I interviewed Richard MacLean Smith earlier in the Fringe and was intrigued by the trajectory of a man who started the Unexplained podcast in 2016 and has since turned our fascination with things we cannot quite explain into something of a phenomenon, including a book based on the series.
I was particularly interested in whether Unexplained Live might represent another step along that trajectory. Danny Robins has travelled similar paranormal territory, ultimately taking 2:22 A Ghost Story onto major stages around the world. Could MacLean Smith eventually follow him?
On the evidence here, he may well.
For his first Fringe incarnation of Unexplained, MacLean Smith takes us to the remote Flannan Isles in December 1900. Three lighthouse keepers are stationed on Eilean Mòr, cut off from the mainland by miles of Atlantic Ocean. When the relief vessel arrives some weeks later, there is no welcoming party. The lighthouse is deserted. The men have simply vanished.
What follows is a mystery which has endured for more than a century. What happened on that isolated island? Was there a catastrophic accident, an enormous wave, some terrible disagreement between the men, or something altogether more difficult to explain?
Then there are the questions surrounding what happened afterwards. What became of the logbook? Why was there no full public inquiry into the disappearance of three men from a government operated lighthouse? Add the reports of extraordinary damage around the landing, including twisted metalwork, and the story begins to acquire more than a hint of conspiracy. Was something known that was never made public, or has the absence of evidence simply created a vacuum which generations of storytellers have eagerly filled?
The mystery has proved irresistible ever since. It even reached the big screen in the 2018 film The Vanishing, starring Gerard Butler, Peter Mullan and Connor Swindells, which offered its own fictional explanation for what happened to the three men. MacLean Smith is wisely less interested in solving the mystery than in laying out what we know, what we think we know, and leaving us to inhabit that tantalising space between the two.
I knew the story already, although I suspect much of the audience didn’t, and even with that knowledge I found his recounting fascinating. MacLean Smith is an accomplished podcaster, and it shows. His delivery is extraordinarily smooth, measured and gentle, his level voice drawing us quietly into a story that becomes increasingly unsettling.
Importantly, this isn’t simply somebody sitting onstage reading out a podcast. MacLean Smith’s own music provides an atmospheric background, while carefully judged sound effects and lighting help transform the experience into something more theatrical. Nothing is overplayed. The mystery is allowed to do the work.
Was the damage on the island simply the result of the terrifying power of an Atlantic storm and an enormous wave, capable of sweeping three experienced lighthouse keepers into the sea? Or was there some other force, human, natural or otherwise, at work on Eilean Mòr?
I did wonder afterwards whether an earlier slot might suit this gentle and contemplative form of storytelling better. That’s hardly a criticism of MacLean Smith, more an observation about where such an unusually measured piece sits in a long Fringe Day.
What impressed me most was its confidence. There is no desperate attempt to frighten us, no cheap theatrical shock and no need to manufacture an explanation where none exists. MacLean Smith simply tells a very good story extremely well.
That is where Unexplained Live gets you. MacLean Smith doesn’t need to manufacture a supernatural answer because the unanswered questions are considerably more interesting. You emerge back into Edinburgh still turning over the possibilities, still wondering what could exert that kind of force, what happened to the records, and whether the whole story was ever told.
If a show can send you out into the night still trying to solve a 126-year-old mystery, it has done its job rather well.
Running until 29th August, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026UNEXPLA
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 12th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr