Edinburgh Fringe 2026
CODE
Justice in Motion
Genre: Theatre, Youth Theatre
Venue: Heriot Bridge at Pleasance Grassmarket
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Nicky is a young 13-year-old boy who is growing up with a single mother in an area familiar to many of us – a struggle but where love is in your mother’s heart, but opportunity always feels outside of you. Befriended by the mysterious JP, he is unaware of the dangers that JP represents. Slowly, JP grooms him into being a central part of his gang. When Nicky is set up and he loses the money that JP has entrusted with him, it all turns particularly nasty and we see the reality that Nicky faces as he and his mother attempt to escape.
Review
Justice in Motion have taken CODE out around schools and use it as a basis for workshops throughout the UK. Knife crime, grooming and county lines are all headline worthy issues facing young people today. CODE, which refers to the code under which these young people live, is a blend of theatrical styles which appeals because the context is very prescient.
Given that this has worked extensively with young people it has real authenticity in the way that it portrays the fast-moving ways of getting a young person involved in a crime. Narrated by rap, that has one foot in being what we think and know young people like, the parkour and trail bikes are a physical language they are represented by and the clothes, the trainers and the connections are the embodiment of hat young people are missing. CODE is accessible not just to the young people themselves but to anybody they’re attempting to communicate with. Two members of the Lyceum Youth Theatre – Corey Fawdry and Jacke Walker – appear as Justice in Motion bring people in from the local area to join the company whilst they’re performing locally. This fits in beautifully well.
There are issues for me around much of his struggling with some of the audio. It’s not the dialogue being hidden but the rap and music. At times the balance means that, although the performer is miked, his audio is unable to break through the music. That’s unfortunate because the rap neatly gathers everything succinctly as a clear commentary. It has been directed with two audiences in mind. The first is young people themselves, through the physical Parkour and trial bike stunts that makes it really accessible. But also the message is designed for those of us too old to remember accurately youth but also to reflect on how young people have changed makes us grumpy and leaden headed. It’s not supposed to explain; it is designed to explore – the initial introduction makes his clear. This is not how, but how it could happen.
You don’t get any of the artifice of theatre, but you get plenty of the technical trickery of it.
CODE is simply exceptional. As someone who works with care experienced young people I heard their voices, saw their struggles and reflected again on practice. This captures the challenges and danger of being young particularly children and young people who are culturally and morally disenfranchised by the system which treats them as a nuisance rather than an asset. Code is one attempt to redress that balance and given the amount of work that it does through workshops and tours it is admirable What is pitiful is the fact that this message is something that should be heard and seen the length and breadth of the UK, and right now it isn’t.
