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Edinburgh Fringe 2025 Day 2 REVIEWS (Hot Mess, The Fit Prince, World's Greatest Lover, and more)
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ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com oh my God. Hey. It is day two for me here at the Edinburgh Fringe and I just saw show number six of my trip, which was Whale, where are you going? This is part of the Taiwan season. They have multiple shows here at the Fringe and this was lovely. This is definitely geared towards families. This is a wordless piece of theatre using shadow puppetry and lighting. Innovative design, sort of loosely based on Pinocchio. We were introduced to this sort of curmudgeonly old man. These storytellers who were a little frustrated by him, brought into his life a little puppet boy that they created, and this boy brought with him a sense of adventure and joy, which the older man is initially incredibly indifferent to. Eventually he begrudgingly teaches him how to throw paper airplanes and this sort of spirals into a much bigger adventure. But some of the visuals, some of the use of props was so beautiful, so striking. Clearly having a lot of the younger members of the audience, just completely in awe of all of this. But I think it also speaks really powerfully and beautifully to parents as well, because it's ultimately a story about that relationship between a parent and a child and how they inspire and frustrate and entertain and ultimately care for each other. Really lovely piece of theatre. And amidst the chaos of the festival, if you want to start your day with this kind of whimsy and charm and, and a fond reminder of why we love theatre so much, go and check it out at assembly. Roxy show number two of the day. My next cultural treat here at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was the Truman Capote Talk show, which is a fringe first award winning piece of theatre. A solo show from Bob Kingdom, who conjures the spirit of the infamous writer Truman Capote, recounting his own life with this tickling wit. And also posthumously, from beyond the grave. And it's a pretty straightforward one person show. I would say that the notion of the one person show and the scope of what they can be has probably evolved considerably over the past few years. And I think the format of the whole thing, especially considering the title and the premise of it being a talk show format, could have lent a little bit more into that particular kind of framing. There is something of a sense of monotony when you're just in conversation with one individual and the tone is relatively consistent throughout the whole thing. That being said, I very much enjoyed the structure. This was Truman Capote walking us through the many stages of his life as dictated by the four stages of celebrity. Who is Truman Capote? Get me Truman Capote. Get me someone like Truman Capote. And who is Truman Capote? And I liked the way that his iconic aesthetic was slowly deconstructed as a real sense of humanity sort of oozed through the cracks in the verbal armour. Simply riveting storytelling about a dysfunctional family upbringing, about the glamorous people who he met, about success, about fame, about jealousy. And while I still think that the notion of Truman Capote recalling his own life from beyond the grave could be a little more than an hour long recitation, there are far worse ways to spend an hour than in his company. The name's Blonde. Jane Blonde. GUNSHOT SOUND EFFECT that'll have to do. I have very little editing time, but I did just see my eighth show of the Edinburgh French 2025, and it was spy movie the play, and it was hilarious. Think Mischief Theatre. Play that Goes wrong. Think Operation Mincemeat. This was a spoof of every James Bond spy movie ever being staged as a play while they get the funds together to make the film that they are trying to. This all. Of course in the show within a show you have a hapless producer character having to play dozens of different parts because some of the actors have walked. You have a dissatisfied protagonist who is playing the role of Jane Blonde. You have some seriously funny wordplay and I should warn you, if you have any kind of a medical intolerance to puns, there's a very good chance that this show could kill you. There are some so, so many with multi rolling, indefatigable energy and perfectly low budget props as they attempt to stage the film Time to Die definitely. Again, maybe. Can I tell you my favorite joke? They're doing a car chase and they say we'll never lose them. This road is too straight and there's a side where one of the characters says bloody Romans. And I love something always that is stupidly smart and smartly stupid. And I loved how deliberately slapdash it was. I will say there is a level of slickness that I don't think it has yet necessarily achieved because we need to know that everything feels like a deliberate mistake and not like things are going wrong outside of the context of that. But it is very funny. Go and check it out at Pleasance Courtyard this month at the Edinburgh Fringe. I have just seen my most anticipated new musical of the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 and it was Hot Mess written by Jack Godfrey, the rising star, brilliant composer behind other shows like 42 Balloons, one of the co writers of Babies. And this musical is another one that he has been developing over the last few years. It is a two person show. It is an allegorical story story about the relationship between humanity and earth portrayed through a relationship that turns sour. Hence my nicknaming it the last 5 billion years. And it's a really charming concept. It's very cutesy, it's very funny. You've got great lines in there like the Earth saying, I'm not picky, I'm just naturally selective. And like any Jack Godfrey score, this has bops for days, weeks, calendar months even. I cannot wait to listen to these songs more fantastically sung, brilliantly performed by the wonderful Danielle Stiers, who is one of the greatest vocalists we have and who is also so funny in this show. And the brilliant Tobias Turley who manages to be awkward and charming and a little arrogant, but really fantastic role for him. He's great in this. It's great to see something that's so entertaining but also manages to be topical. There are so many clever parallels between the climate conversation and the relationship conversation. There's a sexy song about using Earth's resources. I did anticipate it getting a little bit more hard hitting just because conversation around abusive relationships and climate change both being fairly heavy ones. But ultimately maybe it's for the best that the whole thing is written with a little more levity. It is also undeniably one of the hottest tickets at the Fringe so far it is sold out for the forthcoming week. Do not waste your time in getting tickets to go and see Hot Mess at the Edinburgh Fringe. Do you know what I find really entertaining is weaponized audience participation, especially when it happens to other people. I just saw my 10th show of the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 and it was, let me get this right, the fit prince who gets switched in the square by the frosty castle the night before. Open brackets, insert public holiday here, close brackets. It is a bit of a send up of Hallmark movies of similarly convoluted titles. This from Awkward Productions. Fringe staples Linus Karp and Joseph Martin who are also getting IRL married this year at the Fringe. Great to see them doing something on stage in which they are just utterly sharing the spotlight and assigning, as they so brilliantly do, all of the supporting roles in the story to willing members of the audience as well as pre recorded cameos to terrific effect. No one else is really utilizing these same kind of participatory techniques. The tone for this is also set immediately with certain audience members who have been assigned roles being called up on stage to enact a royal funeral. This is in fact my favorite show that these two have ever put together and I think it's because getting away from a pre ordained storyline or preordained characters like Princess Diana or Gwyneth Palace Paltrow allows them to be much more themselves and somehow in the most contrived story they have ever told, they manage to be more authentic than ever. It's a really fun time. It's a wonderful audience experience. There is also anti fascist puppetry and a barb montage that's ABBA with the letters inverted. Performing such well known hits as Is your father Aware? And Movement King. This is Edinburgh Fringe Camp at its absolute finest. I had a great time. Go and check it out. Well, they say that love hurts and unfortunately so did this show. I saw World's Greatest Lover at the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 at the Pleasants Courtyard. This is an American musical that is.
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Podcast Announcer
Hoping to emulate the success of other shows like Six by almost entirely appropriating that show's structure in this four different Lotharios from history are brought together by St. Valentine in order to learn from each other and to help save love. Because love is dying. And despite clutching so clearly at Six's very successful formula, what they have missed in doing so is that there is a terrific substance and a message behind all of that in a show like Six. And that is what is sadly lacking here. Because for all of the many, many similar songs in this show, ultimately the enduring message about what they can learn from each other is that the likes of Casanova and the Marquis de Sade need to learn to appreciate the little things, lie less and not give up on love. And with that, love is saved. And that is not entirely true, because it also takes a handful of musical performances with mostly indistinguishable melodies, generic lyrics and unearned modulations. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of talent on stage, but it is squandered in a show that has no understanding of the fact that there needs to be something, something more, behind the boy band of it all. Needless to say, World's Greatest Lover is not the greatest musical at the Edinburgh fringe. So my 12th show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025 began with what I can only describe as a splattering of ejaculatory metaphor. Yes, I just said those words but became ultimately incredibly thought provoking. Heck of a conversation starter this was Little Squirt at Gilded Balloon. And it's a one man show from an Australian writer and performer based on his real experience of donating sperm around four years ago and the entire existential crisis that arose afterwards and all of the conversations that he had to have with himself, those conversations now being had through the show about principally the ethics of creating life, being participatory in creating life in an increasingly doomed world. I think the concept of sperm donation so unique and so interesting and sort of taboo that we're going to be intrigued by it. But also the gay male lens is a really interesting one to view this through because of the gay male relationship to sperm and to parenthood, which is a very specific one. And you could definitely say that structurally there was a sort of a frenzied, perhaps unfocused quality to the whole thing, but if anything that helped to convey the anxiety of the entire situation. I think there are probably ways to parlay this particular story into a wider conversation that invokes the audience more, but at the moment it's still something absolutely worth seeing. It is soul bearing and hilarious and charming and meaningful at the same time. Really fantastic piece of theatre. Go and check it out. So Edinburgh fringe show number 13. Unlucky for some, but lucky for me was Paldom, which has been one of the most anticipated new plays of the 2025 Fringe. It's Summerhall and it's about ostensibly a couple of friends. And immediately when this started I was like, why do I not trust this platonic frame friendship? But then I was gazing inwards and I was like, why do we never trust platonic male female friendships on stage? But I was right. I was vindicated because it's all about them entering into a professional collaborative partnership together where they are creating onlyfans content and how that affects their friendship, especially in the shadow of a prior relationship that they had when they were at university together. There is a video camera on stage relaying a live feed to a screen. The whole thing is set on a rolled out backdrop as if in a photography studio. And I would say in general that I think the direction struck me a little bit more than the writing itself. Especially towards the end it started to feel a little disparate, as if we were stumbling onto disconnected conversations, talking suddenly about race, essentially skirting the real issue of their relationship, portrayed admittedly with really fantastic believable chemistry from these actors. And as strange as it sounds, I've been really waiting for a piece of theatre to meaningfully unpack the emerging onlyfans culture, and not as a punchline. And as if Leena Dunham wrote an episode of Friends, here came Paldom to do just that. Go and check it out at Summerhall. Okay, it is quarter past midnight. I've just seen my ninth show of the day, my 14th show of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, and I officially have no idea anymore because I just saw something that objectively, and I'm so sorry to say it had an awful lot just plainly wrong. And yet I feel like somehow by the end of the thing I went to from a point of horror to confusion to enjoying myself because we motorcycle stunt jumped into guilty pleasure territory. This is I was a teenage chi devil playing at the space at Nidris Street. An awful lot of passion on the stage, and that has clearly gone into the thing. This is an 80s high school revenge plot. It's very Carrie, which they acknowledge. The songs are giving you 80s rock, generally with one little lyric that is repeated ad infinitum. Sadly plagued this evening by an awful lot of unfortunate sound problems. But I'm not wholly convinced that we miss an extraordinary amount of wit. And honestly, this feels close to being parody and close to being satire and using all of those different 80s tropes. I was happy to see a lesbian plotline in there, but I was wildly disappointed to see a horribly transphobic character show up. All in all, a confusing theatrical experience, but one I ended up having an undeniably fun time at Great performance, decent writers who I think should probably just work on writing something slightly different or refine a more unique plot. Morning. One sausage McMuffin with eggplease. Okay, your total is. Wait, let's negotiate. How's about you throw in hash browns for a dollar? Well, yes sir, that price is already a dollar. Take it or leave it. Take it, I guess. Buy one, add one for a dollar on sausage McMuffin with egg hash browns and more with McValue. Most locations open 5am or earlier. Price and participation may vary. Limited time only. 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