The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with over 3,700 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh 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.
Living on the English seaside might sound like a dream, but not for Dev. Growing up in 1990s Margate made him feel like the only gay person in the world, his possibilities few and far between. A decrepit amusement park casts its shadow on the shoreline, a grim reminder that prosperity and joy left Margate long ago.
That is the general setup of Lyndon Chapman’s quirky, raw, and wonderful new solo play, Is the WiFi Good in Hell?, which is currently playing Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Chapman himself starring. The work, at turns grimly funny and utterly devastating, is about an outsider looking for a community that doesn’t seem to want him.
In Margate, Dev is surrounded by one faithful friend and a lot of bigots (the title comes from a quippy retort Dev hurls back at some homophobic bullies who’ve told him he’s going to hell). Eventually moving to London for university, he finds other gay guys, but ultimately realizes that’s not a community where he can find a home. To make matters worse, by the time he retreats to Margate, the town has gentrified into a posh weekend holiday destination, relegating Dev to the even further reaches of the sidelines.
And then there’s the terrifying, black seaweed-wrapped monster stalking Dev when he’s at his lowest, the closest to his breaking point. What is this mysterious creature? Why does it keep appearing? What does it want—and where is it leading our tragic hero?
Chapman’s writing and performance—and Will Armstrong’s artful direction—is witty, sharp, and devastatingly genuine. Dev is not a complainer, but a lovable, heartbreaking misfit. Is the WiFi Good in Hell? digs into how the experience of growing up on the periphery can stick with—or to—you, ensuring you stay there for many lonely years to come. The insightful-but-shattering story follows its main character through a world that genuinely seems built to break him down. But where things get really emotional is when the play digs into the ways that trauma can make someone their own worst enemy, further perpetuating their own desolation. How can one process and deal with their pain when the world is constantly hurling fresh shrapnel on the daily?
Sadly, it's no accident Chapman has made his protagonist queer. I found the work instantly and devastatingly relatable. At one point, Dev talks about the five voices he can code switch between, adjusting his outward persona for the best chance at acceptance and safety. That’s a survival technique so many queer people know intimately. But Chapman takes things a step further, exploring how that tortured existence makes it difficult to figure out who you even are behind all the layers of artifice, and what it means when what community you do have doesn’t even know the real you at all.
It's part of how Chapman has wisely made the play and his character ultra specific. I was not familiar with Margate before seeing this play, and there are some references, even some punchlines, that Americans might not get. But that same specificity is ultimately what makes Dev and his achingly sad story so recognizable. Chapman and Armstrong have crafted a piece that made me want to give its protagonist a hug. It also made me think about the parts of my own life that are insufficiently processed, birthing my own seaweed monsters from time to time.
And though I won’t spoil the emotional ending, Is the WiFi Good in Hell? is not all sad. The work ultimately stands as a reminder that sometimes facing our scariest demons means reaching out directly to them rather than looking away or running in retreat. In his curtain speech after the performance I saw, Chapman shared that performing the piece has been cathartic. I was glad to hear that—because the audience experience was cathartic, too.
Is the WiFi Good in Hell? is playing at Underbelly Cowgate’s Iron Belly through August 25. Tickets are available here. See photos below.
Lyndon Chapman in Is The WiFi Good in Hell?
Lyndon Chapman in Is The WiFi Good in Hell?
Lyndon Chapman in Is The WiFi Good in Hell?
Lyndon Chapman in Is The WiFi Good in Hell?
Lyndon Chapman in Is The WiFi Good in Hell?
