Giro Baby - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026

Sophie Sandor’s Giro Baby is a riotous, sharp-edged blast of nostalgia that drags us back to the Scottish underclass at the turn of the millennium when pink shell suits, Playboy branding and the dying cries of Britpop collided with New Labour’s promise that everyone could get a seat at the table.

Sophie is a chaotic school girl before attempting to U-turn her way towards a career in Westminster. It’s a brilliantly messy coming-of-age story, but underneath the chippy runs, tower blocks and teenage chaos is a much bigger question: what happened to the children who were promised social mobility?

This is the Britain of Blair and Brown, when optimism was almost a political currency. But by the time Oasis were fading and Britpop was ending, that confidence was beginning to look increasingly fragile. Sophie grows up in benefits-class Britain and discovers that moving upwards can mean entering the world of politics that doesn't quite know what to do with you.

That makes the looming arrival of David Cameron’s “hug a hoody” politics particularly potent. The estate kids of Sophie’s world would soon become shorthand for “Broken Britain”: reduced to hoodies, headlines and moral panic. Giro Baby turns that political caricature inside out. These aren't statistics or symbols. They are dealers, chancers, nonces, local legends, idiots, victims and survivors. They are people whose lives are simultaneously extraordinary and completely ordinary to them.

Sandor’s performance captures the peculiar storytelling rhythm of a very young teenager with almost frightening accuracy: names fired out, stories stacked on stories, barely a breath between one revelation and the next. Everything is urgent; everything is funny; everything is somehow both shocking and completely normal. Sandor’s script understands that teenagers don't necessarily process the chaos around them becuase they just tell you about it.

And there is a lot of chaos. Death, drugs, violence and absurdity sit alongside the everyday rituals of growing up. At times, it feels like Euphoria transplanted onto a 00s Scottish scheme except the aesthetic is less designer heartbreak and more greasy chips, dodgy characters and whatever was playing on the stereo, probably  Scooter.

Lee Hutchison

Runs until August 29th at Greenside Riddles Court.