The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with over 3,700 shows. This year, Playbill is in town for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!

As part of our Edinburgh Fringe coverage, Playbill is seeing a whole lotta shows—and we're letting you know what we think of them. Consider these reviews a friendly, opinionated guide as you try to choose a show at the festival.

Parody musicals are deceptively hard to write, and even harder to sell. Often pigeonholed by lazy marketing and even limper creative impulses, just about every musical theatre fan has seen at least one bad parody musical in their lifetime. With very few exceptions, the comedic viability of a parody can only be extended across one or two songs, à la Forbidden Broadway or the work of Weird Al Yankovic. Extend the joke into a full-length show, and almost all creatives crumble.

Almost all.

This Fringe, I experienced what I had truly thought impossible; a full-length parody musical that not only kept me laughing for its entire run time, but which, at its bones, was truly good. A good, solid piece of musical theatre, constructed with care and consideration for all aspects of the craft. No forced punchlines. No self-satisfied internal winks. And, perhaps most impressively, no dud songs.

Because honestly, that's the ultimate hurdle parody musicals face. With so much focus on the comedic veneer, the art of composition is almost always abandoned, relying on weak melodies to vaguely underpin the production. It is why song parodies are far and away the most successful in the modern world; they take the original composition as a foundation so as to focus in on the new lyrics, avoiding the challenge of writing a song anew altogether.

I Wish You Well, the Rick Pearson and Roger Dipper-penned musical which parodies the real-life trial between Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow and retired optometrist Terry, was more than up for the challenge. (It is also, coincidentally, the second musical at this year's Fringe about the Paltrow ski trial.)

Playing inside the beloved Udderbelly Purple Cow during the Fringe, the musical has already announced a well-deserved West End transfer. Filled to the brim with sky-high belting, mile-a-minute references for theatre fans and the terminally online alike, and a ballroom-inspired catwalk, the show masterfully weaves in true pathos and emotional connection. It leaves audiences with the dizzying question: "Did I just start to tear up over a vagina scented candle?!"

Pearson's songwriting is the brightest star amongst the firmament, with infectious melodies and clever counterpoint that never veered into confusing territory. Uninterested in shallow characterizations or lazily sketched comedic conceits, the show is, in my opinion, the best new musical of the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. That is not a distinction I make lightly. But from the moment Tori Allen-Martin planted her feet as fame-fascinated lawyer Kristin, I was enraptured. 

The four-person company is absolutely rock solid, and to lose any one of them would be a tragedy. Recording artist Diana Vickers is pitch perfect as Gwyneth, toeing the line between untouchable and unpredictable, Marc Antolin is endearingly unhinged as Terry, and Idriss Kargbo is the vocally varied glue that holds the entire exercise together as Judge Jude. But if forced to single out one of the excellent foursome, it is Allen-Martin who astounded me. 

Comedy works best when it comes from an honest and emotional place. The sillier you are, the more seriously you need to take the situation. Through Allen-Martin, trial references to Taylor Swift, Lea Michele, and Avril Lavigne felt endearingly surprising, rather than forced. Allen-Martin keeps the musical grounded in compassion, rather than relying on sexist, air-headed stereotypes to humiliate her character. Rather than using its characters as easy punchlines, the show flirts with Western media's obsession with celebrity, and how proximity to fame can corrupt even the best intentioned.

Don't get too carried away with the emotional underpinnings though, I Wish You Well is still very much a comedy. In addition to the show's wholly original musical offerings, they've even found the time to sprinkle in a handful of parody songs, including Terry's homage to "Roxie" from Chicago—which Antolin pulls off with such gusto that you can't help but be inspired to give a mid-show standing ovation.

As the show wraps up its Edinburgh run and prepares for London, I pray that, somehow, the Paltrow trial remains relevant in pop culture for years to come. It would truly be a shame for such a solid piece of craft to be considered past-due in a season or two. Fro now, better to err on the safe side and make your way to the courtroom as soon as possible.

I Wish You Well runs at Underbelly, George Square through August 26. The West End run will begin at the Criterion Theatre September 11 and will continue through October 12.