Sometimes the architecture tells you almost as much about a Fringe show as the programme. On Some Far Shore plays in a tiny space, perhaps 40 square metres, with audience on two sides and a playing area barely three metres by three in one corner. This is theatre in your front room, exposing for the performers and with absolutely nowhere to hide.
Written by Louis Benneyworth, with book by Benneyworth and Madi Bouchta, this new musical follows Euan, played by Thomas Perry, struggling to write the eulogy for his mother Helen, Nicole Palka, while his girlfriend Isla, Katie Gill, attempts to help. It is a piece about grief, memory, storytelling and the people we leave behind.
The three performances are strong, vocally and emotionally, but On Some Far Shore needs an anchor, and given the maritime imagery washing through it, preferably a big, heavy metal one.
Euan arrives and almost immediately starts singing, standing above our heads. It feels awkward. Sit him down. Let him talk to us, look us in the eye. Tell us who he is. Give us a joke. Relax the audience and then take us out to sea. The first quarter consequently struggles to make the emotional connection the remainder eventually achieves.
This is an earnest piece, perhaps occasionally too earnest. I always found that the more serious the subject, the more important it becomes to wring out every available drop of humour. Funnily enough, one of the biggest laughs comes from an apparent slipped line from Helen, “crumbs and laundry”. Oh, the irony. Keep it.
What I particularly enjoyed was the ingenuity of the staging. A box becomes a seat. A stepladder, tipped onto its side, becomes a boat in one particularly effective sequence. A large sheet of polythene becomes the sea, filling this minuscule space, reflecting light and moving air around the performers. There is something approaching Peter Pan here, ordinary objects transformed through imagination, and I would happily see the production push further into that magic realm.
The lighting is less successful. If a torch or spotlight is going to become significant in a room this intimate, turn the overhead lights off completely and let darkness do some work.
Later, however, the music begins to land. Perry’s tenor has a lovely timbre and Nicole Palka has a particularly beautiful voice which opens up beautifully in the second half number which she sings with real emotional clarity. Previous reviews of the Oxford premiere similarly identified Palka’s later song as one of the musical highlights and praised all three performers’ vocal abilities.
By the end the woman sitting beside me is bawling her eyes out. I wasn’t quite there, but the production certainly travelled a considerable distance from a weak opening that had left me emotionally stranded.
And there is something rather wonderful about the shoestring nature of all this. A box, a ladder, a sheet, three performers and a new score in a room hardly bigger than a lounge. This is how the Fringe used to feel before the big corporations arrived.
On Some Far Shore is a little unfinished, but the talent is evident. It could do with more humour, and a stronger first quarter, an easing in, if you like, to the story and the characters. Give it that, and this promising little musical might yet find its sea legs.
Playing until August 22nd 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026ONSOMEF
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 17th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr