Edinburgh Fringe 2015 review – How To Keep An Alien: as heartwarming as it is funny

A few years ago Sonya Kelly was a jobbing actress on an awful production of Gogol’s The Nose, where she and Australian stage manager Kate bonded over its pretentiousness. They quickly became a couple but Kate’s visa was about to expire, and so began a long battle to convince Irish immigration authorities that their relationship was genuine.

Kelly devised the play with director Gina Moxley for Ireland’s excellent Rough Magic company and performs it with “stage manager” Justin Murphy, who provides sound effects, hands her props and plays various characters, including unhelpful immigration officials.

She recounts her battle to make Kate “legal” with dry wit and invention — Murphy sings Bright Eyes to two rabbit figurines to underline the poignancy of the women’s situation — and interweaves her story with that of Kate’s great-great-grandmother, who emigrated from Ireland to Australia. How the world turns ...

Kelly doesn’t shy away from describing the tensions of a long-distance relationship and one in which a break-up would mean deportation for the foreign partner. The pace occasionally dips, but the play talks genuinely about the power of love to overcome even the most immovable of obstacles, and is as heartwarming as it is funny.