EdFringe Review: Badgers

A theatrical highlight of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Malaika Kegode’s BADGERS is a fascinating story about stories: the true, the false, the bad, and the good. Infused with a lyrical, rhythmic quality by its creators’ words and charismatic performance, it’s a magical realist fable; a love letter to the tales we tell about the world, and ourselves.

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Accordingly, the audience shares the lead role as Meles, a young would-be podcast journalist and daughter of a legendary newswoman facing a terminal diagnosis. Kegode guides us through our story—part narrator, part avatar—while Meles’ internal monologue and the surrounding characters are brought to life by a superbly executed cast recording.

It’s the sort of set-up that could easily feel forced or artificial, yet between Kegode’s mesmeric central performance and Jenny Davies’ sure direction, BADGERS seduces the audience into their role, aided by a responsive live score composed by Jakabol and performed by Beth Roberts (strings and vocals) and Joe Williams (strings).

Adding to this sense of entering another reality is Rebecca Wood’s monochrome set, placing the musicians in an upstage booth while Kegode commands a stylised podcast desk out front. Mike Gunning and Natalia Chan’s atmospheric lighting works in tandem with Christopher Harrison’s video design—utilising three screens that display shifting, abstract animations that coalesce and dissolve like thoughts seen through a glass, darkly.

Morality, True Crime, and Folklore in BADGERS

Thus transplanted into Meles’ life, we share her excitement upon discovering the cold case of a young musician who vanished ten years earlier, leaving behind love songs written for his first, and only, flame. There’s a story there—one that could launch a broadcasting career.

Yet as the investigation leads us toward a grieving mother, a taboo family melody, and family lore claiming a missing boy was turned into a badger, journalistic detachment begins to slip. As Meles stumbles into journalistic blunders and quiet manipulation of her subjects, the show poses a sharp dilemma: will your ethics hold, or will you exploit another person’s tragedy to make your mark as a true-crime podcaster?

Then, when events spiral beyond your control and experience suggests that animal transmutation might not be purely mythical, will you sink, or learn to swim toward something new?

At heart, Kegode tells a simple story surrounded by messy pitfalls and twisting, uncertain paths. Beautifully contained, it finds its beginning in an ending and closes with promises of a beginning. Wandering from dream to nightmare, perched between the newsroom and folklore, it risks pulling back the curtain on how narratives are constructed, yet retains enough mystery to stay truly haunting.

With a tale touched by tragedy, Kegode also shows immense bravery in steering the show toward an uplifting, genuinely optimistic conclusion. This is a writer with absolute faith in the power of storytelling. Maybe, even in this altered reality, things ultimately come good for Meles just a little too easily, but Kegode shows admirable dedication when injecting strangeness into her finale.

In the end, BADGERS is an inventive, essential piece of Fringe theatre that shouldn’t be missed.

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