The Etherdome: knockout comedy traces history of anaesthetics

16 August 2011

Award-winning theatre company Penny Dreadful is back at the Edinburgh Festival this year with a new production based on the gruesome story of three rival dentists and their search for an effective anaesthetic.

Supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, 'The Etherdome' was devised in close collaboration with anaesthetic specialists to re-create the discovery of pain relief, which we so often take for granted today.

In 1850s USA, at the start of the so-called Scientific Age, major surgery was still carried out with only a stiff whiskey to calm the nerves and tooth extractions with a bit of alcohol or a stick to bite on. A blood-spattered operating theatre was the stark reality. But all that was about to change.

In a fairground tent, alongside tea-leaf fortune-tellers, an amazing discovery was made by accident. But who actually made it?

'The Etherdome' takes the audience from Carny Show to laughing-gas party to nightmare operating theatre. Using high-energy physical comedy, scary apparatus and a bluegrass chorus, the show follows the dentists on a journey that ends in addiction, lunacy and death. But they leave behind a discovery that changes medicine for ever.

The Etherdome
Assembly George Square (Bosco), Edinburgh
Until 28 August at 14.10
Tickets: £12-£14
Assembly Box Office:tel. +44 (0)131 623 3030

Image: 'The Etherdome'. Credit: Penny Dreadful