Posts Tagged Edinburgh Fringe 2026

Interview: The Last Bantam — Crafting History, Character, and Contention

July 1, 2026 at 10:03 am · Filed under Drama, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, History ·Tagged , ,

In The Last Bantam, the Great War is refracted through an unexpected lens: the Bantam battalions — men under 5’3″ who volunteered in their tens of thousands — and one fictional Dubliner navigating the mud of France and the politics of home. What follows is a conversation with the writer and performer, Michael Hughes, about research, storytelling, Irish identity, and the emotional weight of performing history alone on stage.

1. What first pulled you toward the bantam soldiers? Thirty thousand men under 5’3” signing up to fight is an extraordinary footnote in history — what moment made you realise it deserved centre stage?

I spent a year reading about the Bantams. I was fascinated by their story and inspired by their courage. And me being me, made notes about what I read. Lots of notes. Pages of notes under random headings. “Recruitment”. “Motivation”. “Where they came from” etc. I kept those notes in a folder. After finishing the fourth or fifth book I laid those pages out on the floor. And that’s when the show jumped out at me. The headings read like episodes in a TV series or beats in a screenplay. I moved them around into some sort of order and hey presto, I had a show!

2. Patrick Michael Wolfe is such a compelling lens — a Dubliner chasing Irish Home Rule through the mud of the Western Front. How did you shape him? Was he inspired by someone real, or did he emerge from the gaps in the archive?

The Last Bantam was actually going to be about someone else entirely! It was originally going to tell the story of Sgt. Albert Mountain, a Leeds Bantam who was awarded the VC. I was impressed with his courage and tickled by the contrast between his name and his short stature. Sadly, I doubted my ability to do his accent justice and decided to make my character, Patrick Michael Wolfe, a Dubliner like me.

Wolfe is a fiction, though named after my two grandfathers, Patrick and Michael. 200,000 Irishmen served in the Great War, and some of those men were Bantams, but I chose to create my protagonist because I was in a hurry to write the story. Had I used an actual Irish Bantam I’d have felt obliged to find his descendants, get their permission, keep them in the creative loop, and honour their Bantam’s memory. Using a fictional Bantam however, dispensed with having to do any of that. It also meant that I could, if I wanted, present him in a less flattering light without upsetting anyone.

Making my Bantam an Irishman, and a Dubliner at that, also presented huge dramatic possibilities. Mine wouldn’t be a conventional British Great War story. Wolfe is overseas fighting for Irish Home Rule while huge political changes are happening back home. How would he feel about those changes? Would the events back in Dublin actually impact upon his life in France? My reading indicated that events in Ireland impacted hugely on Irishmen serving in the British army. Many of those men felt angry with the rebels while British army high command began to regard their Irish regiments with suspicion. Could they be trusted not to mutiny? Would they desert?

3. The play deals with patriotism, prejudice, courage and betrayal — big words that often get flattened in war stories. Which of those themes felt most dangerous to write about, and which surprised you as you dug deeper?

Betrayal. There’s a lot of betrayal in The Last Bantam. Wolfe and his Bantams are betrayed by the French, by their God and by the army itself when poor planning results in huge Bantam losses.

Where the theme of betrayal becomes dangerous however, is when Wolfe tells us how he feels about the 1916 Easter Rising. He is horrified by the destruction of his city, the loss of life and the harsh response of British forces in Ireland. Like many Irishmen in the British army at the time however, he is also shocked by the rebellion. He cannot understand why, when Ireland was promised its own Home Rule government, the rebels would start a war with Britain. A war that would alienate the Unionists and scupper any dreams of an all-Ireland government. He feels betrayed by the rebels, as many Irish soldiers did.

This is the most contentious thing to write about. Wolfe challenges the idea that the 1916 rebellion, the foundational moment of today’s Irish Republic, was a necessary or good thing.

This may be why none of the Dublin theatres I’ve approached or the Dublin Fringe are willing to host The Last Bantam. The one Dublin venue that has expressed an interest in my production is not a theatre.

4. Ireland’s role in the Great War is still strangely under‑examined. When you were researching, what did you discover that challenged your own assumptions about Irish soldiers and their motivations?

Ireland’s role in the Great War is under-examined, at least from a theatrical perspective. As far as I’m aware — and I’m very open to correction — there are only three other theatrical works examining the experience of Irish nationalists in the Great War: Sean O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie; George Bernard Shaw’s O’Flaherty V.C.; and Dermott Bolger’s Walking the Road. When you consider that 200,000 Irishmen were involved in the Great War, and Ireland’s flair for the literary, you might expect more works than that.

I knew that many Irishmen signed up for the same reasons as English, Scots or Welsh did: adventure, patriotism and money. Some Irishmen, like my character Wolfe, signed up because they believed it would help secure Home Rule. There were even some Irishmen who joined the British army to learn how to fight that same army later.

What surprised me though, was that the majority of Irishmen who signed up — about two thirds of them — were not from the Unionist northern counties. They were from what is today known as the Republic. They never taught us that in school!

5. The bantams were dismissed by the army before they’d even picked up a rifle. How do you approach that mix of ridicule and resilience on stage without turning it into either sentimentality or easy heroism?

First of all, I did my research. I got to know the Bantams. The majority of Bantams were volunteers and they were very proud to serve their country. They did their training, made friends and helped each other. They were practical, hardworking men — shipbuilders, miners and labourers. These men were not given to sentimentality or self‑pity.

Secondly, I’m short myself and I was never going to present the Bantams as tragic figures to be pitied, or as compensatorily heroic. I see them as short men who simply got on with it, ignoring the abuse and overcoming whatever came their way.

And finally, my background in character comedy helps. There is humour in The Last Bantam. It’s not a comedy show but there are laugh‑out‑loud moments. There has to be. There was humour in the trenches and my work should reflect that. Furthermore, humour gives the audience a chance to recover and it increases the dramatic impact when bad things happen to Wolfe and his men.

6. You’ve taken The Last Bantam through multiple Fringes, across the UK, and soon into the Chelsea History Festival and Dublin. How has the show changed as audiences have changed — especially younger ones encountering this history for the first time?

The Last Bantam has doubled in length, from a slim‑trim 25‑minute show to a lean 55–60 minutes today! The original version was just 25 minutes because it was my first foray into acting and the prospect of having to learn anything longer terrified me. Extending the show to an hour means that I can take it beyond the Fringe environment to theatre venues that need a longer run time. Making the show an hour has also enabled me to add additional action and detail and take the audience on a more varied, informative and emotionally satisfying journey.

Sadly, I don’t get too many younger people coming to my production, my audience tending to be mainly over 40. It’s a pity, but I think older people tend to be more interested in early 20th‑century history than younger people.

7. The Western Front is a place we think we already know — trenches, mud, horror. What details did you uncover that felt fresh, human, or painfully intimate enough to bring into the performance?

There were huge problems dressing the Bantam recruits. Bantams wore their own clothes for a long time before being issued with old Boer War uniforms, railwaymen’s overalls or uniforms made of Post Office blue serge. Boots were a specific challenge for the Bantams, the average Bantam having a size 6 foot. Trenches were also a problem. Being shorter is an advantage in trenches, but the fire step you’d stand on to look over the top of the trench was often too low. Bantams had to be issued with two sandbags that would be filled and placed on the fire step for them to stand on!

Another issue was the social class and poverty of many of the Bantam recruits. In my play my character says, “Some of the men came with nothing but the clothes on their backs.” And it’s true. While some Bantams signed up with spare clothes, food and money, others came with nothing apart from a desire to serve. They trusted, in a touching and perhaps naive way, that the state that called for them to enlist would look after them when they did.

Some Bantams were underage and that was probably to be expected. A 5‑foot‑tall 15‑year‑old had no hope of joining a regular‑sized battalion but he might be able to join a Bantam battalion if he lied about his age. And some did.

Some Bantams were illiterate. Receiving only the most basic schooling, young men living in poverty had to work from early childhood. In my play my character talks about this and describes how he helps them: “I read their letters out to them. And they hang on every word.” This aspect of the Bantam story is heartbreaking. Back then, letters and postcards were the key form of communication and Bantams who could not read or write would struggle to maintain contact with their families back home.

8. Your critics talk about “a masterclass in storytelling” and “another perfect example of the great Irish storyteller.” What does storytelling mean to you in a one‑man play? How do you keep the emotional thread taut without another actor to bounce off?

I was surprised when I saw myself described as a “storyteller”! It conjured up images of me standing by a peat fire in an Aran geansaí, telling mythical tales to an appreciative circle. But there’s different ways of telling stories, aren’t there? So I guess I am a storyteller after all!

Storytelling for me is the process in which I take my audience on an educational, entertaining and emotional journey. They come into my world, we begin in one place, end up in another and take several diversions along the way! I know where we’re going, I’ve mapped out the route, and they’re happy to come along with me.

Maintaining the “emotional thread” is essential. Without another actor to bounce off, I have to generate and maintain the emotional energy myself. The script is important in this regard. It’s hard to have a good show without a good script! This is where I believe the discipline of comedy writing influenced how I wrote the play. If a line isn’t really needed in comedy, it goes. If a word isn’t really needed in comedy, it’s out. That concise style of writing keeps things moving and makes for more dynamic work I think.

Just as important though — maybe more perhaps? — is how I perform my script. In addition to words, I use volume and tone, different accents, pauses, facial expressions and physical movements. If I do these things authentically I can hold the attention of the audience and communicate what my character is feeling. I’ve been a teacher a long time and I’ve been using these techniques for years, not realising they would help me become an actor!

9. The bantams fought to prove themselves; Wolfe fights for a political future; the audience watches knowing how history actually unfolded. How do you navigate that tension between hope and hindsight?

Interesting question! I wrote Wolfe from the perspective of an ordinary man who doesn’t know what the future holds. He gets letters from his sister and friends in Dublin. They tell him what’s going on and they send him newspapers. It’s March 1918 and Wolfe knows about the 1916 rebellion and execution of the ringleaders. He knows about the destruction of Dublin city centre and the internment of thousands of Irish men and women. He knows that the national mood is changing and Sinn Féin is growing in power. He knows these things. He still hopes for Home Rule but he is very afraid it will not happen.

British audiences generally don’t know well what happened in Ireland. They know that there was a rebellion in 1916 and that that is somehow related to today’s Irish Republic, but they are generally unaware that in 1914, Ireland was all set to get Home Rule, its own devolved government. Audience members often confuse Home Rule with independence and they tend to be ignorant of the 1919–1921 Anglo‑Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War that followed partition. This lack of knowledge is disappointing, but not unexpected. Many of my audience tend to be over 50 and I gather that Irish history has not always been well taught in British schools. Irish history is political!

10. After living with this story for years — Fringe runs, awards, tours — what still catches in your throat when you perform it? What moment refuses to soften with repetition?

My character goes through a lot in the play. But there is one line that gets me almost every time I say it.

Wolfe establishes a relationship with a nurse while he’s in hospital and she writes to him, inviting him to visit when he gets leave. He tells the audience about the invitation, bashful but also clearly delighted. He’s written a letter back to her, agreeing to meet. He’s been carrying it for days. He tells the audience, “It would be nice to see her again. Away from this.”

That’s the line that gets me. Wolfe’s coyness and delight change. He tries to remain upbeat and cheerful but he knows, because of what he has to do later, that he may not see her again. It’s why he hasn’t posted the letter. He knows he may not survive and he is filled with grief for a love lost. Should he post it or simply let her go?

Find out more at the Fringe website

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Family on the Brink: Next to Normal at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026

June 28, 2026 at 8:25 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Interviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some shows arrive at the Fringe with hype; Next to Normal arrives with history. It’s a piece that has never sat quietly in the corner, never softened its edges, never pretended that mental illness or grief can be shaped into something tidy. Dominic Lewis seems acutely aware of that. When he talks about the Goodman family, he doesn’t reach for the usual theatrical shorthand. He talks about them the way you talk about people you’ve lived alongside — complicated, contradictory, trying their best, failing, trying again.

What struck us most is the seriousness of his intent. Not the heavy, self-important kind, but the grounded sort that comes from knowing the material can genuinely touch people who’ve lived versions of this story. Lewis isn’t interested in turning bipolar disorder into a plot engine or grief into a poetic flourish. He’s interested in the messy truth: the repetition, the avoidance, the love that curdles into fear, the care that becomes silence because nobody knows what else to do. His rehearsal room sounds like a place built with actual thought — not just emotional ambition, but practical care for performers who may be carrying their own histories into the work.

And then there’s the wider frame. The partnerships with Bipolar Scotland and Held In Our Hearts aren’t window dressing. They’re part of a deliberate attempt to make sure the production doesn’t just stir something up and leave audiences to deal with it alone. Lewis talks about community theatre not as a consolation prize but as a space where proximity matters — where the people making the work are part of the same streets, the same conversations, the same quiet crises as the people watching it.

As Next to Normal heads into the Edinburgh Fringe 2026, this interview feels less like a preview and more like an invitation to look again at what we call “care,” what families are expected to carry, and what healing might mean when truth finally stops being the thing everyone tiptoes around. It’s not neat. It’s not meant to be. But it feels, unmistakably, necessary.

Next to Normal has always been a lightning rod for conversations about mental health. What responsibilities did you feel taking on a story that deals so directly with bipolar disorder, medical treatment and the long shadow of loss, and how did you avoid slipping into cliché or sentimentality?

The responsibility felt enormous, to be honest. Next to Normal is not a show where mental health can be treated as a dramatic device, or where grief can be reduced to something neat, poetic or conveniently resolved by the end of the evening. It asks much more of everyone involved.

The first responsibility was to remember that although the Goodman family are fictional, the experiences around them are not. Bipolar disorder, trauma, complicated grief, medical treatment, family breakdown, emotional avoidance and survival are all things that many audience members will understand personally, either through their own lives or through someone they love. That means the work has to be truthful without becoming exploitative, detailed without becoming clinical, and emotionally open without pushing the audience into a kind of forced sentimentality.

For me, avoiding cliché meant resisting any version of Diana that becomes simply “the ill woman”, “the difficult mother” or “the tragic victim”. She is all sorts of things at once: funny, intelligent, frightened, loving, furious, avoidant, lucid, unwell, self-aware and trapped. Equally, Dan cannot just be “the long-suffering husband”, and Natalie cannot just be “the neglected daughter”. The danger with a show like this is that people become symbols. We have tried to keep pulling them back into being people.

In rehearsal, that has meant constantly asking: what is this person trying to do in this moment? What are they protecting? What truth are they avoiding? Where is the love, even when the behaviour is damaging? That keeps the story human. It stops the production from presenting mental illness as spectacle or grief as a beautiful sadness. Grief is not beautiful when you are inside it. It can be disorientating, repetitive, irrational, boring, exhausting and sometimes even absurd. The show understands that, and we have tried to honour that complexity.

The other big thing was not to make the production anti-treatment, anti-medication or anti-clinical care. That would be a misreading, and frankly it would be irresponsible. The show is much more interesting than that. It asks what happens when treatment exists but care becomes fragmented, when someone’s symptoms are addressed but their personhood is not always fully seen, and when a family tries to survive through silence rather than truth. That nuance is where the production lives.

The press release emphasises “emotional truth, care, accessibility and audience signposting.” How do you translate those values into practical rehearsal-room decisions, especially when working with performers who may have lived experience of the themes?

Those values only matter if they change behaviour in the room. It is easy to put words like care and accessibility in a press release. The real question is whether they affect the process.

Practically, we have tried to build a rehearsal room where people understand that the work can be emotionally demanding, but that nobody is expected to damage themselves in order to make it powerful. I am very clear that acting trauma is not the same as re-living trauma. We are not asking performers to mine their own pain for the sake of a scene. We are asking them to build characters with clarity, technique, empathy and rigour.

That means being specific. If a scene is difficult, we do not just say “make it more emotional”. We look at the action, the relationship, the rhythm, the breath, the interruption, the avoidance, the lyric and the silence. Often the most truthful moments are not the ones where someone pushes hardest.

Care also means giving people the information they need. We talk openly about the content of the show, the pressure points in the material, and what each rehearsal is likely to involve. We have tried to create a culture where people can say if something needs to be handled differently, without it becoming dramatic or awkward. That is particularly important when working on material that may overlap with lived experience. You cannot always know what someone is carrying into the room, so the room has to be built with that possibility in mind.

Accessibility and signposting are part of the same principle. We know the show may land very personally for some audience members, so we are thinking about what happens before and after the performance, not just during it. That includes clear content guidance, programme information, and working with organisations who understand these themes in a much deeper and more specialist way than we do. We cannot control how every person will receive the show, but we can take responsibility for how we frame it, how we support it, and how seriously we treat the conversations it may open up.

Diana’s story is often framed as a critique of the medicalisation of distress. How does your production navigate the tension between clinical intervention and the human need for connection, agency and dignity?

The important thing for me is that the production does not present those things as opposites. Clinical intervention and human connection should not be enemies. In the best circumstances, they should support one another.

What Next to Normal interrogates is what happens when care becomes too narrow. Diana is treated, but she is not always fully heard. Her symptoms are examined, but the emotional architecture of her life, her grief, her family and her sense of self cannot be solved by diagnosis alone. That does not mean diagnosis or medication are wrong. It means they are not the whole story.

The production tries to hold that tension without simplifying it. Diana needs help. The family needs help. Dan needs help. Natalie needs help. But help that removes agency, flattens identity or ignores the human context can become another kind of harm, even when it is well-intentioned.

Dignity has become a key word for us. Diana is sometimes chaotic, sometimes evasive, sometimes deeply unwell, but she must never lose her dignity in the eyes of the production. We are not inviting the audience to observe her from a distance. We are asking them to sit with the discomfort of how difficult it is to care for someone, how difficult it is to be cared for, and how easily love can become control when people are frightened.

The show is also very honest about the limits of love. Connection matters, but love alone cannot treat a serious mental health condition. At the same time, treatment without connection can leave someone feeling like a case rather than a person. That is the central tension for me. Diana needs care that sees her whole life, not just her crisis.

Bare Productions is collaborating with Bipolar Scotland and Held In Our Hearts. What does meaningful partnership look like in practice, and how do you ensure it’s more than a badge of good intentions?

For us, meaningful partnership starts with humility. We are a theatre company. We are not a mental health charity, a bereavement charity or a clinical service. So if we are making work that touches these areas, we have a responsibility to connect with people and organisations who live in that work every day.

The partnerships with Bipolar Scotland and Held In Our Hearts are not there to decorate the production. They are there because the themes of the show have real-world consequences. Bipolar Scotland brings vital awareness and understanding around bipolar disorder, stigma, support and the realities behind a condition that is still widely misunderstood. Held In Our Hearts brings deep care around baby loss and grief, which sits at the emotional root of the Goodman family’s story.

In practical terms, this means making space for signposting, sharing information with audiences, including the charities in our programme materials, and being careful with the language we use around the production. It also means understanding that partnership is not the same as endorsement. We should not hide behind charity logos and say, “That proves we have done the work.” The work is ongoing.

I think meaningful partnership also has to ask: who benefits? If the production raises awareness, but does nothing to direct people towards support, then we have missed an opportunity. If it uses painful subject matter to sell tickets, but does not take care over how audiences are held, then it has failed ethically. Our aim is for the production to create a bridge between the emotional experience of theatre and the practical reality of support, awareness and conversation.

It is also important to say that charity partnership does not make the show safe in a simplistic sense. The material is still difficult. It should be. But it does mean we are taking seriously the fact that audiences may leave with questions, memories, or feelings stirred up. We want there to be somewhere for that energy to go.

Next to Normal is, at its core, a family drama. What did you discover about the Goodman family that feels especially resonant for audiences in 2026, when conversations about trauma, care and survival are finally becoming less taboo?

What feels painfully resonant is that the Goodmans are not a family without love. They are a family with a huge amount of love, but not enough language. That feels very contemporary.

We are much better now, culturally, at saying words like trauma, grief, mental health and survival. That is progress. But naming something is not the same as knowing how to live with it. The Goodman family are caught in that gap. They are surrounded by feelings they cannot metabolise. They know something is wrong, but each of them has built a different survival strategy around it.

Diana’s survival is partly denial, partly memory, partly resistance. Dan’s survival is control, optimism and holding the family together at almost any cost. Natalie’s survival is achievement, distance and anger. None of these strategies are stupid. They make sense. But they are also damaging.

That feels very relevant in 2026 because so many families are trying to have more honest conversations about mental health, but they are doing it inside systems and histories that still reward silence. Families often become the place where care happens by default, whether or not anyone inside that family is equipped for it. The show asks what that does to people.

The thing I keep coming back to is that the Goodmans are not failing because they do not care. They are struggling because care without truth becomes unbearable. Everyone is trying to protect everyone else, and in doing so they isolate each other. That is a very recognisable family pattern, even outside the specific circumstances of the musical.

The show asks what it really means for a family to heal. Do you think healing is possible within the structures we currently have, or is the musical quietly arguing for something more radical?

I think the musical is deeply sceptical of neat healing. It does not offer the audience the comfort of a restored family where everyone has learned the lesson and pain has been tidied away. That is one of the reasons it remains such a powerful piece.

Healing, in Next to Normal, is not a return to the past. In fact, the desire to return to the past is part of what keeps the family trapped. Healing is closer to truth. It is the painful movement from pretending towards acknowledging. That does not fix everything, but it creates the possibility of something more honest.

So yes, I do think the show is quietly arguing for something more radical. Not in a slogan-led way, but in its emotional politics. It asks us to imagine care beyond endurance. It asks whether one person, one marriage, one family home can really hold the weight of serious mental illness, bereavement and trauma without wider support. It asks what we expect families, and often women in particular, to carry privately.

The structures we currently have can help people, absolutely. Treatment can help. Therapy can help. Medication can help. Community can help. But the show exposes what happens when support is fragmented, reactive or inaccessible, and when families only reach for help once they are already at breaking point.

The radical idea in the show is that survival is not enough. Being “fine” is not enough. Holding it together is not enough. Healing requires truth, agency, support, and sometimes the courage to let a family become something different from what it was. That is a much harder version of hope, but I think it is also a more truthful one.

Community theatre is often dismissed as “amateur,” yet your company’s work is described as ambitious, inclusive and values-led. What can community-rooted companies say about mental health and grief that commercial theatre often can’t?

Community-rooted theatre can speak from proximity. That is its power.

Commercial theatre can do extraordinary work, of course, but it is often shaped by commercial risk, marketability, celebrity, critical expectation and the pressure to package difficult themes in a way that can be sold. Community-rooted companies can sometimes move differently. We are not detached from the communities watching the work. We are part of them.

For Bare, the word “community” does not mean lowering artistic ambition. It means widening the purpose of the work. We are interested in making theatre that is artistically strong, but also socially connected. With a show like Next to Normal, that matters. Mental health and grief are not abstract topics for discussion. They are part of ordinary life. They sit in rehearsal rooms, workplaces, friendships, families and audiences.

Community theatre can also challenge the idea that only certain kinds of people are allowed to make “serious” work. Lived experience, empathy, care and local connection are not second-best substitutes for professionalism. They are forms of knowledge. That does not mean good intentions are enough. The work still has to be rigorous. The singing has to be strong. The staging has to be clear. The ethics have to be thought through. But the root system is different.

I think community-rooted companies can say: this story belongs in the room with us. It is not distant. It is not rarefied. It is not something happening to other people. It is here, in the city, in our families, in our friendships, in the audience. That creates a different kind of charge.

The musical’s rock score is famously intense and emotionally charged. How do you balance musical precision with the rawness the story demands, especially in a Fringe environment where time and space are tight?

The balance comes from understanding that rawness and precision are not opposites. In a score like Next to Normal, the rawness only really lands if the structure underneath it is secure.

The music is relentless. It demands stamina, accuracy, emotional intelligence and real trust between performers. If the cast are fighting the music technically, they cannot live inside the scene truthfully. So we have spent a lot of time treating the score as both music and text. The notes matter, the rhythms matter, but so does the thought underneath every phrase.

In rehearsal, I am interested in where the music interrupts normal behaviour. This is a domestic drama, but the score allows the pressure inside the family to erupt. Sometimes the music is what a character cannot say. Sometimes it is what they are trying not to know. Sometimes it is the speed of panic, or the force of memory, or the exhaustion of pretending.

The Fringe environment makes that more intense. You do not have endless time, endless space or endless technical resources. But that can also be clarifying. We have to ask what each moment is really about and strip away anything decorative. The Sanctuary at Paradise Green gives us an intimate relationship with the audience, so we do not need to push for scale all the time. The emotional size of the piece can come from focus.

My job is to create enough precision that the performers feel safe to be emotionally brave. If the staging, music and storytelling are held tightly, then the cast can risk more. Controlled does not mean cold. It means the production has a spine.

Next to Normal blends domestic realism with a high-energy rock score. What do you think this musical language allows you to express about mental health and family life that a more traditional score couldn’t?

The rock score allows the inner life of the family to become theatrical without becoming polite. That is crucial.

A more traditional score might risk smoothing the edges of the story. Next to Normal needs a musical language that can be jagged, obsessive, funny, furious, tender and overwhelming, sometimes within the same number. Mental health does not always move in clean emotional arcs. Family conflict does not always arrive in well-shaped sentences. The rock language gives the show volatility.

What I love is the collision between the ordinary and the extreme. This is a family in a house, dealing with school, marriage, doctors, dinner, birthdays, routines. But underneath that domestic surface, the emotional volume is huge. The score lets us hear that. It turns subtext into sound.

It also captures the way a family system can become rhythmic. People repeat patterns. They interrupt each other. They avoid the same subjects. They return to the same wounds. The music reflects that. It can feel like thought spiralling, memory returning, panic accelerating, or love trying to force its way through a blocked room.

For me, the score says that mental health and grief are not quiet subjects just because people often suffer quietly. Inside, they can be deafening. The rock score gives that inner noise a form.

If audiences leave the Sanctuary at Paradise Green talking about one social issue raised by your production, what do you hope it is, and why that one?

I hope they talk about the fact that care cannot sit solely inside one family.

That feels like the central social issue for me. The show is about mental health, grief, treatment and family, but underneath all of that is a question about where care is expected to happen, who is expected to provide it, and what happens when those people are already breaking.

The Goodman family are not untouched by support, but they are still profoundly alone in many ways. That loneliness is not just emotional. It is structural. It reflects how many people experience mental illness, bereavement and crisis: as something that becomes private very quickly, even when it is too big to be held privately.

If audiences leave talking about that, then the production has done something useful. Not because theatre should provide policy answers, but because theatre can make us feel the human cost of questions we sometimes discuss too abstractly. Who gets believed? Who gets supported? Who gets exhausted? Who disappears inside someone else’s crisis? Who is allowed to say they cannot cope?

I would love audiences to leave moved by the family, but also unsettled by the wider implications. The musical does not ask us simply to pity Diana, admire Dan, worry about Natalie or mourn what has happened to the Goodmans. It asks us to look at the whole ecosystem of care, silence, stigma and survival.

For me, that is why the piece still matters so much. It is not only asking, “How does one family heal?” It is asking, “What kind of world would make healing more possible?”

You can find out more about the show and buy tickets here

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Sleeves of Shame: Steve Goldman on the Worst Record Covers in the World

June 26, 2026 at 7:07 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Exhibitions, Interviews, Music ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Steve Goldman has spent years rescuing the most bizarre, ill‑judged and unintentionally comic LP sleeves from the dustiest corners of vinyl history. His cult exhibition, The Worst Record Covers in the World, has delighted audiences everywhere from galleries to comedy festivals — and in 2026 it arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe. Ahead of the show’s run at Assembly George Square Studios, we caught up with Steve to talk design disasters, accidental folk art, and why these gloriously terrible sleeves still make us laugh. Full details and booking are available via the official Fringe listing.  You can also check out Worst Record Covers Instagram.

 

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  1. The Origin Story — You’ve said the whole thing began with Roadstar Peter Rabbit bought for 10p. Be honest: was that the moment you realised humanity had no aesthetic brakes, or the moment you realised you’d found your life’s work?

When it all began, 40 years ago I was just a whipper snapper and had no idea this would become my life’s work! I bought Peter Rabbit for 10p because it was such an extraordinarily bad cover. Subsequently I lost it. Then the internet came along, I thought “I’ll find it now”, but every time I typed in Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter links came up- and I thought I’d never see it again. Then about 10 years ago someone told me to look in discogs.com- so I did, and it came up straight away. It was a bit more expensive this time- £5, plus a fiver to have it shipped from Germany. When it arrived was one of the happiest moments of my life. And that evening I said to my family “do you know what, I think I’ll start collecting crap record covers”…. That’s the moment I realised I’d found a calling 

  1. The Stewart Lee Effect — Stewart Lee claims your collection made him “despair of humanity itself.” Do you take that as a compliment, a warning, or the highest possible endorsement?

When we created The Art of the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve- the book of the exhibition- Stewart was kind enough to agree to write the foreword. (We actually asked three people- Stewart, Dolly Parton and the German singer King Sized Dick, and Stewart was the only one who bothered to reply)  In Stewart’s foreword he does indeed say that the collection made him despair of humanity itself. He goes on to say that he “began to hate mankind for it’s ineffable and inexcusable shitness, its natural tendency towards ugliness and stupidity…”.  And also that he began to hate me for my role in originating the project, and Simon Robinson, the author of the book. But he comes round, and by the end of the foreword he congratulates me and Simon on “Defining an as yet uncategorised new substrata of folk art”..which is the highest possible endorsement! 

  1. The Line Between Bad and Brilliant — You insist the covers must be unintentionally funny.What’sthe secret ingredient that turns a merely ugly sleeve into a transcendent act of artistic self‑sabotage? 

There’s no one secret ingredient: there’s so many forms of bad. I attach 22 sleeves, each one I think is funny for a different reason….. 

  1. Curatorial Ethics — You avoid anything gory, sexist, racist or hateful. In a world where shock sells, is it harder to find “clean” badness than it is to find offensive badness?

Yes that’s certainly true. There is a lot of offensive badness about. But just take a look at the exhibition and the book and you’ll see there are many rich seams of ‘clean’ badness.  

  1. The Psychology of Failure — When you look at these sleeves, do you see incompetence, innocence, delusion, or something more tender — the human urge to create, even when weprobably shouldn’t?

I see all of those things, but look at the attached sleeves- there’s so much more to love! 

  1. The Fringe Audience —You’veshown this collection everywhere from Halifax to Leicester. What is it about Fringe audiences that makes them howl the loudest? 

Ah, Fringe audiences are very lucky actually- they’re surrounded by a smorgasbord of people trying to make them happy. When we first exhibited in Huddersfield in 2021, we were just beginning to emerge from the Covid pandemic and people really needed a treat. The joy and release people experienced coming together in a room, howling with laughter at the music industry’s incompetence was a real tonic. It’s an absolute buzz to come to the fringe- this is our second year, and first year on George Square-  but I’m also very tickled when the exhibition lights up places that are well and truly off the beaten track like Warrington, Birkenhead and Mansfield, where the full exhibition is this summer. 

  1. The Collector’s High — After 700 sleeves, what still gives you that electric jolt — the “oh God, what is this?” moment that tells you a new horror has earned its place?

There’s one rule- if it makes me laugh, then it’s in. 

  1. Design Crimes — Which design sin offends you the most: the floating disembodied head, the badlycut‑outfigure, the tragic attempt at sex appeal, or the “we’ll fix it in post” optimism that clearly never happened? 

Actually they don’t offend me, they delight me! Yes, you’ve identified 4 themes there, but there’s so much more….. including ones where the design is just inexplicable., 

  1. The Stroke, the Charity, the Mission —You’veturned a personal health crisis into a fundraising mission for Different Strokes. How does it feel to watch people laugh themselves silly while supporting something so serious? 

Actually supporting Different Strokes was an afterthought suggested by my wife! But it’s raised over £3000 so far, and it’s made people realise that strokes aren’t exclusively suffered by the elderly. One in four strokes happen to people of working age, like me. Our needs, and the challenges we face are very different from people who have strokes later in life. We’ve launched Worst Record Covers in the World calendars for 2027 – I’m hoping if those sell well we can do a bit more to help Different Strokes. 

  

  1. The Philosophy of Bad Taste — At what point does bad taste stop being a joke and become a cultural archive — a record of who we were, what we thought looked good, and how magnificently wrong we often were?

At the moment when I thought of exhibiting The Worst Record Covers in the World! 

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Fringe 2026: Best In Class Interview

June 20, 2026 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Interviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Introduction 

Best in Class returns to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2026 as one of the festival’s most vital and talked‑about platforms for working‑class comedians. Founded by Sian Davies after confronting the financial and social barriers that routinely shut out performers from less privileged backgrounds, the project has grown from a single crowdfunded showcase into a movement that trains, supports, and champions working‑class talent across the UK. Their Fringe shows have become a daily sell‑out phenomenon, celebrated for bringing fresh voices to a festival still dominated by middle‑ and upper‑class acts . With award‑winning momentum behind them — including the Edinburgh Comedy Awards Panel Prize and multiple grants supporting their work — Best in Class arrives at Fringe 2026 with a renewed mission: to platform performers who deserve to be heard and to challenge the systemic inequalities that shape the comedy industry

1. Working‑class barriers — The Fringe keeps getting more expensive and more corporate. From where you’re standing, what’s the most invisible barrier working‑class comedians still face that middle‑class audiences never notice?
The biggest barrier is still financial, but two other huge factors are contacts and knowledge.Many working-class comedians simply don’t have the same networks as people who grew up around the arts. They might not know the right people to ask for advice, where to find opportunities, or even what opportunities exist in the first place.A lot of that knowledge gets passed around informally, so if you’re not already in those circles it can be much harder to access. That’s one of the things Best in Class tries to help with. We want our acts to experience the Fringe, build connections, gain confidence and learn how the industry works, so they can take those opportunities forward into the rest of their careers.
2. Funding the Fringe — Best in Class is proudly crowdfunded and profit‑sharing. What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about who does and doesn’t put their money behind working‑class talent?
We’re always incredibly grateful for every donation, whatever the size.One of the most encouraging things this year has been seeing support from some really well-known and established comedians. It’s lovely to know that people who are further along in their careers believe in what we’re doing and want to help the next generation of working-class talent.More broadly, it’s been really heartening to see support come from all sorts of places. Every year we’re reminded that there are lots of people across the comedy industry and beyond who genuinely want to help make opportunities more accessible.
3. Talent pipeline — You’ve built a showcase that’s become a launchpad. What’s the moment you realised Best in Class wasn’t just a show but a counter‑culture talent engine?
It’s hard to choose one particular moment, because we’re lucky enough to see lots of small (and occasionally very big!) wins.Whether it’s spotting one of our alumni on TV, hearing them on the radio, seeing them tour a full show, or watching them get opportunities they might not otherwise have had, those moments are always a real source of pride.

For us, that’s what Best in Class is all about: helping talented working-class comedians take the next step in their careers and showing just how much incredible talent is out there.

4. Class on stage — How do you navigate the line between representing working‑class life and being expected to perform it for a largely middle‑class festival audience?
As comedians, we’re used to sharing our lives on stage. That can feel quite vulnerable for anyone, regardless of their background.

The brilliant thing about comedy is that audiences connect with honesty. While our acts bring their own experiences and perspectives to the stage, they’re not there to represent an entire class or community. They’re there to tell funny, personal stories.

What we’ve found is that great comedy resonates with audiences from all backgrounds. The specifics of a story might be different, but the emotions and experiences behind it are often surprisingly universal.

5. The 2026 line‑up — This year’s acts range from vaudeville chaos to dark self‑deprecation to political storytelling. What unites this line‑up beyond class background?
This year’s line-up all share values that really align with Best in Class: a strong work ethic, a willingness to support one another, and the determination to pursue their goals despite the barriers they may face.

We’re also passionate about building a sense of community. Best in Class has never just been about putting on a show; it’s about creating a network where comedians can learn from each other, champion each other and grow together.

This year’s cohort is a fantastic example of that spirit, and we’re incredibly proud to be working with them.

6. Comedy industry inequality — If you could change one structural thing about the UK comedy industry tomorrow to make it fairer, what would it be?
It’s a big one, but fees.

We all understand that rising costs affect everyone, from venues and promoters to audiences and performers. But comedy simply wouldn’t exist without comedians, and performance fees haven’t increased at the same rate as many other costs.

If we could change one thing, we’d love to see comedians paid more fairly for their work. Even small things like travel expenses can make a huge difference, particularly for newer acts who are often paying significant costs upfront just to get on stage and build their careers.

7. Fringe economics — The Fringe loves to market itself as “the world’s biggest open‑access arts festival”. From your perspective, how true is that slogan in 2026?
The Edinburgh Fringe is still one of the most exciting and accessible arts festivals in the world in many ways, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people without financial backing to take part.

Like much of the arts sector, rising costs have had a significant impact, and those challenges are often felt most acutely by people from working-class backgrounds.

We’d love to see more meaningful conversations about how performers can access the festival if they don’t have a financial safety net. The more people who are able to take part, the richer and more representative the Fringe becomes.

8. Bursaries and impact — Your bursaries now help working‑class comedians bring full shows to the Fringe. What’s the most powerful transformation you’ve seen from someone who received support?
One of the most rewarding things we see is a real increase in confidence.

For many of our acts, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe is something they’ve never imagined would be possible. Once they’re there, meeting other artists, performing their work and seeing audience reactions, they begin to realise that they absolutely deserve to be part of it.

That shift in mindset can be incredibly powerful. We regularly hear from alumni about how much the experience helped their confidence, opened new opportunities and encouraged them to aim higher in their careers.

9. Comedy and identity — Several acts this year talk openly about disability, neurodivergence, sexuality, or cultural heritage. How do you create a space where those stories can be told without being commodified?
We don’t ask people to talk about any particular aspect of their identity. The comedians we work with are selected because they’re talented, funny and have something interesting to say.

If an act wants to talk about disability, neurodivergence, sexuality, cultural heritage or any other part of their life, that’s entirely their choice. We want people to feel able to tell the stories that matter to them, in whatever way feels authentic.

Ultimately, our role is to create a supportive environment where comedians can be themselves. We trust our acts to decide what they want to share with audiences and how they want to share it.

10. Future of Best in Class — If Best in Class had unlimited funding and zero constraints, what’s the radical version of the project you’d build next?
If funding and resources were no object, we’d love to support more working-class comedians at every stage of their careers.

That could mean more bursaries, more training and mentoring opportunities, regional showcases across the UK, industry networking events, and year-round development programmes rather than focusing primarily on the Edinburgh Fringe.

Ultimately, we’d love to build a sustainable pipeline of support, helping talented comedians access opportunities, develop their skills and progress their careers, regardless of their financial background or where they live.

Find out more about Best In Class

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MEET THE DEBUTS: Six New Voices Rewiring the Fringe 2026

June 5, 2026 at 7:53 am · Filed under Comedy, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Every Fringe season brings its share of debuts, but every so often a cluster arrives that feels less like a cohort and more like a cultural weather front — a shift in tone, form, and ambition. This year’s newcomers aren’t just telling jokes; they’re wrestling with identity, mortality, monstrosity, societal collapse, and the strange business of being seen. In other words: perfect Counter Culture territory.

Here are six debut hours that deserve your attention.

Aarian Mehrabani: How’s Your Head?
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Aarian Mehrabani walks into his debut hour with the kind of life story that would make most comedians quietly pack up their notebooks and go home. Blind, bisexual, brown, Iranian heritage — and then, as if the universe wanted to test the limits of narrative plausibility, an aggressive brain cancer diagnosis in 2024. But what makes How’s Your Head? compelling isn’t the biography; it’s the perspective. Mehrabani refuses to be anyone’s inspirational mascot. Instead, he turns his lived experience into something sharper, stranger, and far more politically charged.

As a co‑founder of FlawBored — the multi‑award‑winning theatre company behind It’s a Motherfking Pleasure — Mehrabani already has form in dismantling the narratives imposed on disabled performers. His debut stand‑up hour continues that project, but with a new intimacy. He weaves together STI clinic confessions, Persian identity crises, hospital‑bed absurdities, and the dark humour that emerges when your own brain becomes the antagonist. It’s bold, deeply personal, and delivered with a wit that’s both biting and disarmingly warm.

What’s striking is how Mehrabani handles the material: not as trauma porn, not as uplift, but as a reclamation. He treats his experiences as raw material for comedy, not a moral lesson. The result is a show that feels alive — a blend of theatrical intelligence, political awareness, and a refusal to let anyone else define the terms of his story.

Directed by Dec Munro and developed with support from The Lowry’s Developed With programme, How’s Your Head? marks the first time a member of FlawBored has stepped out with a solo work. It’s a milestone, and it shows. The craft is evident: tight writing, emotional clarity, and a sense of humour that can pivot from filth to philosophy in a heartbeat.

Mehrabani’s CV is already stacked. A graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, he co‑founded FlawBored in 2021, won the Untapped Award, sold out the Fringe, transferred off‑Broadway, and is currently developing new work with the Royal Court. As an actor, he’s appeared at The Watermill, the Royal Exchange, and will soon feature in David Baddiel’s Channel 4 thriller Hunting Alice Bell. Critics have called him “pure genius,” “wincingly relevant,” and “ridiculously entertaining” — and for once, the hype feels justified.

How’s Your Head? introduces a vital new voice to the stand‑up circuit: irreverent, political, theatrical, and defiantly unpitying. It’s a show about identity, illness, desire, and the strange business of surviving your own story — and laughing at it anyway.

Harvey Cobb: Pink Boots and an Alcoholic Sock Puppet
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Harvey Cobb’s debut is what happens when a circus performer decides to stage an existential crisis in public — and juggle through it. Pink Boots and an Alcoholic Sock Puppet is part clown show, part performance art, part breakdown, and entirely Fringe. It’s a masterclass in absurdity: pink boot juggling, contemporary dance, ridiculous characters, silly songs, and one very opinionated sock puppet.

British‑born and Rotterdam‑based, Cobb brings the precision of a trained circus artist and the chaos of someone who’s realised that “serious art” might just be another form of self‑delusion. The show blurs the line between high art and cheap entertainment, between sincerity and satire, between the performer’s need to be applauded and his fear of being dismissed as novelty. It’s a meta‑theatrical tightrope walk — and Cobb never stops wobbling.

The conceit is deliciously self‑aware. Harvey presents himself as a pretentious artist, desperate to be taken seriously, only to be undermined by his tyrannical producer, his own insecurities, and the increasingly unhinged antics of Mr Sock. As the façade crumbles, the show becomes a study in vulnerability disguised as farce. Beneath the juggling and slapstick lies a quiet truth about the hunger for validation — and the absurdity of chasing it through art.

Cobb’s background gives the show its muscularity. A graduate of Codarts Rotterdam with a degree in Circus, he’s already won the BNG Circus Prize for Something About Pink, and his work carries the physical confidence of someone who can literally balance on anything. But what makes Pink Boots sing is its emotional balance: the tension between craft and collapse, between control and chaos.

The production’s international creative team — Matthias Romir, Pepijn Ronaldo, Captain Frodo, Yiorgos Bereris, Cahit Metin, Julia Gut, and Inge Den Adel — help shape a piece that feels both anarchic and meticulously designed. It’s a show that knows exactly what it’s doing, even when it pretends not to.

As De Volkskrant put it, Cobb is “a born performer, a funny and idiosyncratic improvisational talent.” At the Fringe, that translates into a debut that’s equal parts circus, confession, and catastrophe — a glitter‑streaked exploration of what it means to want to be seen.

Pink Boots and an Alcoholic Sock Puppet is chaotic, heartfelt, and quietly profound beneath the absurdity. It’s Fringe distilled to its purest form: a man, a sock, and the desperate, beautiful need to make art out of failure.

Mothman: A Romance Musical
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Some Fringe shows arrive with a premise so gloriously deranged that you can feel the cult status forming before the lights even go down. Mothman: A Romance Musical is one of those shows — a cryptid‑infused, B‑movie‑loving, queer‑coded fever dream from alternative comedians Alex Franklin and Nikola McMurtrie, who have already amassed awards, critical acclaim, and millions of online views. Now they’re bringing their collaborative debut to Edinburgh, and it’s exactly the kind of unhinged, big‑hearted chaos the Fringe was built for.

The set‑up is deliciously absurd: it’s 1943, the Nazis are winning, and America’s last hope is a super‑soldier experiment gone wrong because — of course — a moth got into the machine. Fast‑forward to 2024 and a trio of monster‑hunters stumble into the woods of West Virginia, only to find themselves entangled in forbidden cryptid romance, betrayal, cannibalism, and a Wisdom Tree. It’s a show that lovingly skewers the tropes of classic creature‑features while prancing through themes of identity, sexuality, and self‑acceptance with a sincerity that catches you off guard.

Franklin and McMurtrie write and perform alongside Alex Prescot and Hudson Hughes, creating a four‑person ensemble that feels like a Fringe supergroup: musical comedy finalists, award‑winners, drag‑adjacent chaos merchants, and performers who understand that the line between horror and heart is often thinner than a moth’s wing. Their world is one where camp meets earnestness, where the monstrous becomes desirable, and where the absurd becomes a vehicle for something unexpectedly tender.

What elevates Mothman beyond its delightful silliness is the emotional intelligence humming beneath the spectacle. Franklin — a trans, half‑Chinese musical comedian with a growing cult following — brings a sharp, self‑aware wit that turns even the most ludicrous moments into reflections on belonging. McMurtrie, a Scottish sketch and musical comedian with a background in dance and multimedia chaos, injects the show with physicality and ambition that borders on the operatic. Together, they create a piece that feels both anarchic and meticulously crafted.

The show has already previewed in London and Brighton, where it picked up a nomination for The Nest New Writing Award with Chichester Festival Theatre — a sign that beneath the cannibalism and cryptid lust, there’s real craft at work. Reviewers of their solo work have called Franklin “deeply affecting and incredibly funny” and McMurtrie “maniacally ambitious,” and Mothman looks set to combine the best of both.

This is the kind of Fringe musical that becomes a late‑night word‑of‑mouth obsession: camp, chaotic, queer, and unexpectedly moving. A romance musical about falling in love with a monster shouldn’t work — which is precisely why it does.. It’s camp, earnest, ridiculous — and taps into the desire to be loved for the parts of ourselves that feel monstrous.

Rob Preston: Amazing Global Solutions
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Rob Preston’s debut arrives with the confidence of a man who has stared directly into the abyss of the modern internet and decided to build a consultancy firm there. Fresh from the 2025 Fringe hit Brainsluts, Preston steps into the spotlight alone — or rather, accompanied by a gallery of grotesques who feel alarmingly familiar to anyone who has spent more than six minutes online.

Amazing Global Solutions is a rapid‑fire descent into the algorithmic psyche: bleak, bizarre, and blisteringly funny. Preston plays a consultant armed with the worst ideas the internet has ever produced — casually delivered with the breezy self‑assurance of a man who believes he can “fix mental health,” “dominate the content space,” and “bring lasting international peace to the entirety of the globe, globally.” It’s the kind of corporate nightmare where every buzzword is a threat and every solution is somehow more horrifying than the problem.

What makes Preston’s work sing is the accuracy. His characters — influencer‑bros, corporate stooges, privileged poshos, dog‑obsessed retirees — aren’t caricatures so much as exaggerated truths, the logical endpoints of a culture that has replaced empathy with engagement metrics. Through sharply observed vignettes rooted in the UK’s current socio‑political climate, he exposes how extremism, self‑help jargon, and moral bankruptcy can merge into something both hilarious and deeply unsettling.

Preston’s pedigree shows. Shortlisted for BBC New Comedian of the Year 2024 and Pleasance Reserve 2025, and a semi‑finalist in the Leicester Square Sketch Off, he’s already carved out a reputation for precision‑tooled character work. His writing has appeared on Radio 4 Extra, and his digital sketches have racked up over a million likes — proof that his brand of satire lands just as hard on a phone screen as it does in a theatre.

As a comic actor, he starred in Brainsluts at the 2025 Fringe, earning four‑star reviews from The Guardian, The Times, and The Stage. This year he also appears in Leo Reich’s Channel 4/A24 sitcom It Gets Worse — a title that feels like a mission statement for the world his characters inhabit.

Amazing Global Solutions is satire for the age of burnout, misinformation, and weaponised positivity — a show that understands the horror of modern life isn’t the chaos, but the people who insist they can optimise it.

Fanny Bleach: The Nearly Naked Show
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Fanny Bleach — the cult drag‑thing alter ego of Geordie theatre‑maker Emma Crowley‑Bennett — arrives at the Fringe with a debut that feels less like a comedy hour and more like a feral reclamation ritual. A member of the beloved sketch group Your Aunt Fanny and winner of Top of the Slops Season 3, Bleach brings a show that is part freak‑show fantasia, part drag séance, and part howl of defiance from the sticky floor of the patriarchy.

The Nearly Naked Show is a subversive, silly and surprisingly tender tour through the disgusting and the depraved — a carnival of characters dredged from the creepiest crevices of Bleach’s imagination. Mundane realities warp into surreal nightmares populated by bodily mutations, deviant behaviour, bad hags and kidney‑harvesting call‑centre workers. It’s grotesque, glittery, and gloriously unhinged: a fantasia of guts, gunk and glitter that refuses to apologise for the body’s unruly truths.

But beneath the filth and the physical comedy lies something sharper. The show grew out of Crowley‑Bennett’s own experiences navigating the power imbalances of early acting work and the dubious “training” environments that shape so many young women in the industry. The Nearly Naked Show becomes her way of taking the wheel back — a space where she calls the shots, owns her autonomy, and channels rage into laughter rather than silence. It’s a reclamation of the female body in all its gory glory, and a reminder that sometimes the most radical act is to be loud, lewd and entirely yourself.

Bleach’s background in physical theatre, drag and sketch comedy gives the show its muscularity: immersive monologues, rapid‑fire character work, shock humour and a kind of joyous theatrical chaos that feels both meticulously crafted and on the brink of collapse. Costumes by Freya Wright and creative support from Mizz Barber help build a world that’s as visually anarchic as it is thematically pointed.

As one reviewer put it: “A parade of chaos, craft and cntery… face acting heaven” — Narc* “Borders on being impossibly outrageous… an hour of sheer brilliance” — Broadway World

If the Fringe still has room for dangerous, disgusting, defiantly political drag — and it absolutely should — then The Nearly Naked Show is where you’ll find it.

Hudson Hughes: At Your Service
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Hudson Hughes arrives at the Fringe with a debut that feels like a séance conducted by a man who’s spent too long in the green room of daytime television. At Your Service is a silly, spooky, surprisingly tender horror‑comedy about a vicar who has outlived his cultural moment — and possibly his sanity. It’s the kind of show that takes Britain’s fondness for cosy clerical TV personalities and drags it, wheezing, into the age of burnout, branding, and supernatural interference.

For nearly two decades, the Reverend Derek Gritt has been a comforting presence in Britain’s living rooms — a soft‑voiced emissary of “holy vibes” and gentle moralising. But the world has moved on, and Rev. Gritt now finds himself banished to online obscurity, clinging to relevance with the desperation of a man who knows the algorithm is not on his side. His last shot at a comeback? Travelling to the quaint village of Godsby‑upon‑Treen to televise the funeral of his biggest fan, Jane Plemley. A simple gig, except for one small detail: Jane is definitely, absolutely, categorically not a witch. And the Reverend’s crippling vaping addiction isn’t helping.

What follows is a gloriously unhinged blend of satanic panic, career anxiety, and ecclesiastical slapstick. Hughes plays Gritt with a mix of Alan Titchmarsh wholesomeness and Beetlejuice‑adjacent chaos, creating a character who is both deeply silly and strangely sympathetic. The show elevates traditional character comedy with a barrage of gags, electronic props, original music, and a creeping sense that something very wrong is happening just offstage.

Hughes is no newcomer to Fringe mayhem. As the creator of the cult-hit gameshow Hot Rubber, a two‑time Sketch Off finalist, and a director for BBC’s Literally, he’s already carved out a niche as a performer who thrives in the space where absurdity meets craft. His previous Fringe work includes Gay Witch Sex Cult and the critically adored Dr Dolittle Kills A Man (And Reads Extracts From His New Book) — a show described as “a tiny miracle” and “a raging, manic mishmash of character comedy and anarchic jokes.” That lineage shows here: At Your Service is meticulously chaotic, gleefully theatrical, and powered by a performer who understands that horror and humour share the same nervous system.

With script editing from Aidan Pittman, music from Robbie Smith, and technical support from Anand Sankar, the show has the feel of a miniature gothic epic — a late‑night Fringe treat for anyone who likes their comedy with a side of occult bureaucracy.

At Your Service is what happens when Britain’s cosy clerical nostalgia collides with the existential dread of the digital age. Think Inside No. 9 meets The Exorcist meets a PR consultant who’s run out of ideas — and then imagine the whole thing performed by a man who looks like he’s been awake for three days trying to fix his own Wikipedia page.

A horror‑comedy for a country that no longer knows what it believes in.

Why These Debuts Matter

What links these six shows isn’t genre but intent. Each one is wrestling with something: identity, art, capitalism, mythology, the body, the self. They’re not just trying to make you laugh; they’re trying to make sense of the world — or at least make the chaos feel briefly coherent.

That’s the Fringe at its best.
And that’s Counter Culture’s sweet spot.

By Pat Harrington

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Night Owl Shows Announce Four Major UK Premieres for Their 10th Birthday at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026

February 24, 2026 at 11:31 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To mark a decade of redefining the music‑theatre landscape, Night Owl Shows return to theSpaceUK with four brand‑new productions celebrating some of the most influential artists in pop history. From Bowie’s cosmic reinventions to Madonna’s cultural dominion, Phil Collins’ unlikely ascent to ABBA’s immaculate songcraft, this year’s programme promises a festival of stories, sound and sheer emotional voltage.

There are Fringe institutions, and then there are Fringe rituals — the things audiences build their Augusts around. Night Owl Shows have long crossed that threshold. Their blend of forensic musical storytelling, powerhouse musicianship and emotional intelligence has earned them a loyal following across continents. For their 10th birthday, they’re not just celebrating; they’re detonating a glitter bomb over the programme.

Promotional image for 'ABBA: The Journey' by Night Owl Shows, featuring the silhouettes of four members and a disco ball backdrop.
Promotional image for a show titled 'Both Sides... Phil Collins & Genesis Celebrated' featuring a close-up of a man's face.
Logo for 'The Bowie Story' with colorful lightning bolt graphic and 'Night Owl Shows' branding.
Graphic featuring the text 'Material Girl' over an artistic image of a woman with curly hair, labeled 'Madonna The Icon' on a vibrant pink background.

This August, at their spiritual home of theSpaceUK, Night Owl unveil four brand‑new UK premieres, each honouring a titan of modern music: Phil Collins, David Bowie, Madonna, and ABBA. It’s a line‑up that reads like a syllabus for the last half‑century of pop — and a reminder that Night Owl’s great gift is not imitation, but illumination. They don’t just perform the songs; they excavate the lives, the cultural weather, the seismic shifts that made those songs matter.

Below, we break down the four new productions — each one a world premiere or UK debut — and why they’re set to be among the most coveted tickets of Fringe 2026.

Both Sides: Phil Collins & Genesis Celebrated

Aug 7–16, 18–30 — 19:00 (50 mins)
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Phil Collins is often reduced to the meme, the drum fill, the soft‑rock shorthand. Night Owl’s new production insists on the full story: the drummer who stepped out from behind the kit and reshaped the sound of the 1980s.

Fronted by three‑time Adelaide Music Award winner Angus Munro, this show charts Collins’ ascent from Genesis stalwart to global solo force. Expect the emotional architecture of In the Air Tonight, the bruised romanticism of Against All Odds, the sheer pop exuberance of Sussudio, and the Genesis canon — Invisible Touch, That’s All, I Can’t Dance — reframed with fresh clarity.

Munro’s voice is a weapon, and paired with Night Owl’s trademark narrative spine, this becomes less a tribute and more a reckoning with Collins’ legacy: the craft, the vulnerability, the improbable stardom of a man who never set out to be front and centre.

The Bowie Story

Aug 7–30 — 16:50 (50 mins)
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There is no artist more mythologised — or more misunderstood — than David Bowie. Night Owl’s world‑premiere production approaches him not as a museum piece, but as a restless cultural engine whose ideas still shape the world we live in.

Led by Peter Marchant and an all‑star band, The Bowie Story traces the shapeshifter’s evolution through the songs that defined entire eras: Space Oddity, Life on Mars?, Heroes, Let’s Dance and beyond. But the show’s power lies in its dramaturgy — the way it threads Bowie’s reinventions through the political, sexual and aesthetic revolutions he helped catalyse.

Night Owl have always excelled at contextualising genius without embalming it. Here, they offer Bowie not as nostalgia, but as a live wire — a reminder that pop can be philosophy, theatre, provocation and solace all at once.

Material Girl: Madonna the Icon

Aug 7–29 — 17:55 (50 mins)
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To tell Madonna’s story is to tell the story of modern pop itself — ambition, reinvention, provocation, survival. Night Owl’s new production, starring Voice of the Fringe 2025 Maia Elsey, embraces that scale with a confidence befitting its subject.

Elsey, already a Fringe favourite, leads audiences through the eras: the downtown grit of Like a Virgin, the moral panic of Papa Don’t Preach, the spiritual electronica of Ray of Light, and the countless reinventions in between. Backed by a dynamite band, she captures not just the sound but the ferocity — the unapologetic self‑authorship that made Madonna the most successful female artist in history.

This is Madonna as cultural architect, as lightning rod, as blueprint. A world premiere that promises both spectacle and substance.

ABBA: The Journey

Aug 7–30 — 14:40 (50 mins)
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ABBA’s story is often told as glitter and Eurovision kitsch, but Night Owl’s world‑premiere production digs deeper: four musicians navigating fame, heartbreak and global adoration, crafting some of the most structurally perfect pop songs ever written.

From the early days to the Eurovision breakthrough, from the studio alchemy to the emotional undercurrents that shaped their later work, ABBA: The Journey reframes the band as both phenomenon and human story. Expect the euphoric highs — Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, The Winner Takes It All — delivered with the musicianship Night Owl are known for, but also the narrative threads that reveal why these songs endure.

It’s a celebration, yes, but also a study in craft: how four voices and two marriages produced a catalogue that still defines joy for millions.

A Decade of Night Owl — and a Summer Worth Counting Down To

Ten years in, Night Owl Shows have become one of the Fringe’s most reliable sources of catharsis — productions that honour the artists we love while interrogating the worlds that shaped them. This year’s quartet feels like a culmination: four icons, four seismic stories, four chances to remember why live music‑theatre can still feel like revelation.

Tickets are already moving fast across theSpaceUK and official Fringe retailers. If you’re planning your August, start your countdown now. Night Owl’s 10th birthday looks set to be the summer’s defining soundtrack.

By Pat Harrington

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