The Shocking Truth about Flat Earth - Edinburgh Fringe 2026

The Shocking Truth About Flat Earth

★★★☆☆

There is a very good musical somewhere inside The Shocking Truth About Flat Earth. It just isn't quite this one yet.

At 60 minutes, the show feels less like a fully formed musical than an entertaining, highly performed snapshot of a larger work. There are numerous hints towards a longer version and enough material to suggest the ambition is considerably bigger than the Fringe running time allows. The difficulty is that, in its present form, the compression exposes the weaknesses in the writing rather than simply making the show feel fleet.

The cast are terrific. The younger performers in particular have a quality that makes them immediately watchable - funny, energetic and completely committed. There is a genuine spark to them. The entire company are also excellent musicians, and the musical performances are arguably the strongest element of the production. The score has plenty of charm and some genuinely enjoyable numbers, delivered with considerable skill.

It is therefore frustrating that the characterisation doesn't consistently match the calibre of the performers.

The younger characters have much more theatrical life written into them, while the older characters feel considerably thinner. They often function as comic or narrative types rather than people with enough complexity to sustain the emotional weight the show occasionally asks of them. There are interesting themes bubbling underneath the conspiracy comedy - loneliness, grief, belief and the human desire to find meaning and connection - but the older characters in particular are not developed sufficiently for those ideas to land with the force they might.

The result is a show that is much funnier and more engaging when it is simply allowing its young performers to rip into the material than when it asks us to invest emotionally in its adult relationships.

Visually, there is more success. The floor cloth is terrific: simple, bold and wonderfully effective, providing a strong visual frame without cluttering the stage. It is a good example of how a relatively economical design choice can have real theatrical impact.

The choreography is less successful. With a company this musically accomplished, you want the movement to have the same vitality as the singing. Instead, much of it feels pedestrian and underpowered. The performers appear capable of much more than the choreography is giving them.

And that becomes the central frustration of The Shocking Truth About Flat Earth. There is clearly talent here - a lot of it. There is a likeable score, a good central comic premise and performers who can absolutely hold a stage. But talent can't quite compensate for a script that hasn't fully worked out its characters, or direction and choreography that don't always exploit the considerable abilities of the company.

At its best, the show is infectiously energetic and genuinely funny. At its weakest, it feels like a development draft that has been put in front of an audience before all the pieces have found their proper shape.

Review by Kate Gaul