“Confused and rather messy […] promising, but not there yet”
This is part of a series of shorter reviews from Edinburgh Fringe, August 2026.
“Emoji” begins with Aarushi Agni attempting to write a text to a friend. She types out a message. Deletes it. Types out an alternative. Deletes it again. Spends several minutes searching the emojis. Every emoji has a specific meaning, and it is a meaning that most of us implicitly understand even if we can’t quite put its definition into simple language. Agni explains that we all know how to interpret different smiley faces, and how our brains imagine the texter forming similar expressions with their own faces. There are some psychological gems thrown in here, and a lot of Agni’s opening section proves to be both insightful and funny.
Yet as the performance continues, the show seems to continually build to a point that is never quite reached. There are almost too many ideas thrown in here – Agni touches on the fact that child slavery is used to mine the metals in our phones, and tells the moving story of the watermelon emoji which has been used as a show of solidarity with people in Gaza. These are genuinely emotional stories, and clearly mean a lot to Agni, but these aspects feel at odds with the more comedic elements which seem to be continually revisited. There is no specific moment when the tone changes. As soon as things take a serious turn, Agni brings it back to more humorous takes, meaning that everything ends up feeling confused and rather messy.
The show doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, and perhaps this is something that will develop across its Fringe run and be more defined later in the month. Is it a stand-up comedy show? A lecture on the history of texting? There are also a number of musical performances that don’t really add anything to the show, and inexplicably Agni continually goes off on a tangent to discuss her obsession with the moon, which is never properly tied into the original premise. In the performance that I saw, there were children in the audience (it is not suitable for children) and at times it felt like Agni was trying to censor her material on the spot, rather than sticking to her pre-planned script. There are some good ideas here, and with some development and a little trimming, this could be a much tighter production. Promising, but not there yet.
Tom Morley, August 2026
“Emoji: The Hieroglyphs of our time, or how I learned to stop worrying and send the risky text” plays at 3pm at the studio, C ARTS, C aquila until 30th August.
This review was written whilst the show was still in previews.
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