Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Messy Magic Adventure
Rollicking Entertainment
Genre: Children's Theatre, Comedy
Venue: Bijou at Assembly Rooms
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Messy Magic Adventure is a gentle, good-natured family show packed with slapstick, cheeky humour and playful audience interaction. With their easy rapport and likeable double act, Spray and Wipe serve up a fun hour that keeps kids happily engaged.
Review
In the delightful Assembly Piccolo venue, we meet the zany and high energy duo Spray and Wipe – each coming with their own signature move, which is quickly taught to each side of the room as a motif to be returned to throughout the show. Spray, (played by Lizzie Tollemache) is slightly more of the classic ‘straight man’ in the pairing. Taking tasks more seriously and chastising Wipe (David Ladderman) who often fumbles around making mischief and mistakes. It is a good solid premise for a duo dynamic.
The show feels well refined; its performers have a great rapport with each other and use that good effect when needing the audience to interact. They get the laughs in nice and early, giving us all permission to relax and enjoy the show by arriving in the audience and having some playful fun with the crowd. Spray and Wipe have arrived as cleaners to spruce up the place but find themselves in a pickle when Wipe accidentally opens a magic box and something important escapes. It’s a simple premise, one the children can follow, and it provides a great platform for the actors to set up and muddle through a number of comedic set pieces.
It is all very twee and gentle. Our heroes are extremely likeable – somewhat akin to spending an hour with New Zealand’s version of the Chuckle Brothers. Mild in peril and simple stakes serving as humorous obstacles for the pair to overcome, such as getting caught up and confused with each other physically and narrowly missing each other while swinging a ladder around. Having magic in the title of the show may end up feeling like a slight misnomer to some attendees as it was a fair way into the act before we got anything like a traditional magic trick. However, it could be taken to mean that the adventure is one that is about interacting with the magic box they find – if you arrive expecting a carousel of breathtaking tricks, this isn’t it. It does, however, move along at a great pace and when the magic does begin to come out, it is both well placed and well done.
Messy Magic Adventure is a fun-filled hour for the kids, with its cheeky humour and tight set pieces it should have your kids strapped in and enjoying the ride.
