one4review | On 18, Aug 2026

In a world of fairytales, where only where princes and princesses seem to get happy endings, the much maligned Big Bad Wolf (or, as he prefers, the Wolf) is stuck working dead end jobs, desperately trying to avoid the spotlight after his reputation was destroyed by the sinister populist media empire of the Grimm Brothers. When he and his best friend (and partner in unearned infamy) the Wicked Stepmother (or, as she prefers, the Stepmother) are fired from their latest minimum-wage cage and are offered the opportunity to heist an unreasonably large amount of gold from international megacorp Hamazon (run by Wolf’s old enemies, the Three Little Pigs) they know they need to put together a crew of other notorious ne’er-do-wells to commit a heist for all once-upon-a-time.

Coming from legendary Fringe musical improv company Baby Wants Candy, the script of Grimm AF has some big shoes to fill going from improvised to scripted comedy and, unfortunately, it’s not the easiest of transitions. While the music and songwriting definitely benefit from the change and are delivered brilliantly by the seasoned professionals, a lot of the jokes and plotting feel a bit less polished. There are certainly some great laughs to be had but they feel more paced out than would be ideal and a number of the jokes fall a little flat, even with a generous audience. It’s not helped by the delivery being more overtly “broadway” than some of the other comedy musical offerings at the Fringe with just slightly too long a pause between lines for the timing to be perfect. But it’s possible that’s more a little gripe for someone like me, who’s not much of a musical fanatic anyway.

While the performers and production are both excellent and the songs are definitely the highlight, there is a feeling that Baby Wants Candy are only playing to one of their two major strengths here and that perhaps a less rigid script and more room for the anarchic improv they’re known for would huff and puff a bit more life and humour into the show. It probably doesn’t also help that the concept of the show feels a bit stale at this point with not only several other musical parody shows about fairytales making Fringe debuts this year, but also it being tonally very similar to a 25-year-old Dreamworks movie just with some swearing and clanging references to Epstein Island, crypto and Amazon workers’ lack of bathroom breaks. The things that would have made this musical stand out more perhaps, such as the focus on the Brothers Grimm as opposed to the pop-culture Disney versions of fairy stories, are lacking. It just fails to feel original. Ironically for a show titled Grimm AF, there is nowhere near enough Grimm.

Grimm AF is a perfectly competent and enjoyable show, with some great little highlights, but it’s possible that Baby Wants Candy are a victim of their own success as I, and the crowd, clearly were expecting a little more.

***

Reviewed by Tom

18:35

5th-16th

Studio Two at Assembly George Square Studios