REVIEW: I Made You a Mixtape, Response Theatre Company, EdFringe 2026 ★★★★★

Join nine girls in a college dorm for one last party before their lives change forever.

Response Theatre describe their show as “kind of dance, kind of not, kind of theatre, kind of not”, and it’s a lucky dip each night. The audience select numbers between 1 and 18, choosing mystery prompts for each dancer. These will later be turned around in real-time and the dance is impacted by what is selected.

One night Abby might find out she has to move back in with her parents, one night it might be the day before her wedding. Accompanied by a live drummer and bass player leading the music, the energy filled the space and made it feel like the party had started. 

I Made You a Mixtape is drenched in 90s culture. The set, the incredible selection of music and the added nostalgia of props like a Dream Phone board game get you fully immersed from the moment you walk in. As the girls start to enter one by one they are dressed in peak 90s fashion too. 

The cast share an authentic friendship. Their bonds run deep, as only a female group of 18-year olds can. The way they interact in and out of dance with a melee of chatting, hairstyling, laying on each other and swaying as they watch other dancers, feels so intimate. We see them at the peak of girlhood, they just ‘get’ each other, and feel comfortable in one another’s presence. They are truly connected as an ensemble. 

I Made You a Mixtape is not afraid of variety. No-one is squeezed into a similar style or box, and they celebrate a number of different dance styles. Tonight, you’ll see samba, street dance, contemporary and vogue-ing, mixed in with a plethora of others.

Even when the troupe dances as a unit, you can see their individual styles, their personalities. Beautifully energetic in every way, there was never a moment in the piece where I was left wanting. There was always something catching my eye.

What really brings I Made You a Mixtape home are its interactive elements. Alongside making music videos with the audience, I was asked to play beer pong and air guitar. We were even given glow stick bracelets which were choreographed to wave in blackout moments.

This show is nothing but pure joy. I can’t remember a time when I have left a show immediately wanting to phone my friends and see it all over again.

Recommended drink: Cheap beer from a red plastic cup

You can see I Made You a Mixtape at theSpace Triplex from 7th-29th August (not 16th and 23rd). Tickets are available now at the EdFringe box office.