Mayflies ★★ - The Recs

If you’re going to ask Fringegoers to traipse out to Leith to see a show, it better be good.

Mayflies is not good.

In fact, it’s downright irritating, a bad adaptation of a novel that hasn’t been sufficiently dramatized. How this show got a Fringe First will be one of the great mysteries of Edinburgh Fringe 2026, but at least that will create some mystery for a show that has none.

A novel cannot just be turned into a play without a serious consideration of the change of literary form, and not enough thinking has occurred here, as the first 45 minutes could easily be excised. Instead, the show is determined to present a flashback series of middling youthful anecdotes between two young men so that the impact of the death of one of them will be more meaningful when they’re older.

Their long relationship could and should be built into the text with the adult characters. Alas, the teenagers are forced upon the audience, and only when the characters are adults does the play properly begin. But by then it’s too late.

Two factors give this Grid Iron production some virtue. The first is the venue itself, an abandoned warehouse that’s been outfitted to show huge, vivid projections. Though the acoustics are rather dodgy, the space is at least interesting and unusual.

The second and more important positive about Mayflies is the presence and performance of Lucianne McEvoy. So wonderful two years ago in the Traverse production of So Young, McEvoy is the show’s MVP despite only appearing in one short scene in the first chunk of the play. When she finally gets to return, her presence fills the warehouse with intensity, and every word of her dialogue can be understood. She brings such life force to the production that you can only wonder why it took so bloody long to give her the spotlight.