Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Faustus Project
Half Trick / BJA Productions
Genre: Comedy, Dark Comedy, Experimental, Theatre
Venue: Underbelly @ Cowgate
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The Faustus Project takes the script from Christopher Marlowe and adapts it with Dr. Faustus each night being played by a different actor. The trick here is that the actor does not get handed the copy of the script until they turn up for the performance. What then follows is a variety of set pieces with alarming options for the actor and hilarity for us!
Review
And so, the star goes through each of the elements of Marlowe’s Faustus, including meeting the Pope, Mephistopheles, the 7 Deadly Sins before they end up dead and condemned to hell. It is a well-rehearsed piece of theatre with four very technically gifted actors who have clearly gone through this on a number of occasions and are well versed in how to get the best out of what is part improvisation but mainly structured rehearsed work. Courtney Bassett, Alex Medland, Moira Hamilton and Caden Scott on the night that I was there were joined by Eleanor Morton who happened to be a very game participant. And a freestyle rapper – how impressive was that!
There are a number of spoilers that could be put in any review including what happens to The Familiar and how the actor is treated. I say unsuspecting but the fact is that there is little doubt that the Faustus Project has probably become a legendary rite of passage for many actors at any Fringe Festival – best to just go and watch what they do to somebody daft enough to sign an agreement that removes their ability to say no…
It works because of the skill, well-rehearsed, practised and hitting all the right marks by the core cast. When the guest/victim joins in and even improvises themselves this gathers more momentum and is hilarious. Just hilarious. When the core actors improvise alongside their guest, it takes off even more. What works bets here is rather than being an “improvised” show with a clear structure in place to follow, the skill is having a rigid structure into which they can throw an unknown and adapt to develop a new version nightly.
Technically I would not like to have been the stage manager who had to tidy up afterwards, especially the amount of blood that was used, the depiction of gluttony and the Seven Deadly Sins and how much ended up being plastered all over Morton.
Costume was very late-night cabaret giving a sense of it being fringe worthy even dangerous.
Having seen a straight production of Dr Faustus this year I wasn’t tempted to compare the two, and you don’t need to know the story of Dr Faustus to follow the plot, which is one of the great skills in storytelling that’s in evidence here. Taking an ancient text, and making it more accessible for a modern audience, takes a fine degree of skill. And here, what has been done is not only to do that, but also to provide you with a lot of the laughs and plenty of the romp that changes it from being a dated, outmoded and archaic piece of theatre into something that’s vibrant, fun, and certainly late night and entertaining.
