Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Shotgunned
Kangaroo Court / Serpentine Productions
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Assembly George Sq
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Roz and Dylan’s relationship is over. As he collects the last of his belongings from their now-empty flat, the story of their romance unfolds in fragments – jumping backwards and forwards through time, from first date to final farewell – gradually piecing together how two people who once fit so well came apart.
Review
Shotgunned opens on a rather tidy flat: Roz (Lorna Panton) is gathering items into a box as Dylan (Fraser Allan Hogg) arrives to collect the last of his belongings, having moved back in with his parents now the relationship has hit the rocks. Roz clearly still cares – evidenced by her having sorted his games by type, something she’d never bothered with before, even insisted it didn’t matter.
It’s a simple tale of a relationship, told through non-linear snapshots, episodes that at first feel random. As the narrative jumps back and forth through time, we gradually piece the couple’s history together, the episodic form forcing us to concentrate, to reconstruct what’s been deconstructed. Beneath it lies a familiar story – a relationship derailed by loss – but the structure keeps the dialogue sharp and the pace moving in a way I doubt a straightforward, linear telling could manage, even as it bounces between moments as disparate as an uncertain first meeting and a first row.
The performances are utterly engaging and believable. Dylan is loveable, geeky, awkward, prone to overthinking and bumbling, grounding much of the play’s comedy – not least in one inventive sequence involving his first day at a new job, when, rather than discuss his day with Roz, he immediately wants to game online with a new colleague, sparking a monumental row that ends with both realising said colleague has witnessed the whole thing. Roz is the complete antithesis – organised, a planner, her humour lies in her wickedly funny biting lines. They couldn’t be more different but it works… until it doesn’t.
Both actors excel at punching up the script’s humour, and both do a phenomenal job making the complications of the time-jumbled narrative feel coherent, credible and natural throughout. Matt Anderson’s direction ensures every scene feels authentic, the pace and energy never flagging; the result is tender, comical, yet heartbreaking by turns.
It’s a well-crafted, heartfelt and endearing two-hander, concluding on a bittersweet note of what might have been.
