Vix Leyton ends sell out Edinburgh Fringe run with Four-star review

After ten days, a lot of pettiness and considerably more people than there were chairs, Chief Petty Officer has finished its 2026 Edinburgh Fringe run with a four-star review from For The Plot Magazine.

The show, my comedic lecture on the cultural significance of pettiness, ran for ten performances at West Nic Records as part of the Laughing Horse Free Fringe. What started as a slightly nerve-racking experiment in whether people would willingly spend an hour watching me apply unnecessary analytical rigour to grudges, celebrity feuds and historical acts of spite ended with a run of packed rooms and, on the busiest days, standing room only.

For The Plot's Annabel Bruce gave the show ★★★★, describing the combination of storytelling, slides and what she called "completely unnecessary levels of analysis" as giving Chief Petty Officer an identity of its own. The review particularly picked out the show's Hill To Die On Index, which plots petty acts according to the joy they create versus the commitment required to pull them off. This follows a fantastic review from The Scotsman.

The review also praised the mix of familiar stories and more obscure bits of history, as well as the increasingly important question at the heart of the show: when you commit to an act of revenge, who has actually won?

It was a particularly lovely note on which to end a Fringe that exceeded pretty much every expectation I had for it.

Over the course of the run, Chief Petty Officer also appeared in Fringe Biscuit's ranking of the 100 most-talked-about shows online, reaching third place among comedy shows during the festival. Fringe Biscuit's Trends project tracks online conversation and buzz around Edinburgh shows, which made seeing a tiny Laughing Horse Free Fringe show about potholes, Count Binface, 50 Cent and ancient customer complaints sitting alongside much bigger productions feel frankly ridiculous in the best possible way. Just over 300 people were able to catch the show due to the bijou nature of the venue - but they bought bags and took the message to the streets.

There is a peculiar thing about Edinburgh where you spend months building a show, worrying about whether anybody will find it among thousands of alternatives, then suddenly find yourself trying to work out whether another human being can physically fit into the room.

Having people recommend the show, bring friends back, share clips and talk about their favourite petty stories was the bit that meant the most. Chief Petty Officer was always designed to feel less like being lectured at and more like being invited into an extremely over-researched conversation about one of humanity's less noble impulses.

Apparently, quite a lot of people wanted to have that conversation.

Ten shows later, Chief Petty Officer leaves Edinburgh with packed rooms, a four-star review and far more momentum than it arrived with.

Which feels like a pretty good return on several months spent making graphs about revenge. For now, the board goes away but the theory remains. And I still really want to hear about your Hill To Die On picks.