Richard Higgins and Matt Kelly bring their award-winning comedy duo The Listies back to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with The Listies: 110% Ready. Playing at Assembly, this brand-new show delivers high-energy, family-friendly comedy packed with chaos and laughter.
Known for their unique ‘kidult comedy’ style, The Listies create shows that resonate with both children and adults. 110% Ready turns the everyday struggle of getting out the door on time into a hilarious theatrical adventure filled with slapstick, puns and improvisation.
The Listies: 110% Ready runs from 5–16 August 2026 (not 13 August) at 13:00 at Assembly (Studio One), George Square. Tickets are available here
What can you tell us about the show?
110% Ready is a kids’ comedy disaster movie on stage about the single most stressful event in family life: trying to get small humans to leave the house.
In the show, Rich is convinced today is the day they may actually be able to leave on time. Unfortunately, Matt has other ideas.
It’s got slapstick, wordplay, a splash of improvised chaos, and probably too many props hastily bought from Edinburgh Bargain Stores on South Clerk Street.
It’s for kids aged around four and up, and for every adult who has ever stood at the front door, keys in hand, wondering how it has taken 45 minutes for a child to put on one shoe.
What inspired you to turn the morning routine into a full comedy production?
Every family we’ve ever performed for has a morning disaster story. Some parents have called the show ‘triggering’.
We realised every time kids have to leave the house is basically a heist movie. There’s a lofty goal, a deadline, and a series of increasingly catastrophic setbacks. That’s a perfect structure for comedy.
Plus, we both have a genuinely terrible relationship with punctuality and this felt cheaper than therapy.
How do you strike the balance between humour that works for children and adults alike?
We don’t actually think about it as two separate audiences. We just try to make something that feels alive and makes us laugh out loud.
Plus, we have pretty juvenile senses of humour, and maybe the open secret is that most parents do too.
How do you develop your style in rehearsal and keep it fresh on stage?
Badly, and then less badly, and then better, then not as good as it was, then hugely better, then really good, then awful, etc.
Though, to be honest, by the time a show gets to Edinburgh (and we think this is our lucky thirteenth Fringe), it has normally toured Australia for a year and so is running fairly smoothly, hopefully.
I’m sure our rehearsal process is like most comedy shows: doing something, deciding it’s terrible, doing it again slightly differently, and then accidentally stumbling on something we couldn’t have planned at around 5pm.
We have a director, and she tries to keep us on the floor and not taking too many extended coffee breaks.
Live, there is always an improvisation element because kids don’t understand the fourth wall and talk to us directly, and that really keeps it alive in performance.
We have a tight structure but leave the door open a crack, so the audience is always part of it. They’re not just watching the chaos – in the best shows, they’re in it.
How has your creative partnership evolved over 15 years?
It’s 17 years, actually. Which sounds mad.
We’ve also got much better at being useless in complementary ways, which turns out to be the secret to a long comedy partnership. If one of us is terrible at something, the other is normally not as bad.
We have also gotten better at realising that collaboration means you don’t have to agree on every tiny little thing, just on enough to keep the boat moving forward.
And to not trust disagreements that happen just before lunch or whilst jetlagged.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking?
Don’t overthink it – see you there.
