We talked to Dylan Kaeuper and William Grice about their EdFringe debut show Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story, their friendship, and the creative process behind the production.
We wanted to explore a scenario where violent themes collided with the innocence of a coming-of-age story – and to explore masculinity through that lens
Let’s start with some background from your early days – where you grew up and met, to being at uni.
Will: We grew up around Oxfordshire but didn’t cross paths until secondary school, where we became close friends – largely through our shared love of theatre and the arts, collaborating on several school productions. In our final years we directed and performed a show together, and since then we’ve developed a unique stage chemistry.
We visited Edinburgh last year. The city held huge appeal for both of us with its rich arts scene and, of course, the Fringe. We saw a load of shows and left feeling completely inspired. Heading home, we swore to put on an original show together while at uni. And here we are! It’s a full-circle moment for us – the culmination of a creative partnership years in the making. Now we’re both at Edinburgh Uni. I’m studying English Literature, while Dylan has decided to be a bit extra and study English and History.
Where did your passion for performing come from?
Will: It started when I was a kid – when your creativity and imagination are most alive. I found that on stage I discovered a confidence I didn’t know I had; a form of expression that allowed me to be someone I wasn’t. There’s something so mesmerising to me about that transformation – stepping into someone else’s shoes and telling their story. I think a part of me has always been chasing that.
Dylan: My passion for performing probably came from doing plays in secondary school. Will and I were very lucky that most of our close friends also loved acting, which created an energy with my peers I’d never felt before. Although I would be terribly scared before a show, that moment when everything clicked into place and you forgot everything in your life except the scene itself was unbeatable.
You’ve set up your own theatre company. What’s the aim behind that?
Will: Our aim is to make inventive, actor-led theatre that surprises and provokes – but above all, entertains; to breathe new life into theatre and make it feel fresh and immediate again, particularly to younger audiences. We want to tell original stories where the performance is rooted in the connection between actor and audience.
Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story is our first show with the company, and it’s driven entirely by two bold, comic yet deeply endearing characters. We hope that by sharing what we’re passionate about, we can create work that resonates beyond the stage.
So tell us about Cody and Beau.
Dylan: The inspiration began almost a year ago, out of a fascination with the American West – the historical period, its influence as a genre, the literature of Cormac McCarthy, and how the era has been mythologised on screen through films like Clint Eastwood’s. There’s something about stories set amongst that harsh, unforgiving landscape. But what struck us was how little Westerns have been explored on stage, despite being such an inherently theatrical period – rich with drama, contradiction, and a very raw kind of humanity.
From there it began to take shape. Cowboys are often idolised by children, but in reality most were broken men with dark pasts. We wanted to explore a scenario where these violent themes collided with the innocence of a coming-of-age story, and to explore masculinity through that lens. Especially now, with the conversations around masculinity evolving and so much noise online about what it means to be a “man”, the Western offered a fresh and complex backdrop to examine those themes.
Will: The West’s darker history of racial conflict has become a crucial part of the piece as well. Through the characters’ journey, we explore how the fear-of-the-other mindset is learned, and how children are often shaped by the ideologies that surround them. These ideas feel increasingly urgent – particularly in the context of debates around immigration and identity. Through the characters’ innocence, we aim to invite the audience in and then slowly ask them to confront something deeper, balancing a playful energy with something more unsettling.
You're staging it in the round. What lies behind that choice?
Dylan: The show is very physical and often breaks the fourth wall, so we want to create a deeply intimate experience that fosters a connection between performers and audience – as though they’ve stepped into Cody and Beau’s bedroom and into the world of their imaginations, placing them right inside the boys’ perspective, surrounded by their energy, their games, as if they’re participants in the fantasy. There’s something beautifully raw and exposed about working in the round. It removes the distance between audience and performer and makes the experience immersive in the truest sense.
What’s it been like putting together your first Fringe production? How do you feel about it with a month to go?
Dylan: Bricking it? No, honestly – with a month to go, there’s excitement, optimism and a healthy dose of nerves. It’s been exciting, creative, hilarious, stressful, exhausting – all of it. With just the two of us pulling the strings, it’s definitely been hard work; writing, producing, promoting and performing all at once – juggling everything from marketing to tech, which we’ve never had to think about before. But it’s proven an incredibly rewarding experience. We’ve grown so much as collaborators and as friends. It’s been really special to build something from scratch together and watch it evolve from a silly idea into a fully fledged piece of theatre. We’ve had so much fun along the way, which makes all the chaos worth it – and we’re proud of what we’ve created and can’t wait to share it.
What would you like audience members to take away from having seen your play?
Will: We just want to tell a good story. One that connects. If people leave the theatre talking about it, asking questions, or feeling something they didn’t expect to – that’s the dream. We want it to make them laugh, think, and even feel unsettled. But above all we want them to experience an hour of theatre in which they are swept up into the characters and the world we’ve created – and come away feeling entertained.
