Jake Mace
Piers MacKenzie’s upcoming EdFringe dark comedy Courier is arriving on home soil after a rave run at both Perth FringeWorld and Adelaide Fringe earlier this year. The show follows a Deliveroo cyclist aiming to complete an impossible delivery, based on Piers’ own time working as a bicycle courier during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Cornwall. We caught up with Piers for a pixelated pint to peddle through the show’s themes, and find out more.
You can catch Courier from August 1st to 24th (not the 13th) from 17:45 (50mins) at Playground 1 at ZOO Playground. Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Jake: Your upcoming Ed Fringe show Courier explores isolation, identity and agoraphobia – tell us about what inspired the show.
Piers: Being a courier in Cornwall during lockdown gave unexpected windows into strangers’ lives in a time of isolation. Before the pandemic, the orders were predictable – Big Mac meals, pizzas, standard comfort food. But mid-lockdown, something shifted. Suddenly you’re delivering a bottle of vodka and a Kit Kat Chunky at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday. Then it becomes daily – the same address, the same order – and you can’t help but wonder who’s on the other side of that door, what they’re going through, whether you should ask if they need help. But you don’t, because you’re just the courier, and that’s not your job.
During this time the label of ‘Essential Worker’ became very prominent in the UK. Before I was just a Deliveroo cyclist, but now… I’m Essential! I’m feeding the nation. The Knight in Shining Lycra – who just earned six pounds cycling through torrential rain to deliver someone’s popcorn chicken. Courier explores both the rider and the customer, the person too afraid to leave their house and the person who can’t afford not to.
Jake: Tell us about what the audience can expect coming into the show, and what they might not expect about the show.
Piers: If you’ve ever found yourself lying awake at 3am wondering “what’s it really like to be a Deliveroo cyclist pedalling through the backstreets of Cornwall?” – Well , this is your moment. But don’t expect a straightforward ‘day in the life of a courier’ piece. Unless that’s what you wanted – in which case, stop reading now and just buy your ticket.
The show is ultimately a comedy, so please laugh. It follows Benny, a Deliveroo cyclist hunched under a thermal backpack full of popcorn chicken and cursed with all the wrong instincts for human interaction. What begins as a routine drop-off – dodging seagulls, deciphering house numbers, the usual – quickly spirals into something far stranger and more unsettling. Along the way, I’ll be transforming into every character Benny meets, each one pulling him deeper into a world that’s anything but routine.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Piers: I think loneliness does insane things to people. Isolation warps you – it makes you chase connections that don’t exist, behave in ways you never thought you would. Maybe they’ll recognize that desperation in themselves or at least understand it in others. But honestly, if they leave thinking “that was funnier and weirder than I expected,” brilliant!
Jake: With Edinburgh Fringe 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Piers: There’s something about the complete madness of it all – it’s inevitably going to be exhausting but there’s something addictive about that chaos. The whiplash between watching a perfectly rehearsed comedy duo and then immediately after, someone delivering a brilliantly unhinged hour-long monologue as a sentient washing machine – that’s the Edinburgh magic right there!
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Piers: It would definitely be a Moscow Mule – a drink which gets mentioned in the show. Fizzy and energetic on the surface but there’s that sharp vodka bite underneath.
A reminder, you can catch Courier from August 1st to 24th (not the 13th) from 17:45 (50mins) at Playground 1 at ZOO Playground. Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
