West End star Maria Coyne makes her Edinburgh Fringe debut in The Queen Is Mad, a bold new historical musical running from 1–24 August at ZOO Southside. Presented by Castille Collective Ltd and Pinecone Performance Lab, the show reimagines the life of Joanna of Castile—often dismissed by history as “Joanna the Mad”—as a powerful and unjustly silenced woman.
Written by Amy Clare Tasker and Tom James McGrath, finalists for the 2024 Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize, the musical explores the political power struggle that erupted when Joanna unexpectedly inherited the Spanish throne in 1504. As her father and husband conspire to undermine her, Joanna’s fiery resistance is weaponised against her, leading to her imprisonment and erasure.
Directed by Tasker with musical direction by McGrath, The Queen Is Mad blends contemporary classical and Broadway styles in a score described as “melodies which melt into dissonant, menacing lullabies.” With echoes of SIX and Sondheim, this three-actor musical is a fierce, feminist reclamation of a woman’s voice lost to history.
