Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Box Show
Junkyard Beats and Assembly Festival
Genre: Children's Theatre, Physical Comedy
Venue: Gordon Aikman Theatre at Assembly George Square Gardens
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Vibrant, loud and endlessly inventive, The Box Show turns the stage into a playground of rhythm, comedy and imagination.
Review
Australian outfit Junkyard Beats bring their thumping tour of The Box Show to the Edinburgh Fringe. This is high-energy physical theatre meets inventive and percussive music-making. Each performer uses their body as an instrument; beatboxing, drumming and hitting just about anything within arm’s reach to produce a rhythm. Highlights included some tuneful work on an improvised flute, the introduction of a steel drum, an exploration of some highly recognisable songs and a hypnotic water-based sequence.
There is a keen effort to engage the whole room in the action and the audience participation is lively and regular within the piece. Call and response sections drew us in, making us part of the show, often guided by the leader of the pack, whose authentic enthusiasm drives the show forward. After all, he does wear the jacket of power; all bow down!
The four junkyard characters are fully in sync and have deliberately unpronounceable names, matching the show’s entirely gibberish language, which forces us to focus on tone, movement and meaning rather than any intelligible words. This is always a fun choice for a show aimed at a younger audience as it keeps things accessible. It is also where much of the comedy comes in – and it is a humorous show. As the troupe playfully babble around, they have the freedom to improvise and find spontaneous laughs when trying to achieve complex tasks such as bringing up a volunteer and getting them to orchestrate one of their songs.
The children in the room were captivated, though parents of the very young or sound sensitive might consider bringing ear defenders as some sections get quite loud. There is a lightly curated theme of recycling that comes to the fore from time to time but more than anything this is a celebration of curiosity in making new and unique sounds. The Box Show does exactly what is says on the box – a quality family show.
