REVIEW: Shunga Alert, Gumbo and Book of Shadowz, EdFringe 2025 ★★★

Setting foot under the arches of the George IV Bridge, we are greeted with an impressive array of projection equipment and puppetry paraphernalia sprawled across a stage backed with a room-spanning projection screen – what is soon to become the star of an otherwise set-less production. After a rapid introduction to our performers and puppet masters, and with fair warning of the daring depravity to come, we’re immediately immersed into the two-point-five-dimensional world of Shunga Alert. 

The show certainly knows what it is – a brazen, vulgar, and uncensored peek behind the curtain on Japanese erotic art over the years. Juggling euphemisms at every twist and turn of this romp of a comedy, protagonists Mame, Pleasure, and Pain, are each powerful comedic forces that together act out a charming, if simplistic narrative of questing to create the world’s greatest Shunga  (traditional wood-block erotica).

It’s not all dick jokes, sex dolls, and edo-period pornography, however, as bilingual narration and woodblock-print scene backdrops take us on a wet-your-whistle-stop tour of the history of Japanese erotica. Interweaving educational comedy-theatre, genuinely insightful commentary on the nature of censorship in Japan, and (if a little off-key) conversations about consent, Shunga Alert is an eclectic platter of different influences so you’re bound to find something you’re into! 

Through this refreshingly engaging medium of clown-puppetry, Shunga Alert offers a unique perspective calling for de-censorship in all forms, daring to lightly challenge the audience with as many raunchy traditional tales as it has explicit images from the modern day. And, whilst the piece only makes brief reference to the West’s conservative influences within the scope of the show’s historic source material, one can easily infer as much a critique on western perspectives on ‘propriety’. 

Standout to me was the well-executed synergy of Book of Shadowz’s projection-puppetry made real through constant interaction by the three (sometimes literally) larger-than-life clowning, cackling performers from Theatre Group Gumbo. Brought to life with eye-catching costume design and proficient absurdist acting, the conversation between projection and physical theatre was at all times engaging – an impressive feat of cross-genre, multi-medium theatrics. Watching the dual puppeteers work from up-close on the front row was a real highlight, giving the piece a certain frenetic energy into what would appear to onlookers seated further back as an almost fully animated feature.

Shunga Alert is classically fringe theatre – wild, wacky, and more than a little risqué, it’s a good laugh with a double shot of history, and a dash of social commentary in the mix. 

Recommended Drink: A Sex on the Beach, watching the great waves roll in.

You can catch Shunga Alert at Underbelly Cowgate – Big Belly on 31 Jul – 24 Aug (not 12th, 19th) from 21:40 (60 min). Tickets are available through the EdFringe box office.