EDINBURGH 2026: THE BLOODY BALLAD OF BETTE DAVIS Q&A
The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis runs at Edfringe from 6 - 30 August
BWW catches up with John P. McEneny, writer & tirector of The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis to chat about bringing the show to the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Tell us a bit about The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis.
The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis is a fever-dream horror musical about what happens when one of the greatest actresses in American history begins to wonder if the work was worth the cost. Set during the filming of Burnt Offerings in 1975, it brings together Bette Davis, Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Amelia Earhart, demons, gossip columnists, and one spectacularly inappropriate goat. But beneath all the witchcraft and theatrical excess is a woman trying to decide whether the life she built was worth everything it asked of her.
What was the inspiration behind writing it?
Oddly enough, it wasn't Bette Davis. It was a cheap grey wig, and it was not good. I first saw Burnt Offerings as a kid, and forty years later, I watched it again, expecting to be frightened by the haunted house. Instead, I couldn't stop looking at Bette Davis. Here was one of the greatest actresses who ever lived, wearing an unflattering gray wig in a little B-horror picture, giving a performance far bigger than the movie around her. That seemed like a very Bette Davis thing to do. Around the same time, I stumbled across B.D. Hyman's extraordinary claim that her mother practiced witchcraft and transformed into a clawed demonic creature. I couldn't stop wondering what kind of relationship leaves behind a story like that. In our musical, witchcraft becomes a metaphor for the mysterious thing that makes great artists extraordinary: the thing audiences worship, other artists chase, and families sometimes pay a price for. The older I get, the more interested I become in what it costs to devote your life to making art.
Why bring it to Edinburgh?
Edinburgh feels like the natural home for this piece. The Fringe has always welcomed theatrical risks, strange ideas, and shows that refuse to fit neatly into a single genre. The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis is a horror musical, a comedy, a ghost story, and, I hope, a love letter to artists all at the same time. It doesn't apologize for being odd, and the Fringe has never asked artists to do that. What I love most, though, is that every August the city fills with people carrying costumes, props, impossible dreams, and the quiet hope that something they've made will connect with a stranger. They're all asking some version of the same question: Is this worth it? Do I keep going? Those questions feel especially alive in Edinburgh. In many ways, the show is a celebration of everyone who keeps making things without any guarantee they'll last.
How scary a horror are we talking?
There are witches, demons, a cockroach that enters a man's intestines with alarming confidence, and some very inappropriate puppet choreography.
Who would you like to come and see it?
I'd love anyone who's ever had a piece of art quietly follow them through life. Maybe it was a strange B-horror movie on television when you were eight years old. Maybe you were sitting in your pajamas long after you were supposed to be asleep. Maybe it was a song, a novel, or a performance that nobody else even remembers. For whatever reason, it stayed with you. That's what happened to me. Burnt Offerings lodged somewhere in my imagination, and forty years later, it became this strange musical. I think that's one of the great mysteries of art. We never know which stories are going to take root or whose life they'll quietly change. I'd especially love artists to come because every August, Edinburgh fills with people trying to make something that matters. Maybe that's all any of us are really hoping for. Not immortality. Just the chance that something we make stays with someone long after they've gone home.
The Bloody Ballad of Bette Davis runs at Edfringe from 6 - 30 August
Photo credit: Vas Eli
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