By: Alice Waterfield, Marketing Manager, Brand
August 2026
2026 has been a huge year for Theatre Royal Plymouth. Our mission is to create, make, build and present world-class theatre and this summer we have successfully opened two new shows, both with opening nights in the same week! One of these productions was Badgers, a new play by Malaika Kegode, produced by our team here at TRP in association with Bristol Old Vic. We opened Badgers in Bristol with two preview performances before heading off to Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
I have been working on the marketing campaign for Badgers alongside Design Manager Charlie Dawe, so we set off for a weekend in Edinburgh to see the campaign in action, visit a few venues and take in the full Edinburgh Fringe experience.
It was a first-time visit to the festival for both of us, so we were really excited to visit the venues and see as many shows as we could. We ended up seeing 13 shows across the weekend!
We started off at Traverse Theatre, of course, to catch Badgers alongside a sold-out audience. The show has gone down a storm at the festival, with critics giving five-star reviews, calling it “moving” “inventive” and “spellbinding”. We were so proud to hear the amazing feedback from audience members on our visit. There was laughter, tears and a standing ovation at the end – everything we could hope for from a TRP production. We had a catch-up with Malaika and the rest of the cast after the show, and it was great to hear that they have settled so well into their Edinburgh run. Everyone is so excited to be returning to Plymouth soon for our performances in The Drum from Wed 02 – Sat 05 September.
We also had a catch-up with the team at Traverse Theatre, who we’ve loved working with on this production. They managed to find us the last two tickets for The Singer, playing in Traverse One, which is a gig-theatre show with music and lyrics by KT Tunstall. It was a fantastic show with amazing Deaf representation – we even learnt a bit of BSL during the performance.
Our next stop was Pleasance Courtyard, one of the biggest venues at the festival, hosting 17 different performance spaces. The Cellar is a 46-capacity venue, which is where we caught Meet Mayor Max by Alex Robins. Every year, TRP partners with Pleasance to support a production on its journey to the Fringe. We’re so pleased to be working with Alex this year, particularly with his background of working with us through our Creative Communities and Artist Development programmes over the years.
Meet Mayor Max is a real story based on Alex’s journey to Idyllwild in the USA, where he met the Mayor of the town, who also happened to be a Golden Retriever. It’s a hilarious story with some deeper moments, highlighting what it means to find inner peace. We had a lovely chat with Alex after the show, who told us how the show has introduced him to a wide range of American audiences, including people from Idyllwild itself! We’ve loved working on this show, particularly Charlie, as who wouldn’t enjoy working on artwork of a Golden Retriever!
Some of the show highlights from our trip were The Shocking Truth About Flat Earth at Pleasance Queen Dome, Police Cops in Space at Assembly Roxy, HOLE! at Underbelly and Garry Starr: Classic Penguins at Pleasance Grand. Pretty much every one of these shows has to be seen to be believed, so if you are heading to the festival, make sure you add them to your list!
We had such a fantastic time in the city for the weekend and got some great ideas just by walking around the main streets. Charlie picked up a leaflet from everyone who offered one for design research, and we both loved seeing Badgers and Meet Mayor Max artwork around the city. One of our biggest takeaways from the experience was how each individual venue carries its brand throughout the festival, with some very clever uses of brand colours and styles.
We walked a lot of steps, saw a lot of shows and learnt a lot about Fringe marketing! We can’t wait to put all of our new learnings into action.