Review: Do You Wanna Go? – Fringe 2026

Six people in a small downstairs rehearsal studio in Greenside @ George Street is a Fringe experience I think many may relate to. Though the number of attendees was small, the absolute enthusiasm, intellect, and heart with which David Nehls brought his show to life in front of the lucky few of us seeing it was humbling. And I really wish that more bodies had had the privilege to experience Do You Wanna Go?

Getting started

As we entered the space, David was there chatting to us, asking about our lives, our Fringe experiences, and inviting us to praise the wonders of the newly placed air con with him. This was an unexpected but thoroughly delightful pre-show experience.

It is often said of good Blues music that one only needs three chords and the truth. Through his soaring score, with admittedly a number of additional chords, accompanied by a Rocky Horror Show cap and a speaker mic, Nels brings us that truth through his vulnerability and a captivating story worth hearing.

Performance and the show itself

At the very top of the show, David asked us in the audience if we indeed wanted to go. We all excitedly said yes and off on the adventure we began. The story took us from the cast bus of a European tour to various locations in Greece, and back and beyond, all within the span of an hour.

It is a story at breakneck speed that manages never to feel rushed, and centers on a person divided into two: the character of the younger self alongside the other characters in the show, and the current self explaining the goings on and looking fondly and unflinchingly back upon those times and those choices with the grace of having lived it and lived past it.

To this day, so many stories that involve queer romance fall into the seemingly inevitable “bury your gays” trope, or one of great sacrifice in the name of very worthy causes, or being the martyr to the homophobia that sets another more central character on their own journey.

This musical is unique in that instead of having the gay romance at the center be necessarily a tragedy, it truly is more of a melancholy. A coincidental spark and possible connection seeing if it can survive the dampeners of time, place, and circumstance.

I would argue that this has an equal place and weight in the genre, and is all the more special for its exploration of queer desire and relationship through smaller though as impactful events and emotions that do feel both specific and universal.

Also to say, I do enjoy a memoir to read, and rarely have I seen one so exquisitely translated to the musical stage.

Overall

I had an absolute ball sitting passenger side on this tour through a moment and a romance in time, as told by the man who experienced it. As a self-admitted musical theatre nerd, the music of this show is absolutely for me and my fellow nerds.

Certainly enjoyable by any who hear it, I think the variety of genres the show explores, and the intelligence with which the music and lyrics are delivered, lands this project squarely in the style of new musical theatre but with an abundance of both fresh ideas and deep expertise that make it sound like it is coming up alongside the first shows written in this way but today, without the weight and dearth of the work of the past two decades looming in its shadow.

While there were a couple moments it felt like the music and story were getting away from us or could have been streamlined a touch, the recovery was usually fairly quick, and none of these instances were memorable enough to affect the experience more than momentarily.

Wherever next this gem of a musical appears, I genuinely hope when posed with the question “do you wanna go?” that your response will be an emphatic yes, or as David would put it “sure.”