Bluegrass, courtroom drama, and Victorian murder meet in a sharp, witty retelling of the Lizzie Borden’s story.
“Myth always makes for a good story.” Quite right. We get the back and forth on whether we’re here for drama or history, and before you know it, they’re breaking the fourth wall to bicker about the whole thing. At one point, an exasperated “Come on, this is GCSE drama level!” gets lobbed into the audience. It’s all very knowing, very winky, and the crowd laps it up.
The set up is straightforward, Lizzie Borden, accused of axing her father and stepmother in 1892, faces us, the jury. It’s clear in this telling that she cannot stand her stepmother. Old Yankee stock, dripping in mill money, she hardly needs the inheritance, which makes the whole “why would she?” question all the more tantalising. First crime scene photos in America? Tick. Legal loopholes about who inherits what? Tick. Motive? Well… that’s where it gets deliciously murky.
Music threads the whole piece together, guitar, mandolin, and fiddle in a line up that could have wandered straight out of a Tennessee porch. Bluegrass bounces happily alongside the more ominous moments, and the cast are as tight musically as they are in their acting. We even get “Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down”, which feels fittingly authentic to the period.
And yes, Mozart’s Requiem makes another Fringe appearance, third time I’ve heard it this week. This time, it becomes the soundtrack to Lizzie’s jaunt around Europe, played on the violin. It’s almost absurd, but in a good way.
The three strong cast (Sasha Wilson, Lawrence Boothman, David Leopold) are excellent, morphing in and out of characters without ever letting the pace drop. They’re clearly having a ball, and that sense of fun keeps the audience right with them. It’s part courtroom drama, part folk gig, part historical whodunnit, and it works.
Oddly enough, I already knew the Lizzie Borden tale from the RedHanded podcast, which covered it brilliantly. The show doesn’t try to compete with forensic podcast detail, instead, it plays with the edges of fact and legend, letting the audience feel complicit in the myth making.
In the end, we learn Lizzie died at 66, with only one person at her funeral. Her sister Emma followed just nine days later. These details, dropped in so casually, are like the last melancholy notes of a fiddle tune, haunting, but still oddly beautiful.
Highly entertaining, musically rich, and smart enough to know when to laugh at itself, Bury the Hatchet is a Fringe gem I can recommend without hesitation. Just don’t expect it to tell you exactly whodunnit, myth, after all, always makes for a better story
15:50 Daily (except 12th) Till 25th August
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/bury-the-hatchet
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 10th August 2025
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr 10mins
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