Edinburgh Fringe 2026
O Brave New World, That Has Such People In’t!
Mulberry Theatre Company
Genre: New Writing, Youth Theatre
Venue: TheSpaceUK
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Taking the themes from the Tempest, O Brave New World, That Has Such People In’t! completes a trilogy of plays (2018, 2022) inspired by the works of Shakespeare. Maya’s parents are away, tending to her sibling in hospital, leaving Maya in a house that doesn’t feel like home. Her saving grace is a garage of junk left by the previous owners. With the help of her cat and her imagination, stories are fetched from across town and brought to life.
Review
The play reflects the themes of The Tempest with real ingenuity, casting Maya’s garage as her own island, and finding in it magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family..
Maya has moved to a new area and isn’t happy about it. They were a family of three, but are now four – the move was meant to give them more space, and time to settle before number four arrived, but he arrived prematurely, and her parents are now spending all their time in the special care baby unit, leaving Maya largely to her own devices. She’s lasted precisely one day at her new school, overwhelmed by the overly bouncy Freddie, the class pranksters, and the row over who gets to play Prospero in the forthcoming class drama. So she’s retreated to the garage, where she’s built her own world, mirroring Prospero’s island: a cat named Flight, played by the chorus, a book of spells, and no one to answer to.
Flight acts as Maya’s eyes on the world, sent back to the classroom to report on what’s happening there – which is how Maya learns of Sycorax, and of a spell said to make parents forget they ever had a child. It seems, to Maya, the obvious solution to deal with the infant interloper, and she sets about trying to recreate it. Meanwhile the girl in 10W cast as Prospero is channelling Sycorax too, and a storm of properly Shakespearean proportions follows, forcing everyone to reconsider what actually matters to them.
The ensemble cast of 14- to 17-year-olds deliver strong, consistent performances throughout. Maya is a compelling lead, her delivery never faltering, drawing us fully into the unhappiness of her forced relocation. The ensemble switch almost seamlessly between pupil and Flight: as pupils, each has a clearly defined character, giving a nice sense of the diversity of any classroom; as Flight, they handle the choral speaking and solo lines neatly, including snatches of Shakespeare’s own text, echoing Ariel’s role as messenger.
The set uses the same main units as that of the group’s sister play, One House on Brick Lane, creating both garage and classroom, the two spaces simply distinguished by having their own focused area of the stage. The set, production and backstage work is also undertaken by students and it was great to see that they too joined the curtain call and were recognised for their hard work out of sight.
The resolution – Maya accepting her new brother, the group accepting Maya – mirrors the hopes and ambitions of the girls themselves, and, like many a Shakespearean ending, feels a touch rushed and neat, which is perhaps entirely in keeping with the Bard. That it comes full circle with 10W’s own play-within-a-play rounds off an excellent youth production in style.
An innovative reimagining of The Tempest, performed by a lively, joyous young company.
