How would you describe your show to someone discovering it for the first time at the Fringe? If you like pitch-black comedy, nerdy Shakespeare references, and increasingly intense physical combat between academics, then The Lady Doth Protest is for you. Our show is about a “great man of the theatre” whose presentation on Shakespeare is interrupted by a woman in the audience protesting his inaccurate interpretations of the Bard. Eventually, these two battle to control the play itself. What moment, idea or frustration first sparked this show into existence? I’m the playwright and I was having lunch with my friend and collaborator, Nealy Glenn. She told me she fantasized about a play that would let her perform Shakespeare’s monologues for women, while also exploring a woman’s struggle to control her own life. By the end of that lunch, we had sketched out the basic plot of The Lady Doth Protest. How has the show evolved from its earliest idea to what audiences will see now? After she read the first draft, Nealy, who plays the female audience member in the show, told me she sensed something dark hiding in the script. She encouraged me to explore that, and she was right: As I allowed the characters to reach the most extreme version of their conflict, the play’s true form revealed itself. Later drafts also added our on-stage musician, and now it’s impossible to imagine the show without him. What makes Edinburgh Fringe the right place for this show right now? Both tonally and structurally, The Lady Doth Protest takes some very big swings. Edinburgh Fringe audiences are adventurous and open-hearted enough to go to the strange places we want to take them. What does bringing this particular show to the Fringe represent for you personally? I’ve spent my career as a theatre journalist and dramaturg, and The Lady Doth Protest marks my professional playwriting debut. It’s a thrill to put on this new hat. What has been the most unexpectedly challenging part of getting this show to Edinburgh? Without giving too much away, it’s been challenging to figure out how to clean up our mess in the short time after our show ends and the next one begins. If audiences leave the venue holding onto one thing, what do you hope it is? I hope audiences leave arguing about who’s the “hero” of the play and who’s the “villain.” I hope nobody can agree, ever. How do you think performing this show during a Fringe run will shape it? Fringe audiences will teach us what’s funny, what’s gross, and what’s a good combination of the two. Who do you hope this show finds at the Fringe? For me, the ideal audience member will be someone who enjoys ambitious, dark comedy that’s also trying to say something real about the battle of the sexes. Finally, if this show came with a warning label, what would it say? BE WARNED: This play contains violence, sexual situations, and lots of misquoted Shakespeare. The Lady Doth Protest runs at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 17th-29th August 2026 (except 23rd).
Next in our Edinburgh Fringe interview series, we speak to Mark Blankenship regarding the piece of theatre, The Lady Doth Protest, which is being brought to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2026. The Lady Doth Protest is ”A darkly comic, present-day battle of wits, of the sexes, and of Shakespearean bonafides. The Fool, a self-made “scholar,” clings to the Bard for relevance, until a stranger refuses to stay polite and the room tips into an absurd cage match. In 2026, when whose voice is heard is still a question, this show makes the classics feel urgent and hilariously combustible. Fast, physical and sharp. Come for the comedy, stay for the moment you realise you’re part of the argument. When the text is stripped bare, what humanity is left glowing beneath?”
