VL at Summerhall – Edinburgh Fringe review

Square Go was a resounding Fringe success when it premiered at Roundabout, written by Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair and produced by Francesca Moody (of Baby Reindeer and Fleabag fame) – a team now reuniting for this new hour-long show, VL. 

The plot is simple – VL stands for virgin lips – and anyone branded with the moniker is essentially an outcast as they advance through secondary school having never been kissed. Two neon-tracksuit-sporting lads – Max and Stevie – are desperate to avoid social catastrophe and therefore plot a series of plans while waiting for a local bus to take them to the end-of-year party.

While on paper the show sounds as though it has all the nuance of a mid-tier Inbetweeners episode, in practice it is hard to deny just how much of a bona fide hoot the hour-long affair is. It helps that the two stars, Scott Fletcher and Gavin Jon Wright, are downright hilarious, mining the schtick of playing teenagers while years on themselves. Orla O’Loughlin, who did magnificent work with Hurley’s Mouthpiece, has a firecracker pace – if there were aisles at Roundabout I’d sure audiences would be rolling in them.

What is perhaps most invigorating about the show is that it never tries to be more than it is – a note-perfect character comedy show that revels in audience engagement and collective embarrassment.

The hellfire realities of school social agonies are a treasure trove for caricature and skit, allowing a well-paced hour to breeze by. It might not have the same gutsy bravado as Square Go, but it achieves everything it sets out to do.