Bebe Cave: Swoon review – dazzling portrait of marginalised muses and the male gaze

Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh
Smart, slapstick and silly, this chaotic multicharacter comedy sends up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Some of the most revered works of art across history feature women as their primary focus. But though they might appear as favoured subjects, so often these women are relegated to the margins, their stories untold as they remain silent and often sexualised via the male gaze.

In her new multicharacter comedy Swoon, Bebe Cave interrogates the role of the muse and what it means to be seen yet never heard. We initially meet Cave as Elizabeth Siddal – or Lizzie – who was immortalised as Ophelia by John Everett Millais in the mid 19th century, also becoming a popular model for several other pre-Raphaelite artists.