REVIEW: Bean vs The Robots: A Solo Show Musical, Midge Lema / Lemabean Productions, EdFringe 2026 ★★★

Whimsical, joyous and nonsensical, Bean vs The Robots invites us all into space, to explore Bean’s loneliest moments together. 

Bean vs The Robots follows Bean, a space traveller whose best friend is a keyboard. Bean has been almost completely alone on this ship until she lets in the audience, to join her on her journey and become space travellers alongside her. Bean cannot remember anything from before the space ship, all she can remember is the robots, but with the help of the audience maybe she can relearn her past.

Bean tells us early on that this show is going to get weird and it absolutely lives up to that prophecy. This show was entirely nonsensical and that only helped to add subtle whimsy of this show. The show feels intimate, with Bean speaking directly to specific audience members, giving them characters and clearly explaining their rules for the show. Towards the end, Bean even wrote a song about audience members and their favourite things about space. 

The show was incredibly heartfelt, while still remaining beautifully silly, talking deeply about how they cannot remember even their mother’s name, before switching back to Lord of the Rings references. Midge Lema, who plays Bean, brings such a quirky and enticing energy to the character, and her talent is not to be undermined. 

Where I felt this show had room for improvement is the music, while Midge is an incredible performer, the music all felt very similar and none of it felt particularly memorable. I also felt that for a show called Bean vs The Robots, there was very little about the robots, and little to nothing about being versus them. Due to the prophesied weirdness, and the minimal exposition, I did often struggle to follow plot elements, and I do believe this is a show somebody could leave having understood something entirely different to me, but I felt I was left wanting more from Bean. 

It was a delight to become a space traveller for 50 minutes, and I recommend you all to do the same.

Recommended drink: Freeze Dried Juice, as any good space traveller would.

You can catch Bean vs the Robots: A Solo Show Musical at Theatre 2 at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall from 7-29 (not 16, 23) at various times (50 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.