Hard Pill Takes the Fringe: Can a St Andrews Comedy Translate?

★★★★☆

The Edinburgh Fringe opened its doors on August 7th, and so began the steady influx of St Andrews-based theatre into Scotland’s capital city. To begin our odyssey, Grapevine began by visiting an old favourite: Loulou Sloss’s Hard Pill. 

The play, which first premiered at the St Andrews Heritage Museum in November 2025, examines the shame of having or not having sex at university. With over six months since its original staging, my main question upon arrival was: what, if anything, has changed? 

The premise is simple: Astrid (Iris Hedley) needs the morning-after pill. What should be a quick process is protracted by the reluctance of the pharmacist (Aubrey McCance) to hand over the drug and the frequent interruptions by Astrid’s gossipy and overly friendly coursemate, Hanna (Liv Douglas). Luckily, as all visitors to St Andrews’ high street will know, Boots is a watering hole for students trying to pass the time in between classes and Astrid is soon joined by her two friends, Sonia (Natalie Urusov) and Harry (Matt Clegg), who over the course of the play will confront the highs and lows of sex in your early twenties. 

Sloss’s script is delectable, and each actor deserves individual commendation for rounding out the comedic archetypes Sloss paints.

Sofie Van Natta’s naturalistic production was equally striking in its ability to transport audiences to the scene of the crime. The stark white lighting, which would hang unnaturally above most stages, comfortably reminds one of the dizzying lights of a pharmacy, which often feel more interrogative than real. Despite the set consisting of only three chairs and a hole in the prop wall for McCance to appear through, the play never absorbed the drab mood of the cold waiting room lights.

Instead, the pacing of the show remained tight, each moment holding a distinct sense of spontaneity which made it feel as if each character might truly run off when they noted for the tenth time: “Shit, I’m meant to be in class.”

Image @heliosmedia_uk

My favourite part of the show was by far the dance interlude, which transported Harry and Sonia to a make-believe party, in order to properly see the ineptitude of their sexual peacocking. This short scene highlights the effectiveness of Sofia Hattiangadi and Sloss’s direction, proving that the play’s success relies as much on its physical comedy as on the wit of Sloss’s words. Urusov’s performance as the uptight Sonia is so persuasive as to seem merely reality, until one watches this scene and realises the strength of her physicality and character work. Clegg, on the other hand, does a remarkably good job at miming shots and shouted words across the room, so that audiences truly feel they are transported (luckily only momentarily) to a bad party. 

While it will be hard for audiences to detach themselves from the action onstage, the move to Bedlam Theatre provides the show with added dimension. Behind the Boots counter, the rigging, and the disco ball which hangs from the ceiling, are big east-facing windows reminding audiences they are sitting in a converted church, seemingly adding yet another layer to the sexual liberation conundrum which lies at the heart of the play. 

Perhaps the only pitfall of Hard Pill is also its strength: its rootedness in St Andrews. Much of the delight I took from the show was because I know an Astrid, a Sonia, a Hanna, and a Harry. Certain lines like, ‘[Harry and I] mainly talk about growing up in the UK,’ (spoken by the English Sonia to American Astrid) make sense in the context of the Americanized bubble of St Andrews, but seem perhaps to brand the comedy too specifically as a product of its hometown. It’s curious to me that the play wasn’t revised to better suit the international audiences drawn in by the Fringe festival. 

Having said that, credit must be given to Sloss for not falling into the trap most young writers do: her work does not try to contain the whole world. Instead it captures the Boots on Market Street and the shallow lives of the average St Andrews student. 

For its move to the Fringe, Hard Pill remains infinitely funny, terribly smart, and a show which forces audiences to confront whether they have just paid money to watch Clegg eat his dinner. 

They very well might have, but by the end of the play, audience members will almost certainly be happy to have done so. 

Muna Mir