The Plot - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026

Emma Howlett’s The Plot takes one of Britain’s most familiar historical conspiracies and drops it into the strange, claustrophobic space of the afterlife. Thomas and Robert Wintour have been dead for some time, but death has not brought them any particular peace. Instead, they find themselves trapped together with nothing but each other, a box of matches and the increasingly uncomfortable question of what exactly they did to deserve this eternity.

Rather than presenting the Gunpowder Plot as a neat piece of historical storytelling, Howlett turns it into an exploration of memory and guilt. The brothers cannot completely agree on their own recollections, and their attempts to reconstruct the past become increasingly theatrical. The further they delve into the events surrounding their conspiracy, the more the boundaries between what happened and how it has subsequently been remembered begin to blur. It is a clever way of questioning the stories we inherit about history, particularly when those stories have been polished into national mythology.
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Sophie Kean and Abby McCann showcase a remarkable range as they populate its world with a huge variety of characters. Between them, they move through kings, prosecutors, performers, politicians, and the many voices that surround the brothers' story, often switching from one role to another in moments. The sheer scope of the characters they create is impressive, but it is the distinction they bring to each one that makes the performances so effective as they blend playfulness with the darker material.

These are men who attempted an act of political violence, yet the production is not particularly interested in reducing them to monsters. Instead, it considers the circumstances, beliefs and competing narratives that surrounded them. Religion, political power and public perception all become part of the interrogation, while Guy Fawkes emerges as another example of how history can simplify a complicated story by giving one person a name and a face.

They are condemned in purgatory to repeat and examine the very events that have already secured their place in history. The audience knows the outcome before the story even begins but this is less like a historical event being recreated and more like a story being pulled apart and put back together in front of us.The Plot is less concerned with suspense than with what happens when you revisit a supposedly settled version of the past. 

Lee Hutchison

4/5

Runs until August 31st at Summerhall