Edinburgh Fringe 2026
I Was Never Here (There Is No Spy Show)
Leo Lion
Genre: Solo Performance, Theatre
Venue: Space at Niddry Street.
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Agent X needs your help. Thanks to pressing a big red button he keeps losing his memory and he needs our help to crack codes before the timer on the wall gets all the way down to zero. The codes will open up a suitcase, as clues are scattered in various boxes on the floor. With audience help, before it his absolute zero, we save the day and Agent X.
Review
This is so damn clever I almost feel too stupid to review it. It takes theatre and turns it round. This has an interactive game show feel but has a central character who whizzes round with his persona, a gun in his pocket and a puzzle to solve. Like most things that work so well, it has commitment to a very simple idea at its heart. Once you are on board, you never get off he train.
Agent X keeps losing his memory. To survive he needs the case opened. Every time he hits the red button his memory is wiped, and the audience need to remind him, he is a spy, his memory has been erased and where he is in the quest.
The equivalent of an interactive escape room, it is much more fun.
Lion works his audience hard with fantastic elements within. He has people solving puzzles, finding ways through the anagrams and the silly tasks that come out of boxes, but the real genius part, is the big red button.
It resets the story, brings us back to a familiar beginning and off we go again.
Lion is a skilled performer with running gags that work well simple and complex – from the gun in his pocket that keeps going off, to the audience member who has to access a website with captcha tasks.
I Was Never Here (There Is No Spy Show) is late at night, where you enter with very little expectation, but come away understanding the importance of playing with form and format, why people need to do things differently and refuse to repeat.
Leo Lion has delivered an absolute masterpiece. What comes next? Sign me up.
