Edinburgh Fringe 2026
The Flying Bubble Show
Maxwell the Bubbleologist
Genre: Children's Theatre, Circus, Family
Venue: The Beauty at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A beautiful, calming and deceptively skilful celebration of one of childhood’s simplest pleasures. The Flying Bubble Show transforms soap and air into something genuinely magical, combining astonishing bubble creations with aerial spectacle and a wonderfully gentle atmosphere. A Zen bubble retreat for little ones and grown-ups alike.
Review
The Flying Bubble Show is playing at Underbelly’s The Beauty Circus tent in the Meadows throughout the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2026. The joy of approaching the two impressive tents that adorn the Meadows across the month of August never fades. You know something inside them will shock, amaze and inspire you – the Flying Bubble Show certainly doesn’t disappoint.
We enter to, unsurprisingly, bubbles! Bubbles, bubbles everywhere and during this opening section before the production begins, children are allowed to run around, jumping and popping the bubbles with wild abandon. A paddling pool takes centre stage and is filled with bubble mixture and surrounded by rainbow-coloured umbrellas that cleverly tilt to allow Maxwell the Bubbleologist to dictate when he does or doesn’t want a little bit of extra airflow to augment the bubbling action. High in the ceiling there is also a sparkly magic shower curtain which descends a number of times for him to retrieve his next magical piece of bubble-making equipment.
The show opens and then continually focuses on the bubble wizard himself, Maxwell, who is a real pleasure to watch in action. He creates a warm and inclusive atmosphere, always using language that is appropriate for little ones, without overly patronising the adults in the room. Dressed as a traditional ringmaster/magician in top hat, tails and a waistcoat he is skilfully flown around the space by his supporting counterbalance, who quietly but expertly scrambles up and down a nearby pillar in order to make the flying magic happen. Maxwell gives us a few call-and-response instructions. When he says ‘bubbles’ we say ‘bubbles’ etc. and this quickly engages the children. The music choices throughout are delightful, Einaudi-esque at times and always calming. It feels as though you’re at a Zen bubble retreat, particularly as the Maxwell often asks us to take a deep breath and slowly let it out, almost asking us to blow the bubbles with him. It’s a relaxing and beautiful hour and as the man himself says, there is a universality to the joy of bubbles. Young or old, we all enjoy seeing them and the skilful creations he makes are astounding, from small, detailed bubbles to bubbles within bubbles, bubbles filled with various gases and mist all the way through to some of the most enormous bubbles you may ever have seen.
It is a bit of a stealth skill. It looks easy to just blow some bubbles but watching him work there is clearly nothing more fickle than soap and air attempting to stay together in any kind of coordinated way. The Flying Bubble Show however, can pull it off. Failure is part of the game but as he states, ‘we try again’ and ‘practice makes perfect’ – all great lessons for the little ones to hear. Bear in mind that these failures are largely left to the vagaries of the very slippery material he’s working with: bubbles.
The Flying Bubble Show takes one of the simplest pleasures of childhood and turns it into something genuinely magical. Calming, beautiful and deceptively skilful, it is an hour that allows children to revel in the spectacle while reminding the grown-ups why bubbles fascinated them in the first place. Proof that the simplest things really do bring the most joy.
