Director Eamon Flack’s production of S. Shakthidharan’ Counting and Cracking, has floored the critics at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, with The Times giving it five stars and The Guardian dubbing it “an absorbing Sri Lankan family odyssey”, while the Financial Times wrote that it “offers a gentle but insistent plea for humanity. It’s impossible not to listen, rapt.”

Nadie Kammallaweera and Gandhi MacIntyre in the original 2019 production of Counting and Cracking. Photo © Brett Boardman

In 2020, it became only the second play in history to receive Australia’s richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, as well as the $25,000 Prize for Drama. Garnering several other awards on its way to Edinburgh, it is little wonder that this production, originally staged by Belvoir and Co-Curious, has been so well received by festival critics and audiences alike.

Australia has long held close ties with the Edinburgh International Festival, including throughout Jonathan Mills’ tenure as Artistic Director from 2006–2014 and then under Fergus Linehan, who had previously held the same position at Sydney Festival and Vivid Live. However, this year’s Australian presence at the 75th Edinburgh International Festival –...