Review: Acid's Reign | Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 - Ambitious, Exuberant, Scrappy.

New drag climate musical Acid's Reign runs at the Pleasance Courtyard at Edinburgh Festival Fringe through August. Read my review here.

Acid's Reign ★★★☆☆

Review: 13 August 2026 | Edinburgh Fringe, Pleasance Courtyard

Following previews at Pleasance London, Relish Theatre's Acid's Reign premieres at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this month, where it plays at Pleasance Courtyard through August. Featuring an impressive lineup of drag talent backed by a live band playing exuberant new songs, Acid's Reign is a musical theatre production that sets out to tackle climate change with fierce queer energy.

In 2019 we meet Alex Acid (Victoria Scone), who has been thrown in jail for attending an Extinction Rebellion protest. There she has the idea to set up a new drag supergroup that will spread the word about climate change by making it unapologetically queer and entertaining.

For the next 75 minutes we follow Alex as she teams up and tussles with friends and sometimes rival Queens Dina Mite (Scarlett Harlett), Ria Listic (Gigi Zahir), Olive Branch (Ash Weir) to put on a show. There's even a fab Drag King in the mix, Micky Steele (Sé Carr/Jamie Fuxx.)

Although the fast-paced story with its many competing plotlines does become muddled, the intentions of Acid's Reign are clear and commendable. Drag has always been a protest tool for LGBTQ+ rights, and here its defiant joy and striking costumes make it the perfect musical theatre antidote to climate anxiety and dread. This isn't just a drag show featuring a selection of mimed, unrelated pop songs; there really is a clever narrative and a genuine musical theatre structure to this piece - not to mention the cast's impressive live vocals.

Evie Fehilly's ambitious book is full of hilarious quips and quotable lines. The show just needs more room to breathe to fully land all of its story arcs and conclusion. And a later timeslot in the Fringe schedule would help immensely. 15:45 feels too early to attract a drag cabaret crowd, and the atmosphere in the venue suffers as a result.

Where Acid's Reign shines is with its formidable score (music by Gabriel Chernick & Stephanie Singer.) Eleven original new songs make up the sensational soundtrack, and they wisely include showstopper "Acid's Reign Cabaret" twice. That's an infectious, rousing anthem that should become the show's defining hit.

While renowned RuPauls Drag Race stars Victoria Scone and Scarlett Harlett are the poster girls for Acid's Reign, and their stellar reputations are completely deserved - both of them oozing charisma and sharp comic timing - Gigi Zahir stands out as an effortlessly impressive triple-threat performer. They are utterly magnetic every time they step on stage.

Acid's Reign is a little rough around the edges. There were a few stumbles from the cast, and the set doesn't yet match the quality of the talent performing in front of it. Of course the production is restricted by the time and space restrictions dictated by a quick turnaround fringe venue, but I imagine it would soar even higher given the production values of something like Queenz.

But on its debut outing, Acid's Reign looks to be exactly the kind of scrappy, bold new writing that will hopefully find its feet at The Fringe and go on to attract further development and funding. It's so refreshing to have the existential horror and often cold doom and gloom of climate change presented via hot Queens (and a King.)

Acid's Reign is a promising new musical theatre show with a queer voice that makes the bleak facts of the climate catastrophe accessible. As they say, they're "making the climate hot again". ★★★☆☆

• Acid's Reign is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, at Pleasance Courtyard (Forth) until Monday 31st August 2026

  
  

• Find all my Edinburgh Fringe coverage here: https://www.lisainthetheatre.com/edinburgh-fringe