Productions that successfully navigate the multifarious variety and number of Edinburgh Fringe shows to come to London for an additional run must have something about them.
Following a highly successful run at the 2025 Festival, Daniel Moore’s Definitive Guide to Failure-Free Living, written and performed by Matthew Edgar, returns to London for a limited run from 3rd to 7th February at The Drayton Arms Theatre.
The show is a dark satire exploring the obsession with success, or to be more accurate, being seen to be, and acknowledged as, successful.
In just under an hour, Daniel Moore’s character is gradually revealed as a narcissistic tangled mass of neuroses, trauma, guilt and loneliness. His insecurities and self-doubt are hidden away behind a carapace of testosterone-driven masculinity, which sometimes crosses the line into toxicity before his essential vulnerability drags him back into the occasional clear-eyed recognition of the vacuity of his life in the modern-day rat-race.
It takes no time at all to see Moore’s essential obsessions playing out. As the audience enters the intimate performing space of The Drayton Arms Theatre, he is prowling like a caged animal, a brooding, intense and energetic figure, doing press ups, sit ups and shadow boxing around the stage. As he changes from gym kit to suit, pausing only to hit a button periodically on a centre stage podium turning it from red to white, he begins to share his self-help mantra with us, occasionally glaring out with wide manic eyes as he intones such nuggets as “I am one hour from being a total success …the harder and longer you work, the higher you will rise”.
Moore, assuming the mantle at times of a hyped-up David Brent, delivers cliché after cliché of self-help psychobabble as he rehearses the meaningless argot of innumerable “how to succeed in management and life” books and broadcasts that he believes will form the basis of his future fame as a success guru and the epitome of male perfection.
So far, so clear. Yet now things start to get a bit intriguing.
Moore’s job is a curious one. It appears to be merely pressing that single button when it turns red. He is assiduous in completing this Sisyphean duty, and has successfully (that word again) done it nearly 20,000 times. No reason is ever given for this assignment; perhaps the exercise is a metaphor for the quintessential pointless and absurd inconsequentiality of some aspects of modern-day corporate life.
Whilst the meaning and significance of this repetitive task is left unexplained, what does become crystal clear is how significantly Moore’s early experiences have shaped his vainglorious egotism and driven his obsession with success and validation.
Deftly intertwining the present with flashbacks to his childhood, we see the development of a persona permanently scarred by the break-up of his domineering parents’ marriage, his estrangement from his mother and the profound, enduring trauma of the absence of a father who had continually stressed to the young Daniel the importance of “being a winner”, and not to show emotional weakness.
Daniel’s desperation for attention, recognition and praise, forged in the crucible of his childhood displacement, has now resulted in a risible obsession with becoming the supreme overachiever, the epitome of success and admiration. Empty vessels making most noise.
There is also a pleasing sense of ambiguity at the conclusion of the piece, as Daniel’s hand hovers over the button for the final time. Is he still in thrall to the notions of corporate and personal achievement, or is he moving towards a deeper and more satisfying concept of what constitutes “success”?
A one-person show is always a challenge. Can the performer engage and maintain audience interest for an hour or more?
Matthew Edgar gives it a real go. He is energetic and lively, skilfully balancing moments of reflective pathos and vulnerability with loud bombast and braggadocio. Amidst the swagger and bloviation, we catch glimpses of the fragile, frightened, brittle little boy.
In any production of this type, there will be repetitions and lulls in the narrative. The story is not a new one, and can be seen as somewhat one-dimensional, wherein a ruptured childhood creates a desperate need for attention, acceptance, praise and validation. The relentless, sometimes over-shouty, attack with its emphasis upon the importance of achievement and ascendancy grates after a while.
That having been said, this is, overall, a tight, well-structured piece that effectively eviscerates the shibboleths of success and power and holds up to ridicule the concept of the “alpha male.”
Review by Johnny Oxford
One man. One button. 19,999 hours of failure-free living.
Daniel Moore does not fail. His task? Pressing a single red button whenever it lights up. For 19’999 hours, he has succeeded in this task.
Now, on the verge of completing his second 10,000 hours, Daniel Moore prepares to leave his solitude to share his double expertise.
Written and performed by Matthew Edgar
Directed by Harry Daisley
DANIEL MOORE’S DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO FAILURE-FREE LIVING
Drayton Arms Theatre
3 to 7 February 2026
