The television adaptation of Heated Rivalry burst onto streaming services late in 2025, and became an overnight cult sensation. Initially aired on Canadian SVOD Crave Canada, the show was picked up in the UK by Sky / NOW TV, and quickly gained a highly invested fandom.
Almost a year on from that initial ‘drop’, the fan discourse shows no sign of abating, and the show’s success has spurred other streaming services to commission similar adaptations.
The adaptation’s enduring popularity has led to an eruption of fanfic, fan edits, and an avalanche of Tumblr posts, tiktoks and Instagram reels examining the minutest details of every on-screen moment. It should come as no surprise then that parodies have also emerged, and no fewer than three of them have travelled to the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
First up for review from Starburst is Heated Rivalry: The Musical Parody!, declared by its creative team as the “straightest” parody of the three. It is pretty faithful to the source material, which does, of course, make it very, very gay.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with the story, it’s really very simple, and very familiar to fans of the romance genre: Boy meets Boy; they are pitted against each other professionally; privately they’re slowly – very slowly – falling in love. Specifically, “Canadian Golden Boy” Shane Hollander, and “Russia’s Greatest Fuck Machine” Ilya Rozanov, meet in 2008, whilst both are playing for their respective countries in the World Juniors / International Prospect Ice Hockey competition. They continue to be thrown into each others’ paths, develop sexual tension, which is quickly resolved, fail to communicate effectively, fall out, make up, and live, well, Happily For Now, at least.
In this parody production, Shane (Jamie Ary) and Ilya (Rob Warner) are, by necessity of time, slightly better at communicating. But only very slightly. However, the narrative arc remains intact, even if the latter part of the timeline of their story is sometimes played fast and loose.
The tone is established quickly in the opening song, with the company of Quick & Funny Musicals introducing us to the world of the story, with projected interstitial titles in the television show’s familiar font present and correct.
That level of detail continues throughout the show, which successfully manages to condense six hours of material into a tight sixty minutes. To achieve that, a lot of supporting action has had to be edited out. We don’t therefore get any version of Hayden Pike, or Cliff Marlow / Marleau. We do however still get Scott (Andrew Young) and Kip’s (Sean Meagher) story, which is delivered with a lot of heart, and a larger amount of humour.
This is a musical parody, and the songs are very strong – one in particular has audience participation (mostly voluntary), and here at Starburst, we were still humming the immensely catchy melody the day after we’d seen the show.
The points at which the show does deviate from a straight re-telling of the original narrative are the points where the company makes the story their own.
Along with a well received, subtly conveyed message criticising the US ICE department, there’s a message about supporting the queer community. At the end, this comes together in a joyous and unexpected moment which uses a Progress Pride flag so large, it only just fits under the ceiling at the Other Yin.
There is a lot to love in this production, which, like Jacob Tierney’s adaptation, chooses to deviate from the source material in clever ways that you wish could have been part of either the original, or the television adaptation. The creative choices made here support the story, whilst choosing to focus on the core moments that are required to allow the narrative to make coherent sense.
Indeed, we strongly believe that even if you haven’t either read Rachel Reid’s original books, or seen the television show, you will still be able to understand what is going on here, as long as you have a very basic level of media literacy.
This is a fun show, with great songs, and an obvious love of the original story. Heated Rivalry: The Musical Parody! will leave you with a massive smile on your face, and is strongly recommended.
Heated Rivalry: The Musical Parody, continues in The Other Yin at Gilded Balloon Patter House (Chambers Street) at 19:45 daily until August 30th (not 17th, or 24th)
Images by Blake Eirmann
