“Maggie is lost at sea after the Margarita Boat Tour Incident. Who even knew Edinburgh had one of those? As a storm closes in, her mother Judy and her fiancée Claire find themselves locked inside a lighthouse with only each other’s opposing ideologies. Forced into an uneasy alliance, the pair desperately search for the person who ties it all together. It couldn’t get worse. Probably.”
Where: Venue 45 at theSpace @ Venue 45
When: 24-29 Aug
Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/it-couldn-t-get-worse-or-the-margarita-boat-tour-incident
What can you tell us about your show? What is it about and where did the idea come from?
It Couldn’t Get Worse; Or, The Margarita Boat Tour Incident is a queer comedy-horror set inside a lighthouse where a mother and her daughter’s fiancée are searching for a missing woman named Maggie. Unfortunately, the lighthouse has a few problems: the light doesn’t work, the radio won’t stop talking, and they can’t leave.
The show began from a very simple desire. I wanted to direct a queer horror piece and had the good fortune of collaborating with two playwrights whose work I deeply admire, Mariah Lee Squires and S.W. Jones. What started as a conversation about genre quickly became something more interesting: a story about grief, faith, family, and the wildly different ways people try to make sense of loss. It’s spooky, ridiculous, heartfelt, and occasionally very funny at exactly the wrong moments.
How would you sell it to audiences in one paragraph?
If you’ve ever enjoyed dark comedy, ghost stories, dysfunctional families, supernatural mysteries, or watching people make increasingly questionable decisions under pressure, this show is for you. Imagine a queer comedy-horror where the scares and the jokes come from the same place. One character believes everything happens for a reason. Another would like that reason immediately. Throw in a broken lighthouse, a missing woman, a haunted radio, and a suspicious number of margaritas, and you’re most of the way there.
Do you enjoy participating in the Fringe? And do you have any moments you particularly remember?
This will actually be my first Edinburgh Fringe, so ask me again in September! Right now I’m still in that exciting stage where every part of the process feels new. I’m looking forward to experiencing the scale of it all: thousands of artists, hundreds of venues, and the feeling that every conversation could lead you to a show you never would have discovered otherwise.
What are you looking forward to most in Edinburgh?
Apart from sharing our own show with audiences, I’m especially excited to see other brilliant people’s work! Like Dacha Theatre’s DICE: As You Like It. One of the joys of Fringe is getting to encounter work that could only really exist there.
What’s next for the show?
Right now our focus is on Edinburgh. Fringe is an incredible opportunity to put new work in front of audiences and see how it lands. Beyond that, we’d love to continue developing the piece and exploring future life for the production. The story and characters feel like they still have places they could go, and we’re excited to discover what conversations emerge once audiences get their hands on it.