Playbill Pick Review: Dylan Mulvaney's F*GHAG at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with over 3,700 shows. This year, Playbill is on board our FringeShip for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!

As part of our Edinburgh Fringe coverage, Playbill is seeing a whole lotta shows—and we’re letting you know what we think of them. Consider these reviews a friendly, opinionated guide as you try to choose a show at the festival.

Dylan Mulvaney is going through a re-brand. She first achieved international acclaim tracking a cheery, smile-filled gender transition on TikTok. Now she’d like you to know she’s a real person—which is to say flawed, authentic, unfiltered. Oh, and she curses, too.

I was, suffice it to say, intrigued when I found out Mulvaney was headed to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a self-written solo show titled Faghag. I had been tangentially aware of her TikTok journey, and certainly admired her bravery and palpable charm. In a world of bigots that tend to characterize trans people (if not the entire queer community) as lowlifes on the peripheries of society, Mulvaney’s power was her ability to be extraordinarily wholesome. Watching her content, it’s hard to be scared of trans-ness. Her vibe was about teaching viewers not to fear, that trans-ness is fabulous—a sentiment dearly needed even today.

But wholesome isn’t exactly something I want to watch for an hour. Titling her show Faghag seemed to telegraph that Mulvaney was interested in charting new territory, of having a different kind of conversation, maybe even one that isn’t happening in even the more progressive sides of social media. Is Mulvaney calling herself the “f slur”? Can a trans woman even use that word, about herself or anyone else? Could it be that Mulvaney has found some other layers of her identity?

I’m happy to report Mulvaney has delivered the promise of her show’s incendiary title, and then some. Faghag, directed by Tim Jackson with Peter Duchan serving as a script consultant, is thought provoking, surprising, and insightful. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny for nearly its entire 60-minute runtime.

When audiences enter the theatre, Mulvaney is already in the audience (a cringy Fringe trope, I know, but this time it was a fabulous surprise, I promise). Dressed as an angel, Mulvaney invokes her friendly social media charm, blowing kisses and giving any willing audience members a welcoming hug. We soon learn that she’s come to heaven after life on earth as JonBenét Ramsey (an early indicator this will not, exactly, be a family affair). But God is ready to send her back, and Mulvaney is raring to be “the least problematic women there ever was!”

But, of course, there’s a snag. Once reborn, she discovers an unwanted surprise in her between-me-down-there—plus she’s now left-handed. In Mulvaney’s hilarious telling of what must have been a confusing and distressing childhood, her bewildered mother seeks help by taking her to the pinnacle of medical institutions: the pharmacy at Costco, where Mulvaney is prescribed twink pills. Sure, she may have the body of a man, but that identity gives her inner femme a much-needed outlet.

Mulvaney shares how this liminal existence leads to some not-wholesome teenage antics, like hiding bongs under her bed or sneaking into a concert after party by giving an adult security guard a handjob. And in Mulvaney’s well-structured text, all of it leads us to her full realization of her womanhood. When a straight man—who isn’t into guys, but finds her, specifically, alluring—ghosts her after a scandalous hookup, it becomes not only a painful moment of rejection but also a rare moment of recognition. There’s a reason the straight boy wanted her. And for once, it’s not internalized homophobia. It’s that she’s a woman!

It's when Mulvaney gets to the more well-known part of her story, which is to say her public gender transition, that things get more interesting. A facile read of what happened next could be a simple, paint-by-numbers inspirational story of a trans woman boldly owning her identity. Twink realizes womanhood, angers conservative beer drinkers, delights online progressives and performative celebrities. But that wasn't the climax of Mulvaney’s online story.

Her online content had always (unsurprisingly) been incendiary to anti-queer bigots, but a failed brand partnership with beer brand Bud Light kicked that into high gear. And then photos came out of Mulvaney grinding on gay men at a gay bar, which put her in hot water with even some of the queer community. Was Mulvaney really a trans woman if she was spending time at a gay bar?

And that’s the conversation Mulvaney ultimately wants to have with Faghag. A familiar refrain in progressive circles is “trans women are women.” And to be clear, when it comes to issues like public bathrooms, that is very plainly true. But with this show, Mulvaney dares to dig deeper to find all of the surprising layers of her identity, an identity that involves being both a woman and, well, the dreaded f-slur. As Mulvaney learns, loving herself isn’t just about accepting the woman that used to be trapped in a male body. It’s about accepting all of it.

Mulvaney is, of course, a musical theatre baby, so we get some terrific new songs by The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’s Abigail Barlow, The Notebook’s Ingrid Michaelson, and Spirited’s Mark Sonnenblick.

Mulvaney even serves some glitz, with surprisingly opulent (by Fringe standards) sets and costumes by Tom Rogers, plus slick video design (by Gillian Tan) that features a starry roster of guest stars (like Simon Callow, Chris Colfer, Alan Cumming, Joe Locke, Ts Madison, and Alok Vaid-Menon)—expertly orchestrated and arranged by Will Stuart.

It’s clear this show has a life ahead of it (Broadway producers Seaview and Wessex Grove are leading the producing team). And it definitely feels ready for a larger stage. With only a little bit of expansion, it’s easy to imagine Faghag coming to Off-Broadway, or maybe even the Main Stem.

And that’s good news for everyone. Faghag is, more than anything else, a really good time, which only strengthens its ultimate message. In a world that is all too often stuck in (ironically) binaries, Mulvaney has refashioned herself around something far more powerful: nuance.

Dylan Mulvaney: FAGHAG is running at Assembly George Square Studio 2 through August 25. Get tickets here. Take a look at rehearsal photos from the show below.