Presented by Richard MacLean Smith

Review by Hunter King

Theatre 3 at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

One thing is for certain, Richard Maclean Smith is a natural storyteller. As host of the Unexplained podcast, a biweekly eerie show that explores odd phenomena, he proves that. He has a voice that is easy to listen to and provides a comfort to the audience despite the material that he covers. With this said, his media form as a podcast may be more fitting for him than a live show.

While Unexplained: Live does have the same heart and drive of storytelling that Maclean Smith brings to the podcast, it quickly becomes clear that this performance is in many ways just an episode of the podcast. Maclean Smith tries to spice it up in moments, adding photos and a fun little captain hat that he dons as he takes on the persona of some of the people from history whose stories he is telling. With that said, most of the performance is of Maclean Smith standing fairly still and reciting a story from memory, which often works well in a podcast because of the ability to multitask. Having the same format of the podcast, with the limitation of staying in a Fringe seat has an inherently different feeling, sometimes feeling more like a lecture than a leisurely listen.

That said, one of the saving moments of the performance is the music that Maclean Smith performs live at the end of the show, a song that was written based on the case he had presented. That song alone really drove engagement and made the show more interesting. Overall, Unexplained: Live is by no means a bad show, in fact it’s quite good, but the use of podcasting as a media type rather than live theatre may be a little more suitable for Maclean Smith’s type of storytelling.

---