Paul Ready’s debut play Little Animals has opened to critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, marking a successful world premiere for the new production from Fern Culture co-produced with Pentabus, in association with Gulbenkien Arts Centre.
The one-man show has received four-star reviews with The Guardian calling it a “clever climate please”, The Stage praising it as “spare, warm and unpreachy” and Time Out listing it as one of the 20 best shows to see at the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe.
Directed by Caroline Steinbeis (Three Sisters, Shakespeare’s Globe), the play marks BAFTA-winning actor Ready’s playwriting debut. In a recent interview with BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, he explains that Little Animals began life during lockdown when the future of live theatre felt uncertain. He describes conceiving a deliberately stripped-back piece that could be performed almost anywhere, and recalled first trying it out in a neighbour’s living room.
In an interview with The i Paper, Ready explains that the play was “specifically written not just to be in a theatre space but in a circle of chairs, so the actors and audience are all together”. He adds: “With all this anxiety about technology, I think there’s something powerful about human beings coming together in a place where real connection can happen.”
The play begins at the memorial of Richard, a lifelong friend whose death leaves behind unanswered questions. As one man looks back on their friendship, the play traces the path that led them apart: Richard’s growing commitment to the climate crisis, and his friend’s struggle to reconcile that urgency with mortgages, parenthood and the demands of everyday life.
Little Animals plays at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until 30 August 2026 before a strictly limited run at Chichester Festival Theatre on 16-17 October 2026. The production will then visit Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury from 13–15 May 2027.
Find out more about Little Animals and book tickets here.
