It's Gonna Blow ★★★★

There’s something sweetly poetic that Fishing4Chips should bring their latest show, an immersive comedy set in 79AD Pompeii, to Edinburgh, a city built on an extinct volcano! But there’s nothing dormant about It’s Gonna Blow!

The action erupts (someone, please make the puns stop) before you even get into the theatre as the cast, fully in character, interact with you while you are in the queue. You are no longer Fringe attendees heading into Queen Dome – you are Pompeians, heading into your Town Hall for the bi-monthly forum where you can air your local grievances. At this performance, people in the queue were moaning about too many trees, others not enough beer. And, as with any municipal gathering, naturally the thorny topic of bins gets an airing.

Thus the stage is set, building up a picture of everyday life in Pompeii, complete with quotidian gripes, moans and squabbles. The talented cast of four play multiple inhabitants of the Roman city – including Robertus who runs his own pasta and dessert making classes, Oceanus, the pipe smoking fisherman (played with surreal absurdity by Elinor Solly), and Agrippa the farmer, among many others.

It is against the normality of everyday life that rumours suggesting all might not be well start to trickle through. Although not if Mayor Fausta has anything to say about it. Pitched somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Holly Willoughby, Yasmine Meaden nails the slippery, patronising unctuousness of a career politician who is determined to silence anything that contradicts her agenda. Equally resolute are the It’s Gonna Blow Foundation who are determined to reveal the worrying signs of impending environmental threat. And not to forget Salvus (Sean Wareing) a dodgy dealer bent on cashing in on the growing crisis with his pumice precautionary protection devices (that look quite a lot like cushions).

Those who have seen Fishing4Chips shows before will be delighted to know that their trademark silliness, their inability to resist a pun or five, and their very gentle audience participation are all present and correct. Their skill in making you care about the characters in such a short time continues to impress. Wareing’s scene-stealing goblin Nymphius, a reviled outsider whose prophetic observations from his belltower, is both loveable but also leans into the satire of those who are othered being ignored. Similarly Freddie Walker‘s dual role of husband and wife Laverna and Gratus (never seen at the same time for obvious reasons) takes on a surprising emotional punch when we learn of their fate.

While their last show, Burning Down The Horse, latched on to the blueprint of a historical show playing out in real time with all the added jeopardy that goes with it, It’s Going To Blow follows that but with greater ambitions. Climate inaction, how protesters are marginalised and even the treatment of migrants are sewn into the story with a dexterity that never feels shoehorned or inorganic – and is a credit to the script of Wareing and Walker that they continue to test the limits and find depthful parallels in what is a fun immersive comedy piece.

It’s a fast-paced hurtle towards that fateful day and if there were any quibble about the show currently, it’s that it is slightly frenetic in places with so many exits and entrances of the multitude of characters that you start to see the effort and lose the character.

Without wanting to spoil or even hint at the ending, It’s Gonna Blow! reaches a climax so surprising and devastating, it manages to rival Vesuvius itself.

As Pompeii themes go, it’s not quite as saucy as Frankie Howerd’s foray to the forum or as chart-friendly as the band but all in all, it’s a lava-rly day out (Ed: that doesn’t work at all). It’s a hot ticket (Ed: that’s so generic it could be AI, anything better?). Dripping with molten mischief? (Ed: okay I’ll be magma-nimous). Got it – It’s Gonna Blow! is pyroclastic fantastic.