Fringe review: 5 Mistakes that Changed History
If you need a gear change from sexy circus and magnificent magicians during the festival season, Paul Coulter’s 5 Mistakes That Changed History takes on a slower pace, while keeping the audience thoroughly captivated. ★★★★½
History, storytelling and a few laughs combine for an interesting look at mistakes, big and small, that made an enormous impact on integral moments in history. Coulter, the man with the slideshow clicker, is the right person to tell the stories – he was the type of child who dressed up as an English civil war knight from the 1600s when his peers were donning Superman and Spiderman costumes.
“If you’re not a fan of history, don’t worry, my job is to make history fun,” Coulter prefaces the show. And make it fun, he does.
What ensues is an hour of tragic, heroic and slightly absurd stories that uncover little gems of information that you won’t find in any traditional history book. There are tales of action at the Colosseum, a catfishing scandal from the 1780s, a very famous song title we’re all probably getting wrong and the tale of treachery inside a castle that now lays in ruins.
Coulter’s show began at the Adelaide Fringe – in Gluttony – a few years ago and each year since, he’s come back to tell new stories, but there’s one he returns to this time around. The story of the sleepy seaman whose unwillingness to wake resulted in a mistake of titanic proportions is one of Paul’s personal favourites.
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Coulter is the history teacher we all wish we had – engaging and humorous while bounding back and forth across the stage in an energetic show of excitement for the facts. The classroom has been swapped for a stage and this teacher finally has a captive audience, all of whom seem to be taking in every word enthusiastically.
Five tales are barely enough and this June, Coulter releases his book, 10 Mistakes That Changed History, for those who are left wanting more.
Each story seems larger than life, but Coulter leaves us with his own hope that the audience has walked away with a greater love for history and a directive: “Please Google everything I say tonight.”
5 Mistakes That Changed History concluded March 23 at Gluttony
Read more 2025 Adelaide Fringe coverage here on InReview