Review: House of Life, Fringe 2026

House of Life is a masterclass on happiness lead by the effervescent Rave-rand and his trusty sidekick Trev. The lessons are told through a variety of sermon and song, and a bit of dance for good measure.

Join the Rave-olution 

While we were waiting in the queue to enter, the Rave-rand, dressed in spectacular robes, went down the queue painting glitter on all of our faces. This really set a precedent on how this show was going to go.

We entered and took our seats, and the Rave-rand threw egg shaped maracas at various audience members. These little shake-y eggs became an important part of the show as the Rave-rand took us through the steps to being happy. 

The show itself began with the Rave-rand ‘magically’ appearing in different places in the venue as the lights went out and came back on. I put ‘magically’ in inverted commas, since we could all hear the pitter patter of his footsteps while the lights were out. I found this to be a very humorous way to start the show, and it definitely made us all relax a little before we got into the nitty gritty!

Eight simple steps 

The first step to happiness is to ‘arrive’, which we had all achieved simply by attending the show. Nailed it! Next up was ‘rebirth’, where we shut our eyes and imagined floating around in goo. As we were reborn, the egg theme became apparent, but I shan’t spoil it for you.

Step three was ‘self esteem’, and the Rave-rand explained that while self esteem does come from the self, it can also come from other people. He went around the audience asking people what they love about the people they’d come with. Everyone’s answers were so wholesome and sweet, it made me feel a little emotional. The Rave-rand, with the help of Trev and his loop pedals, turned these lovely words into a song which had the whole audience singing along by the end.

We moved on to step four, where the Rave-rand asked us to visualise the future we want for ourselves. This lead to more crowd work and audience engagement, where the audience members told the Rave-rand who they are, what they do, and where they want to be in the future. The answers given were very moving, and ranged from having a large family to simply being able to exist in the world as they are. Another upbeat song began, this time with the lyrics being centred around the audiences’ visualisations. This lead to a freestyle rap from the Rave-rand, which was incredibly impressive! 

The Rave-rand then had the whole audience doing a silly dance, as we learnt step five – awareness of our bodies. I haven’t been to many shows where the performers had such a grasp over the audience that we were all perfectly happy doing a ridiculous dance together.

Step six is to purge, as in to purge our negative emotions. Yet more audience interaction where we told the Rave-rand what made us angry. The answers varied from little things like slow walkers, to deeper topics such as injustice and all the -ism’s. We sung about what made us mad together, this time to angrier music than we’d previously heard. 

Next we spent some time simply screaming into the void with a soundtrack in the background. This was step 7 – release. Personally I found this part incredibly cathartic. There’s something beautiful about a room full of strangers screaming together.

The show ended with us ascending, which was the final step in the guide on how to be happy. 

Style and substance

While the show was indeed very wholesome and positive, it was also very funny and the musicality of both the Rave-rand and Trev was awesome. I liked that the eight steps to happiness was inspired by the Buddhist philosophy of the eight-fold path. The performers used tactics that priests use in churches, making this whole thing feel like a spiritual experience, but without any need for a belief in a higher power. 

Overall, this is my favourite show of the Fringe this year. I left with a spring in my step, and will definitely be 100% not sad ever after this show!