Numbers - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026

Kieron Barry’s Numbers begins with the kind of entitlement that only comes from believing the world was designed specifically for you. Set in an all-girls’ boarding school, this sharp and wickedly funny drama follows three tightly bonded Sixth Formers, Katherine, Jennifer and Isabel, in the hour before the new Head Girl is announced. They have already decided the result. Katherine will take the crown, she will choose her vice, and together they will begin the long march towards the careers they believe are their birthright: top lawyers, ambassadors, editors of The Times and, inevitably, the House of Lords.

They are wonderfully horrible. These blue-blooded Tory schoolgirls embody the particular brand of entitlement that comes from never having had to question whether you belong in a room. They are simultaneously mean girls and “pick me” girls, desperately competing for status while convinced they are above everyone else. Barry makes their ambitions funny, but there is something darker underneath. This is a miniature version of a world where privilege can disguise itself as merit, and confidence can look remarkably like competence when everyone around you has been trained to agree.

Then comes Hetty, another Sixth Former who has arrived at the school on a scholarship. She announces that she has been offered the position of Head Girl and, worse still for our three would-be rulers, intends to use the role to make the school more inclusive. Suddenly, their carefully constructed hierarchy is under threat. What follows is a vicious battle of wills as Katherine, Jennifer and Isabel attempt to bring Hetty down before she can establish herself.

The first half of Numbers is a slow burn. The tension comes from watching these girls manoeuvre around one another, testing loyalties and revealing just how far their sense of superiority extends. It is all social warfare: glances, alliances, manipulation and the quiet calculation of who holds the power. But Barry knows exactly when to let the pressure cooker explode.

When it does, the second half descends into wonderfully chaotic territory. The controlled nastiness of the opening gives way to something much more feral, as the battle for the Head Girl position becomes increasingly unhinged. It is here that the production really finds its comic rhythm, with the absurdity of these supposedly future leaders laid brutally bare.

Performed by a rotating cast and directors from City Youth Theatre, Numbers has an appealing sense of youthful energy at its core. There is something particularly satisfying about watching these grand ideas of hierarchy, privilege and power played out within the supposedly contained world of a school rec room. Barry turns the microcosm of the boarding school into a playground for bigger questions about who gets to lead, who gets to belong, and how fiercely privilege will fight when it feels itself slipping away.

Numbers is at its best when it lets its characters be gloriously awful. Beneath the bitchiness and chaos is a pointed examination of class, power and the assumption that leadership is something you inherit rather than earn. 

Lee Hutchison

4/5

Runs until August 15th at Space UK