Q&A with Edinburgh Fringe Artist Peter McCormick

What the Fringe?!
Jun 19
5 min read

Portrait of a young man in a beige striped sweater against a gray background, looking at the camera with a neutral expression. Edinburgh Fringe artist Peter McCormick

Artist: Peter McCormick, Irishman living in Glasgow

NESTING is the newst play from Peter McCormick playing at Summerhall this August during the Edinburgh Fringe. Peter is the playwright and will be featured in the cast.

Full of heart, laughs, and, I am sure, a few tears, NESTING is sure to stir up a reminder of the people who have raised you and the love you have for them.

NESTING

A father dreams of dying. A daughter dreams of living. A seagull dreams of being human. Francis is caged in his home by devotion, duty and a devastating diagnosis. A seagull offers an escape: it will nest inside his body, take control and free his pregnant daughter from the burden of his care. But what begins as selfless sacrifice risks becoming violent surrender. An absurd, darkly comic new play with an electrifying score, Nesting is a visceral exploration of love, death and duty from Trolley Problem, following their sold-out production of Mistero Buffo at the Citizens Theatre.

What inspired you to write this show?

My grandma died at home in late 2020, surrounded by her family. If I had to pick my way to go, that’s how I’d want it. Yet although my mum cared for her with extraordinary love and generosity, there was no denying the toll it took on her. Equally, my grandma was aware of the increasing care she required and began to talk of herself as a burden. Watching a parent become a patient as their child becomes their carer is a cold reminder of life’s terms. There is a cruel beauty in it. I was finishing up university as my grandma was finishing up life. Between us were my parents, facing the freedom of retirement, yet bound by their own sense of duty and love to both the generation above and below them.

Shortly after, Charlie Bird was raising awareness of MND in Ireland, while assisted dying was becoming central to public debate in the UK. I found myself considering the emotional toll of reckoning not just with your death, but of how you would die. I started talking to people kind enough to share their experiences. The seagull was just my weird way of comprehending it all.

Peter, you are a fairly young fella, why is it important for younger generations to see and experience shows that deal with end-of-life care?

There’s no age restriction on losing a loved one. There’s no age restriction on feeling the humanity of your parents and their parents. I have been unbelievably, unjustifiably lucky in my life, and I know that I certainly cannot ever speak for those who have had to take on the mantle of carer at a grossly young age. This play is about a parent and child, and the infuriating, bizarre, and beautiful ways that they try to express their love and commitment to each other. That is something we can all do with considering, regardless of age.

Seagull with a cigarette stands on a man’s beanie as he sits on a park bench, staring wide-eyed in surprise.
Edinburgh Fringe Show: NESTING

What drew you to the concept of a seagull being the animal that offers hope to the ailing Francis?

Seagulls are loud, aggressive, opportunistic predators. They cast shadows over our sunny days and lurk in wait for us to be vulnerable. They are a natural manifestation of death, in many ways, so it seemed like a fun idea to flip them into symbols of fantastical relief. Their abundance makes them dependable – there will always be a seagull to keep you company. But can they ever truly be trusted? That said, I spent some time with a fabulous ornithologist who shed light on their more endearing habits, and it’s not hard to see why Francis would be drawn to one. They are exceptionally devoted parents, fiercely protective of their young, and have a clear sense of duty to their colony. That’s enough for the two characters to bond over. Whether Francis is right to trust it or not is for the audience to decide.

What makes your show special?

What makes it special? I’ll let the audience decide that. I can offer them crude humour in the face of death, a cult of seagulls who believe their duty is to assume the identities of suicidal humans, and a man with MND who wants to kick a bichon frise. How effectively it explores the love between a father and daughter, and how special it is, is up to them.

That said, I do have a frightening amount of material on the history and methodology of the seagull body swap enterprise which is just waiting for a reddit page, should anyone be interested.

How did you pull this cast and creative team together?

I have the incredibly talented Ben Standish to thank for that. Ben directed my first Fringe show and is now Associate Director of A Play, A Pie and A Pint in Glasgow. He has an extraordinary eye for detail and a real appetite for theatrically inventive work. We share a desire to make theatre that explores moral tension and contradiction.

At a time when everyone has Netflix, theatre needs to revel in its ability to thrill in a live space: to excite and titillate and be uncomfortable. Nesting is our attempt to do that. We were never interested in creating a medical case study. Instead, we wanted to understand the emotional realities of care, dependency, and family responsibility. Understanding people’s lived experience was crucial to that.

As the project developed, we were lucky to attract brilliant collaborators, including Sonia Killmann, whose sound design is as crucial to the storytelling as the text itself. Ben's a serious operator, and I'm incredibly lucky to have him bringing the show to life. He spent the early stages assembling a brilliant team of artists while I wandered around parks staring at seagulls.

What do you hope audiences will leave with after seeing your show?

This isn’t a prescriptive play. Care, assisted dying, obligation, and duty are among the most difficult questions a family can face, and what’s right for one family won’t be right for another.

But if someone walks out of the theatre a little more aware of the complex, messy, imperfect ways we try to express love at our most vulnerable, then I’ll be delighted.

I also hope they start to suspect seagulls of operating a Messianic cult that controls the bodies of their grandparents. That would be nice.

What is the one thing you cannot fringe without and what does that say about you?

I cannot Fringe without the M&S foodhall Waverley Station.

This says that I have a lust for the chocolate swirl pastries in their bakery section, and that I would choose laminated pastry over true love and financial stability any day. It also says that I have paid no attention to my mother's cries of how I have forgotten my humble beginnings, and how it is a far cry from an M&S Foodhall that I was raised, which is a lie, because there was one near our house and mum went there regularly for their reduced-fat hummus.