Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

For his first solo show in a decade, Joseph Morpurgo takes his cue from a 1970 high school yearbook from Highlander Academy in Virginia, which he found in a car boot sale.

The photographs it contained conjured up a time and place so different from today, inspiring him to create this one-man take on the classic high school movie with all the usual elements – nerds, jocks, bullies, and a hard-ass principal – in place, many brought directly to life by Morpurgo

He primarily plays the dorky, rule-following David Moon, ready to declare his love for the cheerleader he’s obsessed over all year on the last day of school, just as soon as he’s given the graduation speech. Morpurgo has created an entire backstory from a few black-and-white images, not just of our plucky protagonist but a huge cast of people in the book.

With wooden poses and peer-group conformity rife for mocking, Morpurgo imagines the library club as creepily sinister weirdos, or a kid trying to give tough-guy vibes as having unhinged, surreal thoughts. Morpurgo also has a keen eye for spotting quirky detail in the background of images and incorporating it into his skilfully performed, multi-character, multimedia narrative.

The set pieces involved in Highlander 70 are varied in tone and style, from seeking audience lookalikes to be punished, to a mad action-film spoof in which Moon breaks into the principal’s office to obtain a locker key, nothing apparently rousing the snoozing pedagogue.   

Yet for all the silliness, we become genuinely invested in Moon’s clichéd plight, and whether he will humiliate himself in front of the coolest girl in school or come to realise the true love right under his nose. 

But the real delight is in how Morpurgo has created a self-contained world that’s true to the spirit of 1970 high school America while also being charmingly surreal. 

Towards the end, a brief montage shows some of the pupils as they are now – a poignant, but lightly done, reminder to make the most of youth.

Review date: 14 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Pleasance Courtyard