Edinburgh Fringe 2026
The Trial of Magnus Coffinkey
Give or Take Productions
Genre: Theatre
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Described as a broken fairy tale for broken people. In a whimsical land of broken toys, Magnus Coffinkey must fix a bell atop an impossibly high spire. Success will make his wish come true. The price of failure is a permanently broken heart. Funny, honest and deeply devastating, The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey is a dark fairy tale where the power of storytelling is used to make sense of great personal trauma.
Review
At 3.43am the world changed.
A precise, almost clinical opening that gradually takes us on a journey into profound grief and from there to the beginnings of renewed hope.
A narrator (Becky Camilleri) introduces Magnus Coffinkey (Joseph Zammit), and the land of broken toys. In addition to mending the toys this dishevelled character in a patched-up jacket and well-worn hat is tasked with repairing the Sacred Bell of What Could Be.
It begins as fairy story – a hero’s journey, a bell that must be mended, a heart’s desire to be won, challenges to be met – but co-writers Angele Galea and Malcolm Galea are taking us on a deeper journey beneath this seemingly lighthearted fable. The mysterious tale, we gradually learn, is being shaped by the storyteller herself who is struggling with grief, guilt and sorrow, and the story weaves in and out of this frame as the real couple beneath it, Magnus and Lara, try to make sense of their loss and the different ways each is experiencing it.
The writing is beautiful, nuanced and lyrical, as it moves between verse and dialogue, narration and conversation, and the two performers handle it expertly. Joseph Zammit and Becky Camilleri are both remarkably versatile, but Camilleri in particular deserves singling out for her ability to slip between storyteller, malevolent gargoyle, a lost child in a space between life and death she calls ‘Gloom’, and several neighbours – often within moments of each other. Whilst grief is at the heart of the play there are lighter moments throughout, and both actors deliver the emotional range that holds the audience spellbound whether laughing or crying.
Sound and lighting, are pitch-perfect throughout; every hammer blow (and there are a lot of them) landing exactly where it should. The staging is sparse – a box that serves as the foundations of the tower and as a home for hats, gargoyle masks and simple additional items of costume that help create each character. The intimacy of the small lecture theatre draws you close, although the steeply raked seating means some floor-level action is lost to those further back.
Directed with a sure hand by Philip Leone-Ganado, this is billed as a broken fairy tale for broken people and achieves that and more. A powerful piece of theatre that shows how stories can become healing.
