We Were Sisters - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2026

We Were Sisters is an exploration of what happens when your supposed “built-in best friend” becomes someone you can no longer stand. What begins with Celia losing her phone after a night out sets off a chain of seemingly insignificant events, slowly exposing the incompatibility between two sisters who have perhaps been drifting apart for much longer than either wants to admit.

Julia Van Praagh’s Celia is chaotic, impulsive and seemingly always one mishap away from disaster, yet she somehow manages to get through life by hook or by crook. Tigs Edwards’ Josie, meanwhile, has her professional life completely together, but that success has come at the expense of friendships, relationships and, ultimately, her own happiness. They are at different stages of life, with increasingly different priorities, and the space between them grows almost imperceptibly.

What makes We Were Sisters so effective is its structure. Rather than telling us the entire story of their relationship, the play gives us little snapshots: five or ten minutes here, another glimpse there, dropping us into the ebbs and flows of their lives. It feels less like watching a story unfold and more like being allowed to briefly observe a relationship that has existed long before we arrived. Van Praagh and Edwards are wonderful together, playing their characters with the kind of familiarity that makes every interaction feel natural.

For its 45 minutes, it genuinely feels as though We Were Sisters has been running for years in this theatre before we take our seats and will continue for years after we leave. There are arguments we don’t see, memories we don’t hear about and future conversations we can imagine happening. That sense of history makes the world feel wonderfully lived-in, while also making the past tense title increasingly poignant. It is a lovely, funny and painfully recognisable slice of life, interested less in one explosive moment than in the accumulation of all the little things that create distance between people who once felt inseparable. 

Lee Hutchison

4/5

Runs until August 22nd at TheSpace UK