★★☆☆☆
A pair of true crime podcasters force themselves into a murder investigation in a disappointingly bland musical with a huge marketing budget. Here’s our Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder review.
If you’re at the Edinburgh Fringe with a social media account right now, chances are you’ve seen one of those paid adverts for a little-huge show called Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder. You know, the one with the five-star reviews and Phoebe Waller-Bridge saying how good it is.
If you’re in Edinburgh without a social media account, you might have seen one of the many massive posters for the show dotted around the Scottish capital at prestigious, Fringe-centric locations. Or, you’ll have seen the massive, purple cow which marks the Udderbelly in George Square, where the show has taken up residence before departing to the Bristol Old Vic in September.
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Every year the Edinburgh Fringe plays host to a few massive, tent-filling productions, and 2023 is no different. Make no mistake, Kathy and Stella feels like a Fringe show with a West End-sized budget.
Unfortunately, cash is no substitute for invention. In one of the most creatively rich festivals on the planet, it’s disappointing that one of its supposed headline musicals can be quite so… ordinary.
(Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic)
The plot finds childhood best friends Kathy (Bronté Barbé) and Stella (Rebekah Hinds), hosts of Hull’s least successful true-crime podcast, desperate to break through into the cutthroat world of professional podcasting. When a vicious murder takes place in their hometown, the pair jump at the chance to solve the murder and make their name in the true-crime world.
From the off, there’s really very little to distinguish Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder from the murder procedurals it attempts to pastiche. Lazy jokes about Twitter trolls, “hashtag life goals,” and Rick Astley’s ‘Never Give You Up’ only add to the feeling that we’ve heard this all a hundred times before.
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The songs are perfectly serviceable, if also largely forgettable. Compared to something like Police Cops (another slickly produced musical soon to make a big theatre debut), the majority of Kathy and Stella just lacks the kind of invention you’d expect to see not just at the Fringe but in much of the West End.
By the time the show comes to a close, the only question remaining is which of the two or three side characters the show bothered to flesh out was the real killer all along. Sadly, the show-up to that point has given us little reason to care.
Around the musical’s midpoint, a character tells Kathy and Stella that their podcast is too generic for her production company to take it any further. If only the producers had said that earlier.
Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder is playing at the Underbelly – George Square from 19:30 until 27 August. You can view our comprehensive guide to the entire Fringe here.
