Misplaced Paws overview – furry enjoyable as two felines expose their house owners’ foibles | Edinburgh pageant 2025

Ellie Rose Amit and Charlotte Pine’s comedy about cats contains grooming, a spot of the zoomies and loads of needy behaviour. But the joke is that these are the traits of two demanding pet house owners: overanxious Shira, who has confined Iris to life as a home cat, and the useless Arlan, who makes Jeffabelle do tips for TikTok.

Produced by Leeds University’s Aireborne Theatre, and directed by Amit, it’s stuffed with promise and proof that scholar efficiency – more and more priced out of the perimeter – is important to the Edinburgh pageant ecology.

These cats don’t purr or miaow however discuss by means of their feelings: Jeffabelle is fed up with having to leap at cucumbers and Iris has exacting requirements about how she is stroked. But Danny Gordon Boyd and Phoebe Nichols, respectively, have a tactile physique language that captures feline languor, superiority and playfulness. When Iris escapes by means of a window, Jeffabelle takes her for an evening in town to get in contact together with her wild facet – adopted by a bashful “morning after” scene about precisely who sniffed whose bum first.

As these opposites entice, so do their house owners Shira (Beth Sanders) and Arlan (Sonny Birrane), each {couples} nuzzling in a single candy scene. The script displays on loneliness, liberty, life in early maturity and the therapeutic energy of cats who “make you kinder to yourself”, says Shira. The writers clearly have their very own furry inspirations and are attuned to moggy behaviour. “Water always tastes better when you don’t know how long it’s been out for,” says Jeffabelle, lapping away at a doubtful drink.

Sanders shows nice comedian timing and the play makes hay with the awkwardness in each relationships, even when the cats’ journey loses momentum, some jokes might be sharper and the ending feels unfinished. But it’s an interesting idea, a number of enjoyable and offers a unusual account of human behaviour – and the cats who tolerate us.