On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment eBook magazine UK“, Verity Mullan’s Single Use is a hilarious and heartfelt one-woman show at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe, tackling climate guilt, personal chaos, and the absurdity of trying to save the planet while barely holding it together.
Single Use
This August, writer-performer Verity Mullan brings her debut solo show, Single Use, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe under the banner of Orange Squeeze Theatre. The play, a sharp blend of comedy and social commentary, digs into the overwhelming pressure to live responsibly in a world designed for convenience, where single-use plastics and climate guilt collide with personal struggles.
The show centers on Ella, a young woman navigating the chaos of modern life—unpaid council tax, a shaky job, and sneaking into her mum’s house to raid the fridge. A karaoke enthusiast with a Deliveroo habit, Ella carries a nagging sense that something’s off. When a discarded water bottle resurfaces in her consciousness, she dives into recycling as a way to dodge her unraveling life.
What starts as a distraction spirals into absurdity: she gets locked in a recycling center, faces a fine for fly-tipping, loses her job, and even kisses the wrong person. Through Ella’s story, Single Use explores the emotional weight of trying to “do your bit” for the planet while grappling with personal collapse.
The Stark Reality of Plastic Pollution
The numbers are sobering: only 9% of plastic is recycled globally, with over half of all plastic on Earth produced since 2002. Plastic pollution is projected to double by 2030, posing risks not just to the environment but to human health as microplastics infiltrate oceans, soil, and our bodies.
Meanwhile, 100 companies account for over 70% of global emissions, leaving individuals like Ella to wrestle with the futility of their efforts. The play unpacks this tension—how carrying a reusable coffee cup or sorting soft plastics can feel like a full-time job, often with little impact.
Performative Virtue in a Burning World
Mullan’s script examines the performative nature of modern sustainability. The pressure to be seen as “good”—toting a reusable bag or refusing straws—becomes a kind of moral theater, where personal virtue is on display but systemic change feels out of reach. Single Use questions whether these acts make a difference or simply distract from the larger crisis, offering a humorous yet poignant take on the shame economy surrounding ethical living.
Despite the sense of futility, Single Use finds hope in the persistence of those who keep trying. Ella’s obsessive rituals—recycling, freezing leftovers, panicking over bin day—reflect a universal need for control in chaotic times. The show captures the stubbornness of caring deeply, even when the system seems indifferent, and asks whether collective small efforts could eventually shift the tide.
A Broader Story of Identity and Legacy
Beyond plastic, Single Use is a story of identity, purpose, and the weight of what we leave behind, both environmentally and personally. Ella’s attempts to fix her relationship with her mum and figure out what growing up means are as messy as the plastic bottles piling up in her life. The comedy lands because it’s rooted in truth: the guilt of throwing away a single-use container, the cycle of trying and failing to live ethically, and the quiet tragedy of rinsing hummus pots at midnight, knowing it might not matter.
Orange Squeeze Theatre’s Fringe Debut
Produced by Orange Squeeze Theatre, a female-led company founded by Mullan and director Emma Jones, both Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduates, Single Use marks their Fringe debut. The show has already garnered buzz, with sold-out previews at Hen & Chickens Theatre and further development at Cockpit Theatre and Seven Dials Playhouse. Mullan’s sharp storytelling and keen cultural observations make this one-woman performance a poignant reflection of our times—funny, heartfelt, and unflinchingly honest about the contradictions of caring deeply in a world built for convenience.
Single Use is a must-see for anyone who’s felt the pang of climate guilt or tried to save the planet while barely holding their own life together. It’s a comic reminder that good intentions and lazy habits coexist, and that even in the face of overwhelming odds, the act of trying still matters.
Find Single Use now:
PLEASANCE COURTYARD (BUNKER THREE)
12:50
30th July – 24th August
(not 11th)
60 mins
0131 556 6550
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