if I live until I be a man

This play is an honest performance about children trying to live during the uncertainty that comes with war. Throughout the play, we watch the brothers fight, play, and grapple with the slow realization of what the future holds for them. I absolutely recommend seeing it!

A beautiful depiction of a sibling relationship under pressure and children forced to take on adult roles while still fundamentally being children. Acting, writing, and staging was honestly superb. I went on the recommendation of a friend who came back raving about it the day before. Moved me truly, and spent most of the production focused on the actor playing the young king/Ned for the incredibly acting and impressive use of delicate and amazing expressions. I loved every second!

I only regret that I saw this show so late in the Fringe, but it was so worth it, so I hope this review helps in a small way going forward, esp. if they perform it again (Yey!)

As a Ricardian with a Richard III show here this year (!!!), I knew I had to watch this with an open mind, but I now know on reflection, that forethought wasn't really necessary. Cleverly keeping the boys themselves and their experience as the focal point throughout, and leaving the Grown-Up Politics very much as a peripheral adornment, whatever your own leanings on what happened to Edward V 'Ned' and his younger brother Richard, The Duke Of York, 'Dickon', this is a show for those who like different tales about history, and good writing and acting.

Without spoilering too much, the show keeps in that these two boys, when they meet, are strangers - Edward has been living off with his Uncle Anthony (the doomed Earl Rivers) learning to be king in Wales since he was two, and is virtually unknown to the younger, more nervy Richard, who has only just left his mother and sisters behind to keep Edward company in the Tower of London. Housed in the royal residence where all would-be monarchs were put prior to their coronation, the tale itself is told by two American actors, in medieval-hinting dress, surrounded by Nerf guns, action figures, and all the modern toy accoutrements. These factors seem, on paper, incongruent, but given that the story of children being forgotten about and left behind while the adults get on with the strange occupation of Grown Up Business is a tale as old as time, it actually works rather well. As someone who loves history as close to the bone as can be gotten, I didn't resent this extra slant to emphasize the youth of the boys - the toys littered about the stage reeks of children who (don't we know this story!) have been put in the children's corner with things to keep them occupied, quiet and out of the way and promptly all but forgotten about...

This show is an important one, in that it centres on the boys' experience - so often it can be forgotten that these were children at the centre of this historical mystery. Things are left wonderfully open based on what actually IS known about their fates in 1483, but that in itself is the heartbreaking theme - these young children are, by circumstance, in a situation far beyond their comprehension, even given Ned's precociousness. You see two boys go through the ups and downs of sibling cohabitation, and bonding through their own inability to do anything about their situation...

The kind of thing I wish I'd been involved in! Top marks and if you're reading this on the 24th of August, 2024 - go and see it at 2pm at the Radisson. You won't regret it.

truly incredible performance by two very talented actors.

This was an extremely moving play told expertly by two talented performers. Sophie and Rae did an excellent job embodying the mannerisms of two young boys who are struggling with a youthful understanding of serious issues. Their movements, the way they jumped on top of their lines, and an effective script fleshed out this story perfectly. I really loved it.

If you are not familiar with the story of the two princes, that's OK. This show springs from a 500-year-old historical mystery. In the 1480s in England, King Edward IV, a man in his 40s, died unexpectantly, reopening the wounds of a century-old succession dispute. One possible claimant to the throne, his son Edward V, was all of 12 years old. The other claimants were adults, and almost no-one had any appetite for the uncertainty that would arise from having a boy king, the last two (Richard II and Henry VI) having been disasters.

Much ink has been spilt, but no-one really knows much more than that the young Edward and his younger brother Richard were held in the tower of London first as a preliminary to Edward's coronation, and the allegedly for their protection, and then , , , they disappeared. The historical record is hopelessly polluted by competing politics, but the consensus seems to be that someone, possibly their uncle RIchard III, had them killed.

This play takes up the intriguing question of what the two boys thought in the tower as they awaited their fate. It is an intelligent play mixed with their boyhoods, their aspirations, and their dawning recognition that something is going seriously wrong. The boys, played by two young women, are well portrayed.

This is an easy "yes" to attend at the Fringe as there is little competition in this morning time slot. You don't need to worry about the history. Just enjoy the drama by two talented young actors.

If you’re at all familiar with the story of the two princes in the Tower — OR you’ve had siblings — OR you’re aware of the impact war has on the development of children…this is a show for you. The script, which somehow feels both classical and modern, lends perfectly to the expert acting of the two performers on stage. I genuinely believed I was watching two twelve-year-olds and I ate it up. Kudos to all involved!

This was the first show my partner and I saw at Fringe. What an amazing first impression of the festival! The show was such a sincere telling of the final days of Edward and Richard, the lost princes.

The show utilizes the act of play (with toys, pretend, and modern music) to examine the boys’ childhood innocence, relationship to each other, and the parts they are expected to play in history. It was such a genuine display of a complicated sibling relationship and the way children see the world.

The writing and the actors encapsulated with such honesty the ease and struggles of childhood to the point that reality and pretend coexist within the play and within the theatre space. The two actors beautifully bridged the gap between their own adult ages and genders and that of the two young children.

100/10 you must go see.