IN A BAD WAY Will Come to Edinburgh Fringe

In A Bad Way will come to Edinburgh Fringe. Performances will run at Gilded Balloon Patter House (Blether), 2 Commercial Street, Edinburgh, EH6 6JA, Wednesday 5th - Monday 31st August 2026 (not 17th, 24th), 14:20.

Written and performed by Irish playwright Isolde Fenton, In A Bad Way is a fast-paced, darkly comedic one-woman show exploring health anxiety and the lengths we go to in search of certainty. Told through a rhythmic and hilariously unfiltered stream of consciousness, the play follows Grá, a young Limerick woman whose search for a diagnosis becomes a journey through the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our fears — and how those stories shape our lives.

Set in a GP surgery on Dame Street in Dublin City, Grá is back at the doctor's office for the fifth time this month. Blood clots, Foreign Accent Syndrome, bum cancer — it could be anything. It might be everything. She is convinced something is wrong and she will not rest until she gets a diagnosis. As she spirals through a growing list of symptoms, the audience is pulled into the dizzyingly chaotic workings of her mind.

Developed from an idea born during the pandemic, when anxiety and isolation became part of daily life, In A Bad Way draws on Fenton's lived experience of anxiety and hypochondria.

Tentatively anchored in the present, but jumping through key episodes of Grá's personal history, the play explores how anxiety is often misunderstood amid a deluge of imagined possibilities. It also examines how anxiety can distract from a more fundamental truth that Grá ultimately, unfortunately, has to acknowledge.

With an original score by Emily Donoghue that mirrors the relentless buzz of anxiety beneath its comedy, In A Bad Way highlights Fenton's distinctive and darkly funny voice.

Isolde Fenton comments, "IN A BAD WAY is a rhymey, rapid and slightly chaotic love letter to anxious people. I wanted to capture what it feels like to live inside a brain that never switches off, where every symptom feels catastrophic and every Google search becomes a worst-case scenario. Through humour, I wanted to validate those experiences without ever downplaying how debilitating anxiety can be. Ultimately, the show is about connection. It's for fellow worriers who might feel seen, and for everyone else who has ever wondered what it is like to spend 50 minutes inside an extreme overthinker's head."

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