Created by Sam Kruger and S E Grummett

Review by Moyra Jones

Summerhall – Red Lecture Theatre

For a show about nothing, Creepy Boys: Slugs feels like it’s about everything. Described as a technicolour acid trip, it lives up to that label – and then some.

Creepy Boys – the same duo, S.E. Grummet and Sam Kruger, who brought the hilarious alternative cult hit to the Fringe in 2023 (of the same name) – return with a new show that feels totally familiar yet completely different.

It carries the same infectious energy and absurd humour of Creepy Boys, but Slugs has a sharper edge – an urgency that’s present from the start and builds steadily to a finale that’s equal parts hilarious and (especially if you’re wearing a media lanyard) deeply unsettling.

Slugs is an all-you-can-eat buffet of theatrical elements: songs, DJing, puppetry, live camera feeds – it’s chaotic, technically ambitious, and bursting with ideas. There’s real charm in the madness, and it’s no small feat how effortlessly the duo navigates such a densely packed and unpredictable show.

There are slugs, masticated chickpeas, and a Joni Mitchell puppet who appears as a surreal voice of reckoning. A funny yet potent running gag suggests that putting googly eyes on something makes it less threatening: if you put googly eyes on a gun, is it still dangerous? Or is it now just…cute?

One of the show’s sharpest observations contrasts society’s fixation on trans people with the routine acceptance of mass shootings in America. Every time a conversation between Grummet and Kruger threatens to get too real, a puppet show interrupts. It feels like a deliberate, layered commentary on distraction, contradiction, and the bizarre pace of the modern world – how we exist, absurdly and earnestly, as everything collapses around us.

It’s very silly – but there’s a definite edge to this show. The weirdly charming duo have a masterful ability to shift between light and dark. Slugs is a chaotic ride: it makes you laugh, but it also makes you want to scream. It’s a very Fringe show – and you can see exactly why these two have built such a devoted cult following.

If you’re looking for something that challenges, entertains, and unsettles in equal measure, this is it.

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