Fringe review: WINGING IT, Chevron Theatre - Edinburgh Festival Fringe

This new coming-of-age pop-rock musical follows four college students on their adventure to turning 18 in a week's time, and as they set out to have their own lives sorted before the end of the week, life as they know it falls apart. Written by a teen herself, Lydia Whitbread has weaved individual tales of family quarrels, heartbreak and figuring out how to pay tax into one all-encompassing relatable story with original music. As much as we'd like to not admit it, everyone is just ‘Winging It’ all the time!

Winging It is a good place to start when writing a new musical. We can all relate to being terrified of choosing the wrong path when we don't know what we're doing or want to do with our futures. The music and lyrics are well written and there are some nice moments, particularly with the harmonies and duets.

Amelia Perry as Alex and Charlie Frampton as Mila both deserve a special mention. Perry has a good understanding of her character and interactions with others, and we couldn't help but love the commitment to choice with the character of Mila. Frampton has a great energy, it's infectious!

We really enjoyed this production. If anything, we wanted to see more of the background stories to the individual characters before culminating in the conclusion. It would be both delightful and interesting to see it extended as a full two-hour piece and have more songs added to it.

Impressively accurate and enjoyable.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Rachel Louise Martin

Winging It plays in Space 3 at theSpace on the Mile at 8.35pm until 26 August.