Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Ugly Duckling
The Revel Puck Circus and Underbelly
Genre: Children's Theatre, Circus
Venue: The Beauty at Underbelly's Circus Hub on The Meadows
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A skillful, charming family-friendly show that provides a different angle on the plight of the Ugly Duckling.
Review
Circus time at The Beauty venue in Underbelly’s Circus Hub on The Meadows. This family-friendly reinvention of The Ugly Duckling promises lighthearted fun, impressive circus skills and a twist in the tale.
This is a compact production of four, the Narrator, duckling siblings Terry and Kerry and the protagonist, Lou better known as The Ugly Duckling. Other humorous roles fill out the cast as the story progresses – memorably Scout the Cat and Presley the Tortoise. Each performer gets their moment to shine: the Narrator with his death-defying trapeze act; Scout with his chuckle-inducing big balloon and masterful Cyr Wheel routines; Presley the Tortoise with an elegant aerial display and finally our lonely, self-effacing protagonist, the Ugly Duckling, mesmerising on the silks.
Having seen a Revel Puck Circus show before, the expectation was for high-impact, youthful energy with a dash of quirk on the side. Without doubt, what is on show here demonstrates a high degree of skill – the circus techniques are never in question. The story surrounding the set-pieces could do with more clarity and more meaningful stakes. The show might benefit from assuming that, largely, an Edinburgh Fringe audience may not be well versed in contemporary circus, and that spending a little extra time teaching the crowd not only when to applaud the performers but also giving them permission to do so from early on in the piece could lead to livelier, more engaged audiences. As a result of this, there were only light patters of applause for displays of human wonder that deserved so much more.
Some further food for thought that may lift the piece could come from a more energised and vocally colourful Narrator, though conversely the piece might also benefit from a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach to its script. At times, the text feels so broadly pitched towards a young audience that it doesn’t fully land with either the young or the older kids. It can be easy to look down on the scripts such as those seen on CBeebies or in a Panto as over the top, but one thing they do really well is ensure that there is a clarity of story, stakes, overcoming hardship and emotion that younger watchers can connect with.
Make no mistake, this is still a good family show with excellent circus performers at the helm. The American Folk-Indie soundtrack lifts the show and scores it well throughout. The Ugly Duckling also provides a reposition of the moral of the original tale that should promote interesting conversation with little ones about the meaning of friendship and where to focus your energy in life.
