Edinburgh Fringe 2025

Daniel Moore’s Definitive Guide to Failure-Free Living

Matthew Edgar

Genre: Solo Play, Theatre

Venue: Just the Tonic Legends

Festival: Edinburgh Fringe

Low Down

Review

Shut away from the outside world, Daniel Moore tries to prove to himself that he can stay active and alert for 20,000 hours. Does he make it? Does he have to? Does it matter?

From the second you enter the cavernous theatre space, the character Daniel Moore is in a rush, hustling while running, doing push-ups to a relentless fitness gym soundtrack he hastily puts on his grubby suit, checks his watch and begins his self-flagellating diatribe, like a self-help guru yelling at himself in an endless loop.

Daniel is on a Sisyphus-like mission: To push the big white button each time it turns red for 20,000 hours in order to gain ‘Success’ (“Success, more success … I think I need another word for Success”, he says.) Win, win, win, Daniel Moore wants more, more, more. 

Set entirely in the kind of in-between space of his drifting bedroom and imaginatively directed by Harry Daisley, Edgar revolves around the sinister button in various stages of frustration, elation and desperation, looking this way, then that way into the ether. There are peaks and troughs in the plot, a jagged arc through flashbacks where we meet his English mother, overbearing American father and disturbed younger self, admirably portrayed by Edgar.

Minimal props are set on the stage: a well worn children’s book about whales, a toy whale and action figure in the corner and a small voice recorder that give hints of memories that have formed his character and a childhood left behind. Through his recollections we learn that two male whales compete for a single female, with a winning and losing whale, a metaphor that his father impressed upon him at an early age regarding an early crush. This moment stood out because it was quiet and reflective and lent the characters humanity.

Avoiding failure at all costs, he curls into a fetal position each time he almost misses the mark. Daniel, comes off as a sympathetic character deserving of love but who is unable to give love to himself or others. Ironically, being loved despite his failures is what Daniel really wants. In one uncomfortable scene, he makes out with his own shadow on the central pedestal, effectively used as a kind of ‘black mirror’.

Edgar’s play comes at the right time amid the climate crisis, social media decline and political division, reminding us to question what success means for ourselves, for our family, for our children, our environment. The play itself, in the context of the Fringe, with actors and actresses toiling over their productions, getting ever more successful through reviews, accolades and likes on Instagram, seems to call its own ambitions out. 

Questions remain about his mother, childhood and his relationship to females (the nebulous female voice that counts down when he doesn’t press and the childhood crush are absent). As viewers, we are denied the satisfaction of seeing the character experience resolution, of maturity out of the fetal stage, but we and he are offered a small repose when he briefly steps off the hamster wheel.

With this kind of idea and performance, there is always the possibility of both more and less, and by toning down some of the moments, one might have more hope for characters like this that exist behind countless bedroom doors, but of course theater is there to show us all sides.. 

Attentive care and commitment are given in this very human portrayal of the desire for success. In that sense, “Daniel Moore’s Guide to Failure Free Living” is a true success. 

(This review was written with the assistance of artist Christine Cheung)

Published August 10, 2025 by Frey Le Maistre