Shakespeare’s Dead Dames
★★★☆☆ Conflicted
theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9): Wed 13 – Sat 15 Aug 2026
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Aberdeen’s Academy of Expressive Arts brings a company of Senior and HNC students to the Fringe in “their first production that’s not a musical”: Shakespeare’s Dead Dames, directed by AEA founder and Principal, Shanna Logan.
An exploration of what might have happened to some of his most famous women after Shakespeare killed them off, Dead Dames takes place in a purgatorial afterlife moderated by the Director, who keeps tabs on the women and lets them know when it’s their turn to live again – that is, when their respective plays are being revived.
The cast and crew of Shakespeare’s Dead Dames. Pic: Academy of Expressive Arts.
Joan of Arc (called Joan de Pucelle in her play, Henry VI Part 1, played by Kirsten Halliday) is a newcomer to this plane, but she encounters the Director and Tamora, Queen of the Goths (from Titus Andronicus, played by Phoebe Smalle), who fill her in on her situation. Soon Joan meets the rest of the dead dame company: Juliet (Layla Irvine), Cleopatra (Connie Clark), Ophelia (Jess Yule), and Lady Macbeth (Sophie Townend), and they discuss their lives and fates.
The concept is novel and interesting, but its execution is somewhat uneven on the script front. The Director (Christopher Tawse) is a classically pretentious, dismissive, overbearing type who knows better than all the women – but there’s no turnabout or suggestion that he’s ever undermined, leaving a bitter taste of the women being trapped in a man’s world even when they’re dead. If this was meant to be some kind of commentary, it has not come through. Tawse plays this pernickety part very well, and it’s a shame we don’t get to see his character experience any change.
Each of the dead dames fills out her part with enthusiasm and energy, distinct and committed to the characters as they have been drawn in this speculative environment, with a particular skill for comedy. The trouble is, none of them undergoes any particular change in the script either: they are static, caricatures of themselves to various degrees. Joan is a particular victim of this, spitting and cursing the English at every opportunity.
too full of reverence
This lack of character arcs seems to be at odds with other elements of the script, such as the idea that “you have your own lives, your own words!” in answer to a lament about being unable to do anything without Shakespeare – in contradiction to the earlier messaging that “[Shakespeare] wrote you into existence, he gave you a voice before and even after your death,” being used to explain things to Joan. Dead Dames seems too full of reverence for Shakespeare to embrace the idea of the dames rejecting his words to embrace their own, dropping this thread without any kind of resolution, before some of the dames are recalled to the stage.
While the script could do with further development, the young actors performing it have risen to its challenges, showing their strength as an ensemble and great potential for their future work.
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval).
theSpace @ Niddry St (Upper Theatre), Niddry St EH1 1TH (Venue 9).
Thursday 13 – Saturday 15 August 2026.
Daily: 11.55am.
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Tickets direct from venue: Book here.
Facebook: @academyofexpressivearts
Instagram: @academyofexpressivearts
ENDS
