Scotland

Pervert Werewolf – Banshee Labyrinth

There comes a point late enough at the Edinburgh Fringe when the normal rules of theatre begin to loosen. At 11.25pm, down in the Banshee Labyrinth, Pervert Werewolf positively encourages them to fall off altogether.

You may know the party game Werewolf, or you may not. In its simplest form, everyone is assigned a secret identity. Most are innocent villagers, while hidden amongst them are werewolves who quietly pick off their neighbours during the night. By day, everyone wakes up, argues, accuses, lies, defends themselves and eventually votes on who they think the werewolves might be. Then everyone closes their eyes and night falls again.

Pervert Werewolf takes that familiar structure and adds, well, a pervert. The result is essentially Werewolf after dark, with considerably fewer inhibitions.

Presented by Stolen Table Collective, this is an interactive game in which the audience very quickly stops being an audience. We are issued with blindfolds and name tags, create characters and become inhabitants of a distinctly peculiar village. Finding out who is who is ostensibly the object of the exercise. What actually happens is considerably more chaotic.

I found myself cast as the choir boy. Sadly, my particular choir boy didn’t get much opportunity to sing, which seems a missed opportunity. This is a show crying out for music.

There is a distinctly Welsh flavour to proceedings, including the Welsh flag, and I couldn’t help thinking that Tom Jones’s Delilah is sitting there waiting to be deployed. Betrayal, deception and killing make it thematically appropriate, while at this time of night this is a crowd that wants to sing. Get them into Delilah and I suspect the roof might come off the Banshee.

They are certainly willing to do almost everything else. Pervert Werewolf has no shortage of audience participation and, eventually, a considerable shortage of clothing. On the night I attended, the village Mayor surveyed the results and declared proceedings to be “particularly sausage heavy”. From his reaction, I rather suspect he had been hoping for a somewhat different outcome.

What particularly impressed me, however, was the investment Stolen Table makes in its audience. This is a Free Fringe show, yet everyone receives the materials required to play. Blindfolds, labels and props might be inexpensive individually but providing them night after night demonstrates a real commitment to the idea. The company gives something to its audience before asking the audience to give anything back.

And I suspect plenty will. This is exactly where the Free Fringe’s pay what you can model works beautifully. You walk in having paid nothing and walk out having been given an experience rather than merely watched one.

Perhaps that is Pervert Werewolf’s greatest strength. It is constructed sufficiently tightly to keep moving, while remaining loose enough for its audience to create much of the entertainment themselves. Every performance must inevitably be different.

It is ridiculous, extremely interactive and over almost before you’ve worked out quite what has happened. Perhaps that’s why it leaves you wanting another go.

I’m going back. And next time, this choir boy intends to sing.

Playing until August 19th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026PERVERT

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 16th August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: