Edinburgh Editor Fee Orr writes… There are several standout shows this year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – musical theatre continues to stretch the boundaries, taking inspiration from classic literature, faith, history, art and the environment, along with the stage adaptation of a footie-themed cult TV series and a dose of audience participation.
World’s Greatest Lover
Pleasance Courtyard – Pleasance One, (33) 31 July to 24 August, 18:00
From New York, the world premiere of new pop musical World’s Greatest Lover sees literature’s most legendary lovers flirt and fight as they hunt for the truth about love.
Emmy Award winner, director and choreographer Joshua Bergasse says: “I’m so excited to bring World’s Greatest Lover to the Edinburgh Fringe.
It’s such a fun and funny show with great songs, energetic dances and hysterical characters. I can’t wait for the audiences at the fringe to see what we’ve been cooking up.”
Ohio
Upstairs at Assembly Roxy (139), 3o July to 24 August, 15:00
Francesca Moody Productions is an Olivier Award-winning, Tony-nominated production company whose work in theatre has originated two of the most globally successful television shows of the last decade: Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. Indeed, their memorable hit, Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, won the Musical Theatre Review Best Musical award winner in 2022.
Their newest piece, Ohio, features married American indie-folk duo Shaun and Abigail Bengson who make their Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in an exhilarating and celebratory true story about losing faith and finding hope in the darkest of places.
When Shaun turned his back on the church, he found a new home in music. Now confronted with acute degenerative hearing loss passed down from his father, he’s making the choice to live joyfully in the face of life’s many unanswerable questions. The show will feature creative captions throughout.
How to Win Against History
Udderbelly at Underbelly George Sq (300), 3o July to 24 August, 19:15
Francesca Moody Productions are also presenting How to Win Against History, telling the tale of the extravagant life of the fifth Marquess of Anglesey who blew his family’s colossal fortune on diamond frocks, lilac-dyed poodles and putting on simply amazing plays – to which nobody came – causing a very Edwardian scandal.
His fabulous flame burned brightly, briefly and extremely cross-dressingly until he died at just 29, after which his outraged family destroyed every record of him ever having existed.
Now Henry’s back, with nothing to his name but savage wit, banging belters and a metric tonne of sparkle.
Vagabond Skies: The Van Gogh Musical
Auditorium at Gilded Balloon at the Museum (64), 3o July to 21 August, 21:00
This new British musical written by Tony Norman with orchestrations by Mark Edwards, was inspired by the letters between Vincent and his much-loved brother Theo.
A sung-through biographical musical, this show aims to take the audience on a captivating and emotional journey with the man who was to become the most famous artist in the world.
Gut-wrenching and uplifting in equal measure, this new production depicts Vincent’s later years with emotive songs and vivid artwork that portray his resilience despite a constant cycle of unfulfilled love, rejection, loneliness and mental turmoil.
Hot Mess
Pleasance Two at Pleasance Courtyard (33), 3o July to 25 August, 15:10
This high-energy original romcom musical reimagines the climate crisis as a story of love, hope and the ultimate break-up.
After a billion years of bad dates, Earth’s finally found the one – Humanity. Sparks fly. Wheat is harvested. Technology flourishes. But what begins as a passionate love affair between the universe’s most iconic couple quickly descends into a Hot Mess.
Created by the award-winning creative duo behind 42 Balloons, Jack Godfrey (music and lyrics) and Ellie Coote (book and director), this pop comedy musical examines the heart of the tempestuous relationship between Earth and Humanity. Danielle Steers (Six The Musical) and Tobias Turley (Mamma Mia!) star.
Footballers’ Wives: The Musical
Music Hall at Assembly Rooms (20), 3o July to 24 August, 18:35
Based on the iconic ITV series, Footballers’ Wives is a new musical comedy depicting the fall and rise of fabulously flawed team captain’s wife, Tanya, as she schemes to save her marriage and the career of her cheating husband.
With music and lyrics by Kath Gotts, book by Maureen Chadwick (original creator of Footballers’ Wives, ITV; Bad Girls, ITV; Waterloo Road, BBC), this brazenly British musical is directed by Anthony Banks.
Cast includes: Ceili O’Connor, Matt Beveridge, India Chadwick, Leesa Tulley, Tom Bowen, Ty-Reece Stewart, Emma-Jane Fearnley, Laura Judge, Matt Rixon, Leonardo Vieira, Gillian Kirkpatrick and Oliver Evans.
Midnight at the Palace
Big Yin at Gilded Balloon Patter House (24), 3o July to 24 August, 21:30
This rebellious new musical claims to dismantle the lines between art and showbiz, politics and performance.
Audiences are invited to join the original ‘F**k you counterculture’ troupe for a night of radical joy and glitter-encrusted anarchy, inspired by the iconic drag ensemble The Cockettes.
Packed full of on-your-feet numbers and raucous hilarity, this musical celebrates the ‘gender-bending hippies, freaks and drag queens who defined 1970s San Francisco’.
Frisky’s Reshuffle
Palais du Variété at Assembly George Square Gardens (3), 1-24 August, 21:55
The power-diva half of Fringe favourites Frisky & Mannish makes her solo debut with Frisky’s Reshuffle – a genre-spanning live music extravaganza, where the audience can challenge Frisky and her four-piece band to play any song in any style, from samba to skiffle, Mötley Crüe to Mongolian throat singing, and absolutely everything in-between.
It takes a performer of a certain level of experience, competence and delusion to allow the audience to run things.
But in this new era of her life and career, Frisky is embracing imperfection and risk – because you can’t timidly shuffle into the unknown, you need to take a great big leap.
The Queen is Mad
Studio at Zoo Southside (82), 1-24 August, 16:15
The Queen is Mad sees the Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut for West End actor Maria Coyne (The King and I, Singin’ in the Rain, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera) who is starring as “Joanna la Loca”, the rebellious and furious Queen of Castile.
Written by 2024 Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize finalists, Amy Clare Tasker and Tom James McGrath, their inspiration comes from Catherine of Aragon’s older sister, Joanna.
This three-actor musical highlights the power struggle between Joanna, her father, and her husband when she unexpectedly inherits the Spanish throne in 1504. The men use Joanna’s fiery nature against her, spreading rumours that she is mentally unfit to rule and locking her away in a tower.
Edinburgh Days – The New Musical
Auditorium at St Bride’s Community Centre (412), 1-25 August, 19:30
Multi-award-winning Blood Brothers director Bob Tomson and Edinburgh-born composer Brian Spence are bringing the world premiere full-length production of brand-new musical Edinburgh Days to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Set in 1815, a time of war with France, a time of opportunity in the Grassmarket, Leith docks and Portobello shore and inspired by some of Robert Louis Stevenson’s characters, it’s a twisted romance of possession and retribution, of passion and betrayal.
Bob Tomson says: “After realising that Blood Brothers’ success stemmed from being authentically raised out of Liverpool, I fell for the gritty dark passions of Edinburgh Days – and just knew it had to have its birth in Edinburgh. And where better than at the Fringe where original musicals can be discovered and given wings!
“Brian has created a musical rooted in Edinburgh’s vibrant and troubled past, whose unforgettable melodies will chime to our contemporary ear.”
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