The Edinburgh Fringe Gets Heated!

With the filming of Season 2 of Heated Rivalry already underway as of the beginning of this month, the (surely) harried production has already released a polite public plea for certain fans not to physically obstruct sets or disturb the actors whilst they are trying to work. My advice to any of my fellow obsessives needing a fix would be to see Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody at The Edinburgh Fringe!

For over 70 years, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been the spiritual home of quirky comedy shows that are just a little bit sexy; the perfect place for the UK premiere of this particular musical parody. Based on the low-budget queer hockey drama TV show that, much like The Fringe Festival itself, started life small but went on to become a global phenomenon. Poetic no?

On a balmy Scottish summer night, I took myself to see a performance of the much-hyped show in a venue shaped like a giant, purple, blown-up cow (appropriately camp). A sold-out performance, the queue outside was loud and excited, with fans donning hockey jerseys and fan merch. I overheard one young gentleman proclaim: “I liked the show, but I’m not obsessed. I don’t wanna see them shagging on stage, like”. The man was unknowingly voicing one of my musings: how would they show the (copious) graphic sex scenes? Or, less importantly, how would they show the ice hockey scenes? Would the music actually be good? All would be answered in the fullness of time.

The musical parody came (ahem) to Edinburgh straight from off-Broadway in New York, so of course received a warm Scottish welcome, which was a room full of loudly, tipsy people up for a good time and some ‘banter’! The performance started off in a meta place where imagined fans of the TV show (known as ‘Susans ‘, who are frustrated housewife types with Stanley Cups* of margarita and Xanax; should I be offended?) narrate the performance. I had to laugh as ‘Susan ‘, the narrator, proclaimed it was a show aimed at women whilst I was sitting in a row made up exclusively of men.

The jokes were thick and went hard. The characters are, of course, exaggerated for comic effect; Shane Hollander becomes an overenthusiastic, goody two-shoes played expertly by Zheng Xi Yong (Bridgerton) and can I just say his quads and calves are insaaaannnne! Yong plays opposite Joseph Dann, who perfectly embodies Ilya’s early episode ‘Slavic fuckboy energy’. Both with incredible singing voices, dare I say even better than the off-Broadway cast, to my untrained ear anyway. I made a bet with myself that there would be a lot of jokes stereotyping Russia (no one genuinely thinks the ‘hammer and sickle’ flag is the actual Russian flag, right?). Some may call these jokes low-hanging fruit like the jokes about Ilya’s fabulously large posterior, but they work in context.

The music was catchy; my particular favourites were ‘Gym Song’ and ‘Canadian Gay Guy ‘, though I may have the title wrong as the full album will not be available until September 18^th. While the sex scenes, though not exactly handled tastefully, were certainly creative and comedic! I particularly loved the ingenious use of white party poppers (think about it).

The show has been criticised for its poor pacing, but in its defence, they are trying to cram the ten years of events covered in the TV show into 75 minutes. The story of Scott and Kip is summed up in less than five minutes (and not to sound like a hater but that’s how long it should have been in the TV show too). At this point in the show, a ‘volunteer’ who was definitely not a plant, but was sitting in the front row and read all his lines and jokes perfectly without a stutter (maybe I’m cynical) was tapped to play Scott Hunter. The hater in me says they were scrabbling to make that story interesting and comical. I would be remiss not to mention that many fans felt the inclusion of Connor Storrie’s (who plays Ilya in the TV show) YouTube videos from when he was a child distasteful, as they are making implications about his sexuality, something the actor has never commented on. Many fans were calling for that section to be removed before the show moved on.

Although the stage show is advertised to appeal to everyone, you don’t have to have seen the TV show; obviously, you will get more from it if you have. It was nice to sit in a theatre of like-minded fans cheering when Ilya announced he was coming to the cottage to continue their secret love affair. The ‘cottage’ (as the musical points out) is almost 500 sq ft and made almost entirely of glass, which may have been an artistic choice or if it was all that was available on Airbnb.

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorised Musical Parody is a fun time and a celebration of queer joy and fandom. As a fellow showgoer stated, it’s extremely impressive for something that was put together in about 8 months. Experience it at The Edinburgh Fringe until August 30^th before it moves to London’s West End!

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* I just got that.