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Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story

 
Richard Beck Review by Richard Beck 4 Published: 8 Aug 2025 Multiple Venues Show Dates: 1 Aug 2025-16 Aug 2025

Imagine if the pages of your favourite cowboy cartoon comic were to come to life and become the script for an action-packed, high-energy drama in your bedroom. There’s one sure way to make it happen: perform it yourselves and call it Cody and Beau: A Wild West Story, then put it on at theSpace@Niddry Street.

Packed with daring escapes, dastardly encounters, threatening gunfights and a plentiful supply of tacos

In two captivating performances, the well-costumed dynamic duo of Dylan Kaueper (Cody) and Will Grice (Beau) blur the lines between fantasy and reality, leading us to forget that this is just a make-believe world of imagination and invention. Transported to 1889, we become immersed in a dramatic tale of cowboys and Indians packed with daring escapes, dastardly encounters, threatening gunfights and a plentiful supply of tacos. The boys set out on a bold journey, forsaking their box of miniature toy cowboys for the lonesome trail across the arid desert from Texas to New Mexico in the hope that their hero, Billy the Kid, is not really dead and that they might actually meet him. In a movingly staged and evocatively lit dream sequence, Cody even has a vision of the man as Beau doubles up in statuesque form.

Beneath the gripping action and intense physicality, this heart-pounding adventure presents an intimate portrayal of boyhood friendship and an emotional exploration of masculinity that highlights the fine line between our true selves and who we pretend to be. We start with two pals who enjoy innocently playing together but then experience the intensities of bonding and survival as their characters deal with challenges on the journey and come to rely on each other for survival. They have to face the harsh realities of life and realise that growing up is a demanding process, full of big questions about existence and the nature of relationships. But among all the soul-searching, their tale is littered with comic moments and playfulness, though they don’t shy away from a bravely dark ending.

Kaueper and Grice say they have “grown up performing and dreaming up worlds together since childhood”, at school where they began their creative partnership, and now at Edinburgh University, where they have formed their own company, Dylan and Will Theatre, with a “mission to make inventive, actor-led theatre that surprises, provokes and, most importantly, entertains.” This debut show fulfils all of those aspirations, is hugely impressive and great fun. These are two to look out for, with the potential to be enormously successful.

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The Blurb:

Cody and Beau have one thing on their mind: to become cowboys. When enthralled by extraordinary tales of Billy the Kid, the two plan to escape the security of their bedrooms and fulfil their outlawing destiny. But when the boys find themselves against the hostile backdrop of 1889 Texas, the imagined starts to become all a bit too real. From the Edinburgh-based creative team of Dylan and Will comes a vibrant, immersive coming-of-age tale, inspired by the lasting legacy of the Wild West.