I Made you a Mixtape: A Review

★★★½

Not quite a dance show, not truly immersive theatre, and definitely not a play, I Made You A Mixtape is an experimental work of theatre that centres female joy and captures the true spirit of the Fringe. 

Walking into the venue, audiences are welcomed back to the 90s. When the nine performers walk onstage (decorated as a dorm room), it truly feels no different than watching a group of friends wandering into your living room. From playing cards to painting nails, the 50 minute performance offers the full range of dorm party experiences, where games of pong bounce through the aisles and audience members are dragged up to join sessions of head-banging. It’s not quite immersive theatre — audience interaction isn’t essential to the show’s progression — but what it certainly is is infectious. 

The show promises a different performance each night, shaped by a “mixtape” of scenarios, written and numbered on cardstock, and randomly chosen by audience members before the show’s start. Yet these cards (revealed to the performers and spectators simultaneously) seem to have little impact on what follows. An eclectic mix of 90s tunes, hip-hop, and modern beats is paired with the general jumping around one expects from a good party. Yet amidst all this movement, it is difficult to get a true sense of the individual performers, let alone their characters’ storylines. The vitality of the performance is impossible to miss, but it would benefit from a stronger centralising thread.

Nevertheless, if you still have a gap in your Fringe programme, this is the kind of show that is guaranteed to leave you more joyful than it found you. When they’re not dancing, the performers giggle, braid each other's hair, whisper along the wings, and embrace each other in a way that never once feels performative. It is a certified ode to the particular intimacy of female friendships that exists at college.

Go with friends, otherwise you’ll feel desperate for a dorm party, texting soppy “I miss you” messages to your college friends. 

Muna Mir

Photos via Sue Hayward Lafferty