King Arthur’s Body is a production which takes the legends of King Arthur, and says ‘but what if we made it gay?’. This is not a new question. Whilst there was a significant increase in fanfics which sought to explore that possibility following the 2008 broadcast of Merlin on BBC One, there have almost certainly been people applying queer readings to the stories for hundreds of years.

What’s happening in this production is a narrow focus on Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere. Merlin and Archimedes are along for the ride, the former in the role of narrator/guiding hand through the story.

From early on, it’s clear that there is no fourth wall, as the audience are strongly encouraged to join in with a ritual ‘for practicing feelings’ that Merlin has enchanted onto a teenage Arthur. We quickly skip to six years later, and Arthur is now 19, and about to become King.

There’s a funny bit of audience participation as volunteers try, and fail, to pull the sword from the stone, before Arthur is victorious and becomes the true ruler of the Britons. Enter Guinevere, because Arthur needs an heir, even though he’s already been making very unsubtle glances towards Lancelot.

We go through a lot of bluster around Arthur and Guinevere getting married, and failing to produce an heir, which is treated as something very light-hearted, but which for a lot of people, absolutely isn’t a topic for comedy.

And so, for reasons that are lost in the mass of confusion that has been thrown onto the stage, we are then doing a sex magick ritual to make Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot into some sort of blessed polycule.

This entire production is a mess. Every character appears to exist in their own narrative, and the presentation of ‘queerness’ is mostly reinforcing outdated tropes around shame and the need for secrecy if you’re queer.

Now, it’s possible that there’s been a clash of humour styles here: the production team is American, but this was a show being presented in the UK. Admittedly, at the Edinburgh Fringe with an international audience, but the crowd seemed to be mostly British.

There are occasionally moments that suggest a better project lies underneath the chaos. Lancelot channels Hamlet at one point, and does so with genuine nuance and feeling. Archimedes does some great juggling.

But so much of this just feels misjudged. It feels like a teenager’s early attempt at a Wattpad Fanific, where they’ve incorporated every idea that their readers have suggested, however badly misjudged. There’s just no understanding of where the narrative is going.

There’s a semblance of an interesting idea buried somewhere deep inside here, but significantly more development is needed, and perhaps a total return to the drawing board, to consider what story the creative team are trying to tell.

King Arthur’s Body has concluded its run at the Edinburgh Fringe.