Picture: Matt Duboff
Otto & Astrid: The Stages Tour continues at Upstairs at Assembly Roxy until 30 August 2026 (not 12, 19, 26).
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
A crazy jukebox musical comedy experience that will enliven your Edinburgh evening.
Enfants terribles red-lipped siblings Otto and Astrid have arrived from Berlin bringing their blended Europop/art rock ‘n’ roll comedy show to Edinboro’. They are certainly ready to party! In fact parts of the show involve extensive preparations for the after party to which everyone is invited.
Littered with risky double entendres theirs is a creative partnership which is a joy to watch, and loud to hear.
The band introduces itself, which does not take long, but then each member vies for attention, which takes even longer.
Otto is keen on themes, wants to tell his story (trigger warning: PTSD and lions). He succeeds in doing so with some extremely short but atmospheric numbers, helped by Depeche Mode lighting tricks. He can only perform solo due to off-stage shenanigans from his sister. Ewen and Aidan are keen to assist with getting the lighting and sound just so. Their work is most effective for Otto’s intriguing composition about the opening of an automatic door (one of his unauthorised hits that are extra to the schedule).
In other places the music is really getting going in a kind of punk rock style, demonstrating really assured musicianship and with imaginative lyrics like ‘bla bla bla vegetables… bla bla bla emotions’ and ‘Oh no, too much rock’, ‘Oh no, too much roll’. But suddenly Astrid brings things to a stop, kicking out at her drums with her legs festooned with crossbones, like a train applying the emergency brakes. It’s a little disturbing in this context.
As the older sister, she just doesn’t like mistakes or for her younger brother to be too sad. They might have stepped from the pages of a children’s book. Except they live in a student flat so it’s a kind of regressive teen fiction that’s being shared.
Astrid leads her best song, which is about the notion of a ‘second best friend’, leaving the audience unsure how confident they would feel in that role. She dances extravagantly, unravelling her costume and gets tangled in the mics, wrestling eccentrically for some minutes. Audience participation is required to extricate her.
The finest duet involves a robot and a lion in ‘the music of the future’ with some under rehearsed acrobatics. Astrid gets more and more frisky, starts throwing Hula Hoops, and gets changed into fake fur. Otto tries to deflect with an exploratory song inspired by ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ (Top of the Pops, 1981) about the absence of mosquitoes in heaven which turns out to be an ‘unsafe song’, as designated by his therapist.
Without spoiling the backstory one hopes is fictional, we (‘Edinboro’) are treated to ‘Kitten’, an involved and emotional number written by Otto and influenced by Iggy Pop and the Stooges. Astrid gets way too involved in the sentiment, and its hard to take this seriously with Otto in his kitten’s collar.
And finally for a viral hit on all of their themes: ‘The Situation’ and an encore, ‘Oh My God Yeah’, which is strangely short and repeats a four note leitmotiv. Unexpectedly, the audience are then surprised by Astrid’s drum solo, delivering surely the strongest musical orgasm since Wagner’s ‘Liebestod’! We can only wait for it to be topped by failed attempts at drumstick-twirling which complete this unusual show’s uncommon climax.
Charlotte Purkis
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