Daniel Wishes and Seri Yanai are writers, puppeteers, and performers based in Japan. The duo, as their production company Book of Shadowz, have previously had hits at the Fringe with Shunga Alert and Space Hippo. Their new show, Book of Shadows is premiering at this year’s Fringe. We spoke to Daniel and Seri about the show, their love of mythology and the occult, and giving Edinburgh audiences the first glimpse of their new work.

Can you tell us about Book of Shadows?

DW: Book of Shadows is a puppetry show that uses shadow puppetry, along with two dimensional paper puppets projected onto a big screen. It’s a comedy occult mystery about a girl who’s finds out that her grandmother is the famous historical paranormal expert Madame Blavatsky, and together they go on an adventure to find some missing kids.

And what inspired the play and how did it take shape? What’s your creative process?

DW: Well, we’ve been thinking about the idea for the show for kind of a long time. I just have an interest in the historic side of mythology and the occult and things like that; spooky things. Aleister Crowley, John Dee, and all those historical occultists. And I just thought it would be an interesting thing to make a show about them.
I thought it would lend itself well to shadow puppetry, because shadow puppetry is kind of dark and spooky anyway.

What drew you to shadow puppetry in in particular, as an art form?

DW: Well, Seri and I met each other in the UK at a school called the London School of Puppetry, and it was badly named. It was actually in Yorkshire. But we met there and we studied shadow puppetry together, and we sort of formed a bond. And we’ve done shadow puppetry ever since.

Do you have any particular influences on you as as writers and performers?

DW: Yeah, we have a lot of different influences for this show. Though we were really inspired by sort of mystery shows, but a certain type of mystery show; a bit more abstract dream-like mystery show like The Prisoner or Twin Peaks, or Lost. Things like that.

As you said, Book of Shadows is an occult mystery for grown ups. What would you say to potential audiences who might have normally dismissed shadow puppetry as being for children? How would you entice them in?

DW: I think shadow puppetry tends to be, for better or worse, seen as more of an adult form of puppetry. I think because of its history, you know, it was used in a lot of sacred rituals. It was used in Indonesia for their three day shadow poetry rituals so I think it was always a form that lent itself well towards adults. It’s sort of… obviously, we do it for children as well, but I would tell them that, you know, this is a spooky show.

We did an adult shadow puppetry show last year as well, a collaboration with a clown group called Gumbo. It was called Shunga Alert, and that was a sexy, adults-only puppet show. So that was a very easy sell for adults.

So this one, I’d say it’s very dark, very spooky. You know, there’s murders and mysteries and all kinds of shadowy things happening. And what better way to tell a dark, shadowy story than with shadow puppets? There’s your pitch, yeah!

As you said, you had a successful run at the Fringe last year with Shunga Alert. What’s brought you back this year with the new show?

DW: This is a show we’ve wanted to do for a really long time. Usually we like to do a show ahead of the Fringe and play it in a few other places. But this year, just for timing wise, we didn’t really have time to make a show in advance, so we’re premiering it at the Fringe. And out of all of our ideas this is one we had maybe 10 years ago. This is the thing we’ve wanted to make all along, but we’ve been kind of putting off because we wanted it to be really good. So I think this is a good time to really put out all into it and make the spooky cult show that we always wanted to make.

SY: And also, technically, it’s not just shadow puppetry. We are trying to combine the technique with video projection, so kind of video puppetry as well that we experimented with in the last year. So we feel like we are ready to try something new, to bring the our technical side to new level with this new show.

DW: Yeah, we want to try some new puppetry techniques that we haven’t seen done before and that we certainly haven’t tried before.

And does how nervous are you about debuting a show at the Fringe?

DW: Well, as you can probably tell, we’re very nervous!

SY: Very, very normal. We always thought you have to polish the show to a really good level to bring to Edinburgh because, you know, it’s really competitive; like 3000 shows. We’ve [in the past] been following people’s advice, and this year we are not following the advice! It’s very scary.

DW: It is. This is our fifth year but it’s our first time doing a brand new show, and I just hope that our preparation over the last four years will make us ready for this.

So you’re almost Fringe veterans now. What would you say are the best and the worst things about the Fringe as a festival?

DW: Well, it’s the biggest theatre festival in the world, and I think out of all the different theatre festivals that we’ve been to, it really gives us the opportunity to show our work to many different types of audience members, because all kinds of people come to the Fringe; people from all over the world, you know? And so I’d say that’s the best part; just the experience of seeing all the other shows, meeting the other performers, meeting all kinds of people that we wouldn’t normally meet in other places that we travel to.

I guess the worst part is, yeah, it’s 3000 shows. It’s hard to stand out, but we’ve been holding our own so far, knock on wood. Hopefully we’ll do okay this year. But that’s the thing about theatre. You never know how people are going to react until you put the show in front of an audience.

And what would constitute a successful Fringe for you? What would it take at the end of August for you to go, ‘Yeah, that was good. We achieved everything we wanted there’?

DW: I think that that answer is probably different for for each of us. For me, I just want some nice compliments. Just like, ‘Yeah, well done.’ ‘That show was good.’ ‘You did a good job on that.’ But you know, of course, we want to get some good reviews under our belt to help promote the show in the future, and all the usual things.

SY: Business side wise, we want to book more things. We want the show to be successful enough that we can tour, especially in Europe. But the emotional side will be because this is the show we actually want to make. And we thought it’s a bit too niche before – too difficult – and now we feel ready to do it and we just hope that it will speak to people, and we really hope people will like the show. It’s something new. That’s all we really want.

DW: this show is really our baby. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for such a long time, but have  been a bit too nervous or afraid to bring into the world. And now’s our chance. So at the very least, I think it’ll be successful no matter what, because no matter what happens we’ll learn how to make the show better. We’ll learn from reaching the audience, and we’ll be able to to understand what works and what doesn’t work about the show pretty quickly, and then hopefully improve it and get it perfect by the end of the Fringe.

Are there any other shows or performers at the Fringe that you would recommend that we go and see?

DW: So, I don’t know if they need a recommendation, because they’re doing very well, but we have a pair of friends named the Creepy Boys, and they’re back again with the show SLUGS, which was a big hit last year.

SY: They’re [also] doing their brand new show. So they say, two weeks for SLUGS, two weeks for [the] brand new show [Nude Parade]. So I think they’re gonna both, yeah, they’re gonna both be really good.

Also our friend Trent Baumann the Birdman is back. I don’t know when the last time he did Edinburgh Fringe [was], but he has a show called ‘All the Atoms in the Universe Really Made My Day‘. I’m looking forward to that. I always enjoy his shows. And we’ve been collaborating a little bit with Steffen Hånes, the Master, who’s back with his show, The Ritual.

Book of Shadows is at Big Belly at Underbelly, Cowgate from Wed 5 to Sun 30 Aug 2026 at 18:30