Dystopia: The Rock Opera

Step intoDystopia, where Beldon Haigh, President Blame and the indefatigable Helen Raiser lead a renegade prison-band of traitors, tyrants and delusional demagogues including Touchy Trump, Polonium Putin and the ineffably sequinned and quiffed Kim Jong Elvis.

Together, they drag us on a gloriously unhinged journey from darkness into blinding floodlights, from austerity to imaginary abundance, and from fear-ridden obedience to something dangerously resembling hope.

Yes, astonishingly, happiness is still possible, though possibly for reasons the regime didn’t intend.

Fresh from a clutch of reviews and widespread critical acclaim at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe, Dystopia: The Rock Opera has emerged as a cult favourite, not only for its wickedly funny script and explosive performances, but for its kaleidoscopic fusion of rock, pop, punk, funk, jazz and Latin.

The entire show unfolds inside a breathtaking torrent of graphic projections and animations that cascade across the stage from start to finish, an ever-shifting visual circus, a Pandora’s box of spectacle, satire and surprise.

It may also be the only rock opera on earth in which an actual election takes place and the audience votes. Democracy has rarely been this catchy, this chaotic, or this choreographed.

At times it feels like a musical big top where political cabaret, protest theatre, mask work, multimedia art and delirious rock opera all tumble over one another in organised anarchy. And the musicians are so masterful you’ll almost forget several of them are performing behind masks modelled on modern tyrants sculpted during a gas leak.

What unfolds is a disturbingly immersive, uncannily plausible tale of power, corruption, politics and people- a theatrical fever dream that flashes a wickedly satirical mirror at todays world while refusing to give up on the idea of humanity. Somewhere beneath the chaos, the noise and the propaganda, it even offers startlingly simple lessons about happiness.

Catch it now, before it transfers to Londons West End in July, and Broadway, where, of course, it would already be playing if the band were actually permitted entry to the United States.

Close to the tyrants bone and apparently banned by several algorithms, Dystopiais the anti-fascist, anti-billionaire rock opera for right now: loud, fearless and locked firmly onto the zeitgeist.

Book your tickets. Warm up your vocal cords. Get ready to laugh, cry, sing, dance, vote, resist, comply (ironically), get rich (theoretically), and, most importantly, become gloriously Dystopian.