Seemingly, it’s the mission of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to turn anything at all into a musical. This includes cryptids. Surprisingly, the monster that this Scottish festival currently adores seems to be Mothman; we assume Nessie has already been overdone in the past. And in fairness, Mothman does have a nicer bottom than Nessie, or so the legends say.
Mothman: A Romance Musical starts the action in West Virginia, in a secret test facility in 1943. They are trying to build a super-soldier, in a way that feels more like Swamp Thing than any other similar franchise. The experiment goes hilariously, musically wrong. A moth in the machine ensures tragedy and comedy, all at once. Wackiness ensues. You will laugh until bits of you hurt.
We roll on to the present, where a band of socially awkward friends decide to follow the footsteps of a missing social media influencer into trying to find the lair of the mysterious Mothman. On the journey, they uncover truths about themselves that may very well change their world forever. There’s more, but we won’t spoil it.
What we have here is a bunch of well-loved pulp movie tropes, lovingly wrapped in musical comedy and queer humour. Terrible accents, deliberately rubbish props, some clever but very silly costume changes and a plot that makes it feel like the right sort of comic book, this show makes up for in fun what it lacks in budget. The songs are also great, and much better than some of the more serious musicals available at this year’s Festival Fringe.
There’s also just enough innuendo and some great skewering of romance cliches throughout, with the romance being just the right mix of slapstick and cheekiness. Don’t fear the Mothman, let him sing! Simply splendid, marvellous stuff.
Book tickets here and find their Instagram here.
