Malcolm Galea and Angele Galea bring The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a moving and imaginative production at Summerhall. Combining dark fable with heartfelt storytelling, the show explores grief through a unique theatrical lens.
This intimate two-hander blends humour, music and visual storytelling to navigate themes of loss, hope and connection. Inspired by personal experience, the piece uses metaphor and a storybook world to reflect on the realities of pregnancy loss with sensitivity and care.
The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey runs from 6–31 August 2026 (not 17 or 24 August) at 10:30 at Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre). Tickets are available here
You are the co-writers of The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey at Summerhall, what can you tell us about the show?
Malcolm: On the surface it’s a quirky dark fantasy about a broken toy that must climb an impossibly tall tower in the middle of the night to mend a bell that grants wishes.
However, the story is also broken, giving us occasional glimpses of the Storyteller and the crushing anguish she’s trying to suppress through the writing process.
Angele: The fairy tale is juxtaposed with a devastating reality and acts as a metaphor to make it more bearable. When you think about it, all fairy tales are likely based on real-life events that are too dark to talk about.
The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey shatters the mask.
The piece blends a whimsical fairy tale with a deeply personal story of grief. How did you approach balancing those two worlds?
Angele: By working together. Malcolm and I cope with life in different ways. He tends to use humour as a coping mechanism, while I’m usually more grounded and practical.
This is also reflected in our art, with Malcolm often creating detailed make-believe worlds, while my projects are usually based on community, activism and the here and now.
Malcolm: We literally wrote different sections of the play. Angele wrote the real-life scenes, I wrote the fantasy sections, and we came together when the two worlds merge into one another.
We were also both equally involved in the R&D process, where we talked to other people who had a similar experience.
Angele: Eye-opening and heart-wrenching at the same time.
The show draws on your own shared experience. How did that shape the writing process and the emotional core of the piece?
Malcolm: We’ve been collaborating artistically and in life for over 25 years, but this was the first time we wrote a play together.
We felt it was something we had to do as an act of commemoration and reconciliation.
Angele: We felt this story needed both female and male perspectives to more accurately portray the wide range of emotions that a couple goes through.
Apart from the grief, we also tackle guilt, anger, social awkwardness and the emotional challenges of both mindsets.
Malcolm: It also helped to put some emotional distance between the experience and the project.
While we immediately knew that this piece had to be created, we deliberately waited around 15 years until we were more developed as artists and had acquired more life experience.
Angele: By talking to other people about their own experiences, it helped to make the process a little less agonising and the results more universally relatable.
Angele, you also composed the original music. How does the score support the storytelling and emotional journey on stage?
Angele: I had started composing it while pregnant, as a sort of lullaby for our unborn child.
It was an urge to express the fear and anticipation an expectant mother goes through, especially in the lonely hours of the night, when sleep becomes more difficult and uncomfortable.
Once the script started taking shape, I followed the vein of the poetry and emotions and painted notes to support that journey.
Piano is an instrument that’s a constant companion in my life, so for this piece it was the one I turned to for solace.
The play explores pregnancy loss through metaphor and theatricality. What conversations are you hoping it will open up with audiences?
Angele: We would like to acknowledge the unfathomable pain this type of loss brings. Losing a child, at whatever age, is a wound that never heals.
It metamorphoses with time. It starts with a loss that stops you from breathing, making you wonder how the world keeps going around you, until it eventually sits as a dark cloud you carry in your heart.
Malcolm: We would also like to highlight the importance of memory. The world tends to forget unborn children, whereas the parents do not.
Their need to remember and commemorate manifests itself in many ways, from an ultrasound picture stuck on a fridge for decades to a candle that is always lit at night, or a child receiving extra presents from their grandma on behalf of a heavenly uncle who would have been born over 30 years ago.
Angele: We want people who have gone through it to feel seen and understood, while showing them that there is space for self-forgiveness and moments of hope and even beauty in the seemingly overwhelming darkness.
Malcolm: At the same time, we want people who haven’t been through it to know how to better support and talk to those who have.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey?
Malcolm: First of all, thank you. Secondly, get set to experience the fascination and wonder you felt when hearing fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White for the first time, but with grown-up subtext and implications.
Angele: There are some very funny moments, tense ones, ones that may make you cry, and others that help you find joy and solace.
It’s a life lesson we went through ourselves, and we’re looking forward to sharing it for the first time in Edinburgh.
