Review: Footballers' Wives the musical | Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

Name: Footballers' Wives: the musical
Brand: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)

Lisa in the theatre
Aug 18
4 min read

Updated: Aug 21

Footballers' Wives: the musical is a brand-new musical comedy based on the iconic early 2000s ITV series. Following previews in Twickenham, Footballers' Wives premiers at the Assembly Rooms as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August 2025.

Footballers' Wives: the musical ★★★★☆

review: 16 August 2025 | Music Hall at Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

A new British musical is always something to celebrate, and this one comes with somewhat of a head start: a ready-made legion of passionate fans of the iconic 2002 ITV series Footballers' Wives. As with the TV series, the new comedy musical Footballers' Wives: the musical focuses on Captain's wife Tanya Turner (Ceili O’Connor) as she plots and schemes to save her marriage and her husband's career. Set in 2002 at the fictional Earls Park Football Club, Footballers' Wives takes us back to a time when Premier League football was the new rock'n'roll – with the money, glamour and bad behaviour to match.

And that retro vibe, while nostalgic and fun, is also going to be the biggest challenge for this new musical: it inevitably already feels a little dated. Twenty years after the popular TV show last aired, football and women are very different. With that being said, this musical leans in to the bad noughties fashion and wild sexual impropriety so frequently splashed across the red-top newspapers of the time. It's a lively, flashy ride full of handsome footballers and their glamorous WAGs (the press nickname for footballers Wives and Girlfriends) complete with orange fake tans and extravagant wardrobes. There's plenty of humour, bucketloads of sass and an engaging plot to keep us entertained for the brisk 80 minute runtime.

Maureen Chadwick's book focuses on Tanya and Jason Turner's (Matt Beveridge) predicament when they accidently (or was it?) knock football club boss Frank Laslett (Matt Rixon) into a coma. Packed with twists and turns, side stories, rivalries, weddings, affairs and scandal, Footballers Wives' the musical is exactly the kind of trashy, over-the-top, escapist nonsense I'd hoped it would be!

Footballers Wives The Musical, Ceili O'Connor and Matt Beveridge, photo by Alex Brenner — Footballers Wives The Musical, Ceili O'Connor and Matt Beveridge. Photo: Alex Brenner

While the plot may be outrageous, the creative team know exactly what they are doing with it and have presented a glossy, sharp, far-slicker production that we would usually see of a musical theatre premiere being staged at the Edinburgh Fringe. This musical - though still limited by the tight entry / exit times forced upon shows housed in locations that host multiple productions every day - manages to look lavish. Jamie Platt's dynamic lighting and Andrzej Goulding's clever video design doing much of the heavy-lifting in place of the traditional, bulky sets.

The ensemble cast are very strong, with the wives rather than the footballers emerging as the star players. As they should - the show is named for them after all. The footballers themselves, while well-dressed and doing a sterling job of being universally unlikable, are almost indistinct. I struggled with the diction from most of them: just like real footballers, I found that they mumbled; or perhaps there were mic / sound issues. The audience for this show was rowdy! And while no reflection at all on the quality of the production, the constant disruption in the auditorium did add to the auditory challenges.

Succumbing to no such issues however Ceili O'Connor's Tanya Turner is loud, bold and clear as a bell. O'Connor lays down a stunning performance here - she's the perfect, audacious, ambitious footballer's wife and utterly fabulous from her first note to her last.

Footballers Wives The Musical, cast - photo by Alex Brenner — Footballers Wives The Musical - cast. Photo: Alex Brenner

Kath Gotts' music and songs are catchy-enough, and they are all performed enthusiastically by the energetic cast. Anthony Banks' direction has the story zipping along at pace, and Arlene Phillips' choreography sparkles as always, although there wasn't quite as much of it on show as I dreamed there would be. Perhaps the full-length production (which will surely follow) will allow more time for full-scale dance numbers.

Footballers' Wives: the musical does not at all feel like a fringe theatre production. It's too large-scale and mainstream to be classed as such. Had this been staged in a traditional theatre (with traditional theatre prices) I may have rated it differently, but at Edinburgh Fringe, and in terms of enjoyable, affordable and accessible theatre (tickets are all under £20 a peice!), they have, as they say, walked the ball into the net. ★★★★☆

Footballers' Wives: the musical plays at the Assembly Rooms, George Street until Sunday 24 August 2025, during Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Find full dates and cast details below.

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