Dear Billy
Gary McNair builds a joyful one-man show from interviews with ordinary people about what they think of shipyard welder turned national treasure Billy Connolly. Naturally, he weaves in his own tale of meeting the Big Yin, adding to the impression of a secular god who is at once charismatic and one of us. Read the review. Mark Fisher
Assembly Rooms, 13-25 August
Chris Grace as Scarlett Johansson
“An actor can do anything they want – as long as they mean well when they do it.” Such, jokes Chris Grace, was Scarlett Johansson’s justification for starring in manga adaptation Ghost in the Shell. Grace, an Asian-American actor and comic, stress tests that philosophy with a mind- and character-bending comedy hour. Read the review. Brian Logan
Assembly George Square Studios, 8-12 August
The Kaye Hole Hosted by Reuben Kaye
Before we’ve even taken our seats for Reuben Kaye’s late-night cabaret of debauchery, he’s scrolling through dick pics with us, looking stunning in his blood-red, tight minidress offering a face full of cheek. The Australian performer is the most exquisite host for a magnificent pick-of-the-fringe event. Read the review. Kate Wyver
Assembly George Square Gardens, 2-24 August
Sarah Keyworth: My Eyes Are Up Here
Sarah Keyworth launched their standup career with two thoughtful solo shows deconstructing gender and the meaning of “boy” and “girl”. Now they identify as “an emotionally unstable non-binary person”, with a show about their top surgery – a life-changing experience for Keyworth, which translates into an engaging and touching one for audiences. Read the review. BL
Monkey Barrel, 1-25 August
Shamilton! The Improvised Hip-Hop Musical
This musical does not so much pay homage to the Lin-Manuel Miranda blockbuster as borrow its hip-hop influences. The performers solicit suggestions of famous names from the audience and then free-associate their way through a story, proving breezily adept at making up lyrics on the fly (naturally, there is a rap battle). Read the review. MF
Assembly George Square Studios, 31 July-25 August
Bill’s 44th
It’s Bill’s birthday. The bunting is up, the crudités are chopped and the booze sloshes in the punchbowl. But it seems Bill will be celebrating this one alone. A Beckettian sense of dread quickly pervades this entertaining hour of wordless puppetry supported by the Jim Henson Foundation. You could call it Waiting for Gonzo. Read the review. Chris Wiegand
Underbelly Cowgate, 1-25 August
Ben Target: Lorenzo
The “dead dad show” is a fringe comedy staple. But what about the dead not-quite-an-uncle show? Ben Target is a comedian who, by his own account, never quite delivered on the promise identified by his best fringe newcomer nomination more than a decade ago. Well, he delivers something very lovely with this autobiographical hour. Read the review. BL
Pleasance Dome, 16-25 August
The Passion of Andrea 2
It’s funny, this show. Maybe not from the off, when you’re just wondering what on earth’s going on, but the performers – three of them, all playing characters called Andrea – have a way of gradually winning you over, mainly with silliness and a sense of us all being in cahoots. Read the review. Lyndsey Winship
Assembly @ Dance Base, 13-25 August
Catherine Cohen: Come for Me
When Catherine Cohen unleashed herself on the 2019 fringe it was with an emotional car-crash of a musical comedy act, pasting sequins on her neuroses and narcissism and splaying them fabulously across the stage. Here, anxiety about relationships, sex, and her body stays high in the mix. And the ego is still all-consuming. But there’s reflectiveness, too, and perspective. Read the review. BL
Pleasance Courtyard, 1-25 August
Circa: Humans 2.0
Yaron Lifschitz trained in theatre, only to find he “didn’t like plays very much because they were full of people talking about stuff that didn’t happen”. As creative director for Circa, he instead embraced performance that doesn’t insist on its meanings but on its sheer physical presence. Humans 2.0 is where circus meets contemporary dance. There’s a sombre, poker-faced intensity to its formations and human pyramids. Read the review. David Jays
Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, 2-24 August
Catherine Bohart: Again, With Feelings
A firecracker of an hour about the push-and-pull of settling down in your mid-30s, when you’re queer, stressy and knee-deep in the wreckage of relationships past. This is as big-hitting as straightforward autobiographical standup gets, a set in which compelling personality (and complete mastery of that persona) meets line after line packed with unexpected jokes, whip-smart backchat and animated expressivity. Read the review. BL
Monkey Barrel, 10-25 August
Sophie’s Surprise 29th
Here is a circus and cabaret show masquerading as a birthday do, where a conceit thinner than the tissue on your party hat is spun around a series of death-defying acts. There’s no safety net, nor any reassuring margin between audience and performers – and there are muscles being maxed out here I’m not sure I even have. Read the review. BL
Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, 2-24 August
Duck
This one-man cricket play premiered in 2022 in the wake of Azeem Rafiq’s testimony of his experiences as a British Asian player. A revised version opened a year later, as a major report found the English game guilty of deep-rooted racism. The story by playwright maatin, about a young cricket fanatic of Indian heritage, may be set in the celebrated Ashes summer of 2005 but it could not feel more topical. Read the review. Emma John
Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July-26 August
Assembly Hall
We can confidently say this is the first ever dance-theatre piece about the AGM of a group of medieval re-enactors. Choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young – whose previous works include the searing Betroffenheit – land us in this leftfield setup, with the opportunity to get both lost in fantasy and caught in petty mundanities. Read the review. LW
Festival theatre, 22-24 August
Rachel Parris: Poise
If life begins at 40, where does that leave the decades already under your belt? Rachel Parris fashions a loose theme for her musical-comedy show out of that landmark birthday – not in preparation for a life about to begin, but in reflection of one already well lived. Read the review. BL
Assembly Rooms, 9 August
Fault Lines
Climate change can feel an esoteric subject when transposed into dance, but the Bournemouth-based company Lîla Dance do a good job of making its potential effects distressingly real in a sincere and well-crafted piece that refuses to lose hope and offers an alternative view of the future. Read the review. LW
Assembly @ Dance Base, 20-25 August
Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon
In this dotty character-comedy anthology, situated so far leftfield as to risk entanglement in the hedgerow, Lorna Rose Treen has fashioned for her set an overflowing laundry heap, from which to emerge head-first as a chain-smoking film noir vamp, a maniacal door-stepper and a dolphin recognising itself in the mirror. Read the review. BL
Pleasance Dome, 31 July-12 August
Jazz Emu: Knight Fever
Archie Henderson’s much-loved alter ego is a slinky synth-pop purveyor in shades with a beanpole frame, delusions of grandeur, and one of those foghorny, self-serious voices that plunge you right back to the new-romantic 1980s. A consistently amusing hour: great fun(k), equal parts daft party and deft musical comedy. Read the review. BL
Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July-25 August
Enowate: Here & Now Showcase
Dickson Mbi is a dancer of power, grace, finesse and charisma. He’s worked with Russell Maliphant as well as Robbie Williams, spanning contemporary and commercial dance and the competitive popping scene. This solo comes out of a trip he made from east London, where he grew up, to his ancestral home in Cameroon. Read the review. LW
Pleasance Courtyard, 21-25 August
Lara Ricote: Little Tiny Wet Show (Baptism)
There’s a formula for a comedian’s first show, introducing who they are and where they come from. Lara Ricote aced it with her 2022 debut GRL/LATNX/DEF. What comes next? In this case, it’s a show about Ricote’s relationships – with her boyfriend, with her audience, and with the compulsions and complexities that can get in the way of both. Read the review. BL
Monkey Barrel, 31 July-25 August
Urooj Ashfaq: Oh No!
In India, I’m edgy, says Urooj Ashfaq; in Edinburgh, not so much. It’s a joke about leaving a small but burgeoning Mumbai standup scene to visit – for the first time – the most sophisticated live comedy environment in the world. And yet the 28-year-old was named best newcomer at the Edinburgh comedy awards – a remarkable feat. Read the review. BL
Assembly Roxy, 20-25 August
Rob Madge: My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?)
A decade before selfie culture kicked in, Rob Madge was a child ahead of the curve, demanding their family home-video every flamboyant performance they ever staged in their Coventry living room. It’s as well they did: those videos have propelled Madge via social media celebrity to their own autobiographical solo show. Read the full review. BL
Underbelly Bristo Square, 1-16 August
Rosie Jones: Triple Threat
Rosie Jones was going to write a gag-packed show, she tells us – but then she got too busy. Delivered with her signature wicked grin, that’s a near-the-knuckle joke, given Jones’s TV ubiquity these days. Happy to report, then, that – hectic celebrity schedule notwithstanding – Triple Threat is another endearing and sly stage outing. Read the review. BL
Pleasance Courtyard, 14-15 August
The Long Run
The crowd carries you along in a marathon, says Katie Arnstein. It’s the cumulative effect of all those tiny connections with others – like in a hospital waiting room full of strangers. Which is where much of the story unfolds in Arnstein’s tribute to her mother – a show delicate in emotional detail and underscored by absurd humour. Read the review. CW
Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July-25 August
