Bad Girls of History is described as ‘an immersive audio-visual dance party celebrating all the bad girls who changed the history books’, and that’s a pretty accurate summary of what this is.
Taking place in the mercifully high-ceilinged ‘Live Room’ at The Three Sisters on Cowgate, DJ Carly Gray, dressed like Bondage Barbie (positive), bounces onto the stage and blasts into the opening sequence of the show.
Gray’s crowd-work is excellent. She makes eye-contact with virtually every person in the crowd, and has engaging banter. It was very much a crowd of predominantly women when I saw the show, and there was very definitely an atmosphere of being supportive and encouraging of each other.
The audience bops away to some absolute bangers of tunes, as we go from where we are in 2025, back in time to the beginning of the pop charts as we’d recognise them, in the 1950s.
From there, we take a massive leap backwards, to Eve. Yes, Eve from the Bible. If Christian mythology isn’t your vibe, we quickly skip to Venus. Presumably the goddess who embodies what are seen as feminine qualities. Somewhat excitingly, this is accompanied by a re-mixed version of ‘Venus’ by Bananarama.
From there, we arrive at women who definitely existed, and begin with the usual suspects of Cleopatra, and Joan of Arc. Not only is all of this accompanied by an epic mix of very upbeat songs, which have the crowds on their feet and bopping away, but there’s also a constant video feed. Whilst some of this is (for the more recent women) genuine footage of the people concerned, some of it appears to potentially be AI (the render drops at points, and there’s a slight ‘uncanny valley’ feel to some of the faces).
Having covered ancient history, we skip to Queens and Princesses of England. Obviously all six wives of Henry VIII feature, as does Camilla, and Catherine Middleton, but we seem to skip both Elizabeths, and Victoria, the three of whom are the longest reigning British monarchs. Perhaps I missed them in the fast pacing of this section? There’s certainly a lot to take in all the way through.
Gray is Australian, so we do get a fairly thorough blast through influential women in Australian culture, from Julia Gillard, to Kylie, via Nicole Kidman.
There’s room for famous women writers, and women who were ‘political’ – a word which is here given a very wide definition. We even get a section paying homage to Barbie.
This is a huge amount of fun. Given the restrictive amount of time available – a tight 90 minutes – and the format of the show, there’s no space here to give anything more than a list of names with some video footage that maybe indicates that woman’s specific achievement.
This is however, the most entertaining, and most energetic history lesson you’re ever likely to experience.
Bad Girls of History has now concluded its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025. Information on future performances can be found here
Featured Image: Edinburgh Fringe Society
This seems to be another hackneyed attempt to claim that any woman who ever did anything in history is a “bad girl” regardless of context. Including Joan of Arc is ironic, given that her role was that of a religious visionary in an era when there were many accepted visionaries and mystics (such as St. Catherine of Siena, who gave advice to Pope Urban VI). She herself and the many eyewitness accounts said that she never fought (carrying her banner instead), and didn’t lead directly since there was always a nobleman in direct command. More to the point, her stated mission was to support a claimant to the throne whose main argument was based on the “Salic Law” issue which blocked women from the line of succession and therefore (so his supporters argued) would invalidate the English claim to the throne, which came through the mother of Edward III. So Joan was supporting a faction which denied female succession rather than “working against the patriarchy”.