Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It
Xhloe and Natasha
Genre: Clown, New Writing, Surrealism
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Run, don’t walk, if you have an opportunity to snag some tickets.
Review
Surely Xhloe and Natasha are an open secret at the festival by now. Three time consecutive winners of the prestigious Fringe First award alongside various other accolades, their career seems to be on the up-and-up, and deservedly so. Their ticket availability seems to be finally catching up to this fact – at the time of writing, they seem to be sold out for the rest of their August run, but they have a slew of dates down in London that are certainly not ones to miss. Triple threat performers, with actor-clown-playwright to their names, New York-based Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland have been astounding audiences in Edinburgh since 2022, with previous shows including smash hits And Then The Rodeo Burned Down, A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God, and What If They Ate The Baby?
This year’s offering, Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It, combines their typical excellence of clowning, physical theatre, and comedy to tell the story of two teenagers in small-town America, fabricating Bigfoot sightings to conveniently cover for the fact that they may or may not have crashed into a local stop sign. But as paranoia around the sightings begins to gain a momentum of its own, they have to ask themselves what’s really making the townsfolk so afraid to begin with.
Tackling misinformation, paranoia, and community values in small-town America, the duo present a microcosm of a community fallen prey to malicious forces to explore the myth of America at large. The action seamlessly flits across a wide array of colourful characters, from trigger-happy townsfolk and corporate stooges all the way to grizzly sheriffs and layabout teens, each carved out from thin air with a cacophony of voices. With a barebones set, featuring a single stop sign and some impressive puppetry, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they had a small budget this year, but that’s all they need. They weave a tale of corporate greed, community desperation and local politics from next to nothing, using purely physical theatre and their significant acting chops to thread it all together, making the production even more impressive.
To say more about the show would likely spoil the surprise, and with their work, it rather has to be seen to be believed. Xhloe and Natasha are certainly at the top of their game, and there seems to only be one direction left for them to go – up. Watch this space, and certainly run, don’t walk, if you have an opportunity to snag some tickets.
