How To Win Against History review: The funniest show about queer erasure you’ll ever see

If someone told you they were taking you to see a musical about the life of Edwardian aristocrat Henry Cyril Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey, who died in 1905, then there’s a chance you might think: “Oh, well that sounds a bit boring.” However, you couldn’t be more wrong. 

Paget was actually a queer trailblazer, at risk of fading into obscurity like so many LGBTQ+ figures from our past, until his story was resurrected by the Seiriol Davies, the creator of How To Win Against History, and brought to life as a spectacular, all-singing, all-dancing, musical extravaganza with more glitter and sequins than an auction of Elton John’s old stage outfits. 

Paget was infamous during his short life for his penchant for cross-dressing and staging lavish, flamboyant plays. His excesses ended up turning his family fortune into a deep well of debt. When he died at the young age of 29, he owned £544,000, equivalent to over £70 million today. 

Unsurprisingly, his relatives weren’t too chuffed about either the debt, or the rumours of homosexuality, and his successor Charles Henry Alexander Paget went on to burn all of his cousin’s diaries, letters and other documents that recorded the fine details of his life. 

However, enough survived to allow Davies to piece together Paget’s story, and turn it into an absolutely glorious, colourful explosion of exuberant, camp energy and optimism.

The score, also written by Davies, is sublime, full of hilarious queer bangers that demand to be danced to, but there’s not quite enough room in the crowded Edinburgh Fringe venue for that, sadly. 

Much of the show is a laugh-out-loud riot of humour, right from the start, as an almost pantomime-eqsue series of slapstick scenes take us through Paget’s early life at Eton. 

However, How To Win Against History also deals very sensitively with themes of erasure, otherness and vulnerability that will be all-too-familiar to the LGBTQ+ members of the audience. 

How can you live your truth in a society that’s trying to force you to fit a stereotype? How can you be yourself if your relatives expect you to wear tweed, get married, produce an heir, and frown on you transforming the family chapel into a glitzy theatre? 

In the stage production at least, Paget, played by Davies, appears to easily shrug off these societal expectations following the failure of his marriage, presumably feeling – at that point – that he didn’t have much to lose. He’s also encouraged to follow his dreams by an ambitious actor, Alexander Keith, played with unabashed,  moustache-twirling glee by Matthew Blake.  

Trying to fit a whole life story, even a relatively short life, into a 90 minute production was always going to feel a bit dizzying, and the show does whizz past at times, but that’s part of the charm.

It feels hectic and fast-paced, but in the best sort of way: the way time also seems to speed up over the course of night out at your favourite gay bar, and the next day you end up wondering how you ended up in a chippy with five drag queens, who that person you brought home is, and why your camera roll is filled with 35 photos of the same topless guy in gold hotpants. 

The show goes by so quickly, in fact, that it’s easy to miss some of the more subtle jokes and quick-witted exchanges. Our suggestion? Don’t go to see it once; see it several times. You won’t regret it.

How To Win Against History gets five stars from us. Click here for more Edinburgh Fringe coverage.