Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story

Aug 16 2025 | By Hugh Simpson More

★★★☆☆ Promising

theSpace on the Mile/Niddry St (Venues 39/9): Fri 8 – Sat 16 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson

Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story, from Dylan and Will Theatre seen at theSpace @ Niddry Street in the Fringe’s middle week, following a week at theSpace on the Mile, is a production that has considerable appeal.

Dylan and Will Theatre are Edinburgh-based Dylan Kaeuper and Will Grice, who are the writers and performers of this two-hander set in Texas in 1889. Fuelled by pulp Westerns and the conviction that Billy the Kid faked his own death, sheltered youngsters Cody Crockett (Kaeuper) and Beau McCarthy (Grice) decide to strike out West on their own adventure. They soon discover that their certainties about their ‘manifest destiny’ may be misplaced…

Will Grice (Beau) and Dylan Kaeuper (Cody). Pic: Christina Farnham

The writing is sharp and sympathetic, with the gap between the romance of the West and the reality, lightly done. The way that criminals became heroes, while Native Americans were painted as the ‘other’, is also evoked subtly.

The performances are assured and likeable. Both Kaeuper’s more assertive Cody and Grice’s more naïve Beau have considerable charm. The acting space and minimal props are used imaginatively, with a strong commitment to the storytelling.

While both writing and performing show real promise, this isn’t yet quite the finished article. The production occupies an uneasy middle ground between historical drama and a modern comment on the period.

great things

As a result, it wavers at times between sincerity and spoof, which can make for jarring shifts in tone. Similarly, a sudden shift from a more light-hearted atmosphere into a much more serious mode does not quite come off. The accents, while largely admirably sustained, wobble alarmingly on occasion.

There is also a great deal of movement verging on physical comedy, which needs to be just that tiny bit sharper to convince fully.

A more rigorous outside eye might have sharpened this further, but there is already enough here to mean that these two are capable of great things in the future.

Running time: 55 minutes (no interval).
theSpace on the Mile (Space 1), 80 High Street EH1 1TH (Venue 39).
Friday 1 – Saturday 9 August 2025.
Daily: 9.45pm.
theSpace @ Niddry St (Upper Theatre), Niddry St, EH1 1TH. (Venue 9).
Monday 11 – Saturday 16 August 2025.
Daily: 11.50pm.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.