Edinburgh Fringe 2025
A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First
Xhloe and Natasha
Genre: Absurd Theatre, LGBTQIA+
Venue: The Space @ Niddry Street
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A beautiful piece that verges on art form by multiple Fringe First award winners, Xhloe and Natasha.
Review
Returning to the Fringe with the return of LBJ after clinching the acclaimed Fringe First award in 2024, cult clown duo Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland are back in Edinburgh this August, presenting all three of their award-winning shows at The Space @ Niddry Street. A slick, rough and ready play, A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God presents more like an art piece than a theatre play, with an impressive synchronicity between the duo that seems reminiscent of a ballet.
NYC-based Xhloe and Natasha have been working together for over ten years now, and their output only seems to improve as the years go by. Lyndon B Johnson or God is an absurdist 60s tale of two boy scouts, Ace (Roland) and Grasshopper (Rice), who are barrelling down the face of a gun to a ticket straight over to Vietnam. Before that, though, they are boys, playing down and dirty in the mud with secret handshakes and childhood hijinks. Oh, and Lyndon B Johnson, of course.
The president, whose train journey past their small town hinges their childhood accounts, acts as an alternate father figure for the boys, replacing their own fathers who are rather less than stellar. This exploration of fathers, and of manhood in all its types, pulses throughout the whole play, where past and present mingle in together to create a distorted sense of 60s nostalgia and Americana.
There’s an immense physicality to their performance, with only a singular tyre as prop, and yet the duo manage to consume the entire stage. This clearly comes from their clowning background, and yet it’s something physically impossible to draw your eyes away from. Their harmonica playing, likewise, is pitch perfect, and alludes to the sounds of Woodstock and other such freedoms. This, combined with the confessional nature of the piece, leaves you with the sense that you’ve been invited into their communion.
A pared-back production from many others that you might see this Fringe, A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Sees This First is a beautiful performance with a hefty emotional arc – one that will leave you thinking about it for days.
