REVIEW: The Deadmouse and Peabrain Dreams, Alright?, EdFringe 2025 ★★★★

Small town, vast dreams. Genuinely surprising throughout – to the point of delusion – The Deadmouse and Peabrain Dreams is a zany rollercoaster brimming with comedy, skilful physicality and, somewhere in a tangled web of false teeth, rhinestone belts, and a giant mouse head, a poignant story of people trapped in dead-end lives with only their nearest and dearest to help them.

We meet Jodi and Shannon in their mid-twenties, living in a town full of deadbeats and pretending not to mourn the disappearance of their mother into the arms of Mateo, a swanky Spaniard she met during a family holiday. Jodi wants to win the X Factor, Shannon is trying to help, but neither can get it quite right. Surreal chaos ensues as the siblings’ paths diverge with dire consequences. Confusing at turns, Alana Louise’s moving tale leaves us with the sentiment that it won’t always be possible to shed the shackles of personal circumstance – and that not everybody can end up with their name in lights.

There is endless, endearing likeability across the cast. Shannon (played, in latter performances, by Director James Parker) and Jodi (Sarah Palmieri) are as mad as they are charming, with spellbinding, childlike physicality that is reminsicent of Daisy May and Charlie Cooper’s This Country. Truly remarkable is Parker’s performance as Shannon, Jodi’s somewhat gormless sibling who is naively hopeful, talentlessly striving, and full of unconditional love – which becomes all the more tragic when Shannon can no longer understand Jodi’s depth and complexity. Parker’s comedic timing and characterisation were sublime, and the room was palpably eager for his next entrance throughout. Palmieri’s Jodi was strong, but occasionally swallowed in the all-consuming draw of Shannon’s silliness.

Nevertheless, the siblings’ relationship is a complete win, garnering sympathy and laughter alike. The only pitfall here was drawing attention to the siblings’ age in the script – it was whimsical and totally acceptable for the pair to drift without specification, letting their childlike characterisations exist both as adults and starry-eyed kids. When we find out Shannon is twenty-six (“but you act like you’re twelve!”), it garners a shallow laugh, but changes the pitch slightly, forcing us to question more concretely how they got this far (not very far) in life and snapping us briefly out of the world they have built. Stronger are the beats in which we cannot grasp if the two are just very young and naive, or older but cataclysmically unprepared and unsupported for the real world; Jodi, to our sad amazement, laments the end of the Me Too movement as it limits her chances of climbing to the top quicker. This is ‘small town life’ which is almost patronising in its sympathetic portrayal of young adults lacking opportunity, education and support.

Choices in mixing clowning comedy and sharp emotion are well-made. Where Shannon trains Jodi up for the X Factor, we see a classic filmic montage of scenes set to I Need a Hero. It is brilliant, silly comedy, perfectly choreographed, but also captures the relentless effect of mainstream pop culture (both movies and reality television shows) on the masses. This sequence is both recognisable to audiences and a warning that the glittering heights of Simon Cowell-esque empires are totally unrealistic aspirations for thousands of hopefuls. Simon himself makes a cameo appearance as a crow-like entity in a cape and sunglasses who lunges predatorily toward audience members, never directly acknowledging Shannon until a TV-worthy sob story is revealed. In a swerve that almost loses me, the real star in the end is someone from their past, perhaps showing one final time that these dreams were too enormous and too sparkly for the likes of Jodi and Shannon – the latter can be close to the bright lights, but has had to undergo great loss even to get that far.

Costume and set paint a dream-world that is frankly devastating to wake up from. The giant mouse head is but the tip of the iceberg of aesthetics to revel and squirm in, and classic pantomime sound effects are employed just right, avoiding overuse but adding to an atmosphere of macabre joy.

The Deadmouse and Peabrain Dreams was a highlight in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe roster. Alana Louise’s writing offers a dream on two levels: the one we might be in as an audience, letting the false teeth, confetti and Simon Cowell gremlin swirl around us, and the one that will resonate with anyone who has sought a life beyond the environment they’re trapped in.

Recommended Drink: A Fruitshoot or Capri-Sun, with a shot of something much stronger in it.

Performances of The Deadmouse and Peabrain Dreams have now concluded at Edinburgh Fringe 2025.