The Edinburgh fringe is mostly where new work is forged but that\u2019s not the full picture. Amid all the hot-off-the-press shows are a number of familiar titles that have been around for years yet are only making their professional UK debut now. That\u2019s the case with two fairytale musical productions hoping for a longer life whose festival run is a chance to engineer that happily ever after.<\/p>\n
Bliss, co-created by Tyler Beattie and Emma Lively<\/a>, won a new play award in the US in 2019 and had its world premiere in Seattle the year after. A handful of its songs were released in 2022. Now developed into what is billed as \u201cthe biggest new musical of the Edinburgh fringe\u201d, it has a cast of 17 which exceeds regular fringe proportions \u2013 as does the running time (80 minutes rather than the standard hour).<\/p>\n When I arrive fairly early at the Pleasance\u2019s 750-capacity Grand theatre, it is already packed out. The first thing to report is that many of Bliss\u2019s powerpop songs are copper-bottomed. Inside These Castle Walls swiftly sets the scene with four princess sisters locked away in a castle by an over-protective single father. Break Through the Dark is their galvanising anthem of escape and the ballad Save a Dance captures how one loses her sense of self along the way.<\/p>\n Raver prince \u2026 Jordan Calloway in Bliss. Photograph: Marc Brenner<\/p>\n The sisters are strongly delineated \u2013 Faye (Miriam Nyarko) seeks action, Carmella (Alexandra Emmerson-Kirby) seeks fame; Holly (Matilda Shapland) loves animals, Piper (Akshara Gunda) loves science. House of the Dragon\u2019s Tom Bennett makes a summertime panto from the role of a grizzled, 500-year-old fairy godfather. \u201cDo I look like Tinkerbell?\u201d he scowls. His name is Glimmermore which reflects how he lures Piper into dipping in a pink lagoon that will rid her of \u201cimperfections\u201d. The parallels with online beauty filters<\/a> and other scourges of modern teenage life are clear. She emerges devoid of individuality, her scientific ambitions evaporated, and marries a flashy, raver prince (Jordan Calloway) who has a holstered mic rather than a sword. There\u2019s a great morning-after scene where he sulks that his ball is over and bounces like a manchild on his trampoline.<\/p>\n Co-produced by West End hit factory ATG<\/a>, Bliss could easily be scaled up with set pieces, especially for the royal ball, and spend more time developing the sisters\u2019 reactions to Piper\u2019s transformation. It has a minimal set to suit fringe logistics but the lagoon, the sisters\u2019 castle in Minisculia and a dragon befriended by the sisters would all lend themselves to eye-catching designs in a new venue. It would probably attract a similar audience to Six and has almost as many earworms.<\/p>\n Not exactly Tinkerbell \u2026 Tom Bennett in Bliss. Photograph: Marc Brenner<\/p>\n Bliss pokes fun at fairytale cliches and empowers the princesses to find themselves rather than a prince. That\u2019s roughly what goes on in Disenchanted! which received its first workshop in New York in 2009 and ran off-Broadway more than 10 years ago. It had its professional UK theatre debut in Warwickshire last year and that Lichfield Garrick production is now presented at the fringe by The Production Garden with an eye to future touring<\/a>.<\/p>\n If Bliss come across as a musical ready to burst out of its fringe iteration, Disenchanted!<\/a> seems shrunken in this form. Dialogue connecting some scenes has been trimmed from the show, created by Dennis T Giacino and Fiely Matias, which is styled here as an 80-minute revue for famous princesses. They each have a number to rail against their fate and the way they\u2019ve been depicted. And they\u2019re in a rush because the clock will strike at, um, 8.20pm as explained by our hosts Cinderella (Rosie Napper), Sleeping Beauty (Roshaan Saulnier) and Snow White (Lois Glenister).<\/p>\n Railing against their fate \u2026 the cast of Disenchanted! Photograph: Pamela Raith<\/p>\n Aimed at an audience of over-14s, it has some mildly spicy lines. \u201cDo I look like I need to wait for my prince,\u201d begins the rockabilly styled Snow White, before waiting a beat to mischievously add \u201cto come?\u201d When Sleeping Beauty mistakes a prodding broom handle for Pinocchio, there\u2019s a whiff of adult panto. It\u2019s probably all better suited to a wilder staging in a circus tent than the atmosphere-free Edinburgh International Conference Centre.<\/p>\n The show repeatedly takes the mickey out of Disney: \u201cWe used to like Anaheim [home to Disneyland] but that was once upon a time.\u201d However, the studio was in on the joke itself within a few years of Disenchanted\u2019s arrival (see the dressing room scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet<\/a>). Disney, which went on to introduce Moana<\/a> and Raya<\/a>, has far to go in terms of more positive princess movies but there\u2019s a sense that the satire here could seem dated just like its principal targets. The additional references to more recent live-action remakes, dismissed as \u201capology movies\u201d, don\u2019t add much.<\/p>\n \u2018Two legs too many\u2019 \u2026 Eliza Bowden in Disenchanted! Photograph: Pamela Raith<\/p>\n The cast are always spirited though. Eliza Bowden\u2019s drunken Little Mermaid with \u201ctwo legs too many\u201d is backed by clam puppets and looks set to devour Flounder<\/a>. Ashley New\u2019s Hua Mulan challenges offensive \u201cbeautiful and dutiful\u201d stereotypes and her Pocahontas asks \u201cwhy wasn\u2019t my story told honestly?\u201d. Jewelle Hutchinson as The Princess (Who Kissed a Frog) finds her authentic voice over the course of a song. That\u2019s a case, as with Sleeping Beauty\u2019s solo, when you gain a sense of who the character actually is rather than a run-through of what they are not.<\/p>\n The backstory to the revue is hazier than the contest in Six: The Musical<\/a> \u2013 an Edinburgh fringe hit that went stratospheric \u2013 and like those songs, some of these wouldn\u2019t do that well at the Bechdel test. But there are plenty of in-jokes for fairytale fans and a cheeky vibrato homage to Wicked, broomstick in hand, for the ending.<\/p>\n Bliss<\/a> is at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 31 August. Disenchanted! The Hit Musical<\/a> is at Pleasance at EICC, Edinburgh, until 30 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edinburgh fringe is mostly where new work is forged but that\u2019s not the full picture. 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