In the improvised world, she was transformed into Claudio Winkleman — an eccentric, fictional counterpart to the real Claudia Winkleman. Suggested by the audience. Far from being a distant celebrity, Claudia was cast as both ambitious presenter and daughter of a jellied eel, cockney father transported into creative mentor, offering wisdom and support to wannabe X factor contestants with an unlikely Simon Cowell hiding behind his scowl. Their number ‘ Close the Gates’ was magnificent.
The disregarded subjects for the evening — Mike Tyson, the Dalai Lama, and Spider-Man — somehow managed to be part of the plot as disregarded Simon rejects. The transformative nature of drama allowed the underdog to triumph; a band of pianists who couldn’t pick a key who after bonding on a lads holiday to Zante with a Z not a zee who form a One D combo and the underdog comes through. I can’t even explain the subplots they shifted and twisted so quickly and I have a word count.
Much of the hilarity in the audience was from the fact that the cockney Claudia was evolving into something not quite as the British public know her but somehow the Shamilton cast managed to create a shape of her that we also laughed at: fringe, dandruff and raccoon eye makeup with a rousing finale of being loyal and not a traitor. Clever! Very.
Having seen Baby Wants Candy in the UK last year — coincidentally on the day Larry the Downing Street Cat was the key role — I knew this was a troupe worth following. Their ability to stitch together seemingly random elements into a coherent, hilarious whole is astonishing. Their long-standing connection with the Fringe makes them feel like part of the festival’s DNA, and every performance is a once-in-a-lifetime creation.
The cast — mostly Americans with one Englishman — thrived on the premise. The Englishman’s familiarity with the real Claudia Winkleman offered the closest tether to reality, while the rest of the troupe joyfully drifted into surreal territory: inventing , fabricating , and weaving the “Rewind” into their musical numbers with a Harry Potter rewind device! Political references slipped into verses, harmonies bloomed out of nowhere, and entire songs bent and reshaped themselves mid-performance.
The result? A whirlwind of improbable connections, audacious invention, and theatrical daring — proof that Baby Wants Candy is one of the most inventive and crowd-pleasing companies at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Performing nightly at the festival and a later show as Baby Wants Candy set. The show we watched was justifiably sold out earning the five star reviews they’ve achieved.
Reviewer - Kathryn Gorton
on 13th August 2025
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