Emily Briggs is a multidisciplinary performer working with spoken word, physical theatre and comedy. She has headlined spoken word nights across Edinburgh, and in 2025, made her Fringe debut with Garbanzo.

Marble Running is a new, dynamic, 30-minute solo performance by Emily Grace Briggs where a conversation becomes a dance. Powered by everyday objects and the potential energy within them, this physically engaged work of spoken word builds momentum like a marble on a downward slalom. The words seamlessly change state through poetry, rhythm and song, compelling us to movement and shared cathartic laughter; as if absorbing and releasing latent heat. But what happens to our marble if its momentum gets cut short? What if a marble runner is forced to slow to a marble walk? Where does all the energy go? And why can’t I stop talking about wind turbines when I am supposed to be grieving?

Join Emily as she weaves together her various tales of how objects help her navigate the moments in life when the momentum suddenly gets cut. In one, continuous piece which flows in and out of the comically mundane and the plain surreal, Marble Running is an unbiting of tongue, a space to release what feels stifled. It sees nouns as dormant motors, where within even the most unassuming of items exists the potential for hugeness. Marble Running is a stripped-back, low tech work requiring nothing but space, an audience and a microphone. It borrows from the emotional pipeline of musical theatre: ‘What’s too big to be said is sung, and what’s too big to be sung is danced,’ and places this principle within the informal and intimate performer-audience relationships found within spoken word. Marble Running is less about telling and more about feeling. It uses words to build shared atmospheres in live spaces.

Incorporating the unique nature of the site at Hidden Door will play an important role in curating this experience.