Lorna Rose Treen: 10 things that are great but I don’t understand, so they must be magic
Fringe Magic
〰️
Fringe Magic 〰️
Image: Will Hearle
It’s time for Edinburgh Fringe 2025, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re celebrating the special, unique Fringe moments — the ones that feel like pure MAGIC…
By Lorna Rose Treen
1. Smell
What is smell? And why do dogs smell stuff far away, but I can’t? Not only is that unfair, but it’s magic.
2. 3G, 4G and 5G
My engineer sister and engineer father have both tried to explain this to me but I don’t get it. How is it that I can see them both on FaceTime, yelling at me about electromagnetic fields and masts, whilst at the same time I click a button which turns me into a cat which they can immediately see and be annoyed by? Without anything being plugged in! Magic.
3. Aeroplanes
It doesn’t seem right that something at least three times the length of my legs (long), and 100 times the width of my London flat (small) can stay in the air like a balloon.
4. People in school who enjoyed doing the bleep test
It made me very suspicious that people enjoyed going really fast back and forward across the gym, without going anywhere! What sort of physical incantation were they brewing? Were they trying to cloud bust? There must be another purpose other than pain but I don’t know what it is.
5. Gravity
I don’t get it
6. The Stock Market
I don’t get it
7. How babies are made
No one will tell me!
8. Falling in love
Possibly neurotransmitters and hormones. Probably magic.
9. The 1974 song by Scottish pop-rock band Pilot
10. My ability to turn into a horse at will
I don’t understand it, doctors don’t believe it, but if I blink four times in a mirror and yell my name backwards, it happens. It must be magic. Or whatever is cut with the black mould I keep eating.
Lorna Rose Treen: 24 Hour Diner People is at Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath) from July 30th-August 24th. Tickets here
Read more about Edinburgh Fringe 2025:
