories about body hair, being groped on public transport and experiences of sexual violence, and puts them in the mouths of male actors. We know they’re real women’s stories because we hear them. In occasional moments the recorded interviews are played, the process of construction laid bare. But while revealing the source in this way aims to bring about an added air of authenticity, it actually has the opposite effect, serving to remind us of the dissonance between what we see and what we hear.

The recorded interviews have been edited down and organised by theme. The tone of the testimony is trite to begin, but it soon becomes genuinely disconcerting as experiences of everyday sexism are detailed with alarming regularity. It is, by all accounts, a good script, as nuanced as it is knotty.

The problem is in the presentation. Although they are speaking the words of women, the men do not pretend to be them – except at the very end when all but one of them, dressed in foundation and lipstick, lip-synch the words of the recordings. It is during this sequence that you notice just how unrecognisable the performances are in relation to the recorded voices they are meant to be portraying. While this may be deliberate, it does not feel so. In fact, it feels as though more time has been spent rehearsing the a capella singing than on the rigorous vocal work that verbatim theatre of this kind requires.

It is slickly directed by Rebecca Hill who, together with musical director Francesca French and movement director Jack Parry-Jones, have put together a sharp, entertaining production. Hall directs a talented cast, but Stanley Eldridge, John Askew and Hugo Bolton stand out as Raziel, Haniel and Samael respectively.

Travesti is often funny and sometimes unsettling, but it could have been more so if the two layers of testimony had been more in synch.

Travesti is at the Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 25 August. For more information and tickets visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.