Bailey Edwards brings their debut play Play Dead to the Edinburgh Fringe, a darkly comic and emotionally charged exploration of heartbreak and identity. Directed by Mia Hull, the production blends confessional storytelling with mythic influences to create a bold new theatrical voice.
Performed by Edwards, the play follows a character reeling from a breakup as grief spirals into obsession, combining humour with raw emotional honesty. With innovative sound design and striking staging, Play Dead pushes the boundaries of contemporary fringe theatre.
Play Dead runs at Underbelly Cowgate, Iron Belly from 5–30 August 2026. Tickets are available here.
You’ve written and are starring in Play Dead at Underbelly Cowgate, Iron Belly. What can you tell us about the show?
I can tell you that it’s a queer, unruly take on Ovid’s myth of Echo and Narcissus, set in a dog crate and featuring seventeen grapefruits.
So it’s about heartbreak and addiction and the fallout of kidnapping an ex’s dog.
This is your debut play as a writer. What inspired you to tell this story and explore themes of heartbreak, obsession and identity?
In light of an ongoing battle in canine custody court, I can’t tell you about the real-life inspiration for the story.
As a writer, it came out of an interest in our compulsion to turn our lives into narratives. We live in a world fuelled by stories. Politically, socially, everything demands a story.
As someone who has grown up loving people who struggle with addiction, you become very good at telling yourself stories. Justifying the unjustifiable.
But ultimately, I was less interested in stories as a means of survival and more in how that impulse can have capital-D dramatic consequences.
The play blends dark comedy with mythic elements influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. How did you approach balancing those styles?
Myths are fundamentally engaged with the origin of things and they persist across time because they reflect something true about us.
Comedy pushes on that same button of truth, because you’re really just seeking a moment of recognition to make someone laugh.
So I think of them less as opposites to be balanced and more like salty and sweet. Distinct, but if you put them together properly, they make each other stronger (and tastier).
You’ve collaborated closely with director Mia Hull on this project. What has that creative partnership brought to the development of the piece?
For me as a performer, she knows all my tricks and, as a writer, she has dramaturgically brought the show into being.
There is a shorthand and trust that has been built over ten years of training and working together all over the world.
But frankly, she’s also brilliant in her own right. She has an incredible sense of space. I can’t see the show, but everyone who does comments on the extraordinarily beautiful stage pictures she built out of seemingly mundane ingredients.
The show features a striking live-built soundscape and unusual props. How do these elements help shape the emotional journey of the performance?
Well, what happens with the grapefruits needs to be seen and not told.
As for the soundscape, our designer Ellie Isherwood has built something kind of exceptional. It starts small and builds, gathering momentum that starts to take on a life of its own.
What’s particularly exciting (and daunting) is that I’m building a lot of it live on stage, so the audience watches it develop in real time.
And of course, it’s about a character named Echo who is waiting for a phone call. It was always going to be about sound.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Play Dead?
I can promise you, this one will surprise you.
Just when you think you know where it’s going, it slips out of its collar and runs in the other direction.
