Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Hole!
American Sing-Song (A.S.S)
Genre: Comedy, LGBTQ+, Musical Theatre
Venue: Underbelly Bristo Square
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Hole! is an imaginative musical about butt plugs, cults, and companionship that can survive the end of the world.
Review
Going into Hole! at the Cowbarn, I’ll admit I was entirely unsure of what to expect. The Fringe is a festival that thrives on mystery, but there’s a certain thrill in walking into a venue with absolutely incorrect expectations. If you want to feel that, stop reading. If not, what I found was a scrappy two-person foley musical that filled the vacuos space without the actors ever leaving their platform.
The production leans heavily into foley artistry, and to call the execution impressive would be a understatement. It’s nothing short of miraculous (a phrase you’ll find fits the show quote well). Even with a minimalist stage and a lack of visual spectacle, the performers create such a vivid, textured world that you can practically see the scenes manifesting in the air around them. I’m not sure why, but seeing how the sounds are made makes the vision clearer to see. Perhaps when the audience is asked to use their imagination for the sounds, it forces us to imagine everything else too? There are only two performers on stage, yet what they achieve is so complete that it genuinely feels as though you are watching a cast of ten. It’s the kind of experience that reminds you that theater is, at its heart, an act of shared imagination.
But the true soul of the piece isn’t the foley, It’s the narrative. Beneath the but plugs, crazy hair, and biblical circumstance, is a stunningly sincere coming-of-age story. It’s intimate, raw, and surprisingly universal. I was struck by the demographic in the room. The story of young queer love had translated to an audience with an enormous age range, and couples of all kinds. They were all in the same room, captivated by the same human struggle. The show manages to navigate the potentially grotesque nature of its subject matter (the but plugs, not the queerness) without ever feeling gross for the sake of it. Instead, those objects become a backdrop for a story about growth, discovery, and the messy reality of becoming who you are.
Anyone who has spent time at the Fringe knows the fatigue that sets in by the third week. Yet, inside that Cowbarn, the energy was electric. You could feel the passion radiating from the performers. Even though it wasn’t just another show in an exhaustively long run; it was a performance driven by a clear passion for the story and the art.
Hole! is a reminder that the best theater at this festival doesn’t need a massive cast or a revolving stage. It needs a clear point of view and the conviction to execute it. It’s an unexpected, bold, and ultimately beautiful piece of work that proves when you strip theater back to the essentials you find the stories that resonate the most.
