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Unpack your pac-a-mac, fire up your funny bone and gird your loins. In fact, gird everything. It’s the Fringe.
With more than 3,500 shows – from big serious plays in proper theatres to intense one-on-one experiences set in a toilet (yes, really) – no one can claim the world’s biggest arts festival hasn’t returned to its pre-Covid heights. This year boasts some big names in comedy and theatre – previous comedy prize winners Hannah Gadsby and Rose Matafeo, TikTok superstar Dylan Mulvaney – as well as hundreds of Fringe first timers and the return of old favourites.
By all means take a punt on a debutant in the damp basement of an empty pub at eight in the morning – really, that’s what the Fringe is all about. But if you’re looking for help as you navigate repurposed car parks and lecture halls, rain-battered pop-up tents and overheated office cubicles, here’s our pick of the very best shows coming to the festivals this year.
Comedy
Hannah Gadsby: Woof!
Hannah Gadsby’s 2017 show Nanette transformed what stand-up comedy could do. As they related their experiences of growing up lesbian and neurodivergent in a conservative environment, slowly the jokes trickled away until the show became a kind of cri de coeur about the state of the world. Nanette caused a huge stir at the Fringe, won Gadsby the Edinburgh Comedy Award, before a Netflix special quickly followed, as did an Emmy and global stardom. This is their first Fringe show since then, with the comic working out how to navigate the world since Nanette’s success. 18-25 August, Underbelly
Natalie Palamides: Weer
Palamides’ breakout show came in the form of drag king, clowning spectacular Nate, an exploration of machismo and consent that was turned into a Netflix special. This year, Palamides returns to the Fringe with her new piece Weer, which she describes as “an achingly tender Nineties rom-drom (romantic dramedy)”. 5-25 August, Traverse
Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch (That’s Our Name for You)
The members of this sketch comedy trio, Daran Johnson, Liam Williams and Al Roberts, may have found individual success in recent years (Siblings, Ladhood, Stath Lets Flats respectively) but sketch comedy fans will be pleased to see them back together as Sheeps for this new show. Especially since their 2022 show – named Ten Years Ten Laughs despite it being 12 years and considerably more laughs – felt like a career-end retrospective. 31 July, 1-16 and 18-25 August, Pleasance Courtyard
Ahir Shah: Ends
Ahir Shah started last year’s Fringe with a half-finished show, and was still grieving the loss of his long-term director and close friend Adam Brace, who had died in May at the age of 43. By the end of the festival he’d won the Edinburgh comedy award for Ends, a heartfelt and hilarious stocktake of modern Britain, imagining what his grandfather, who came to the UK in the 1960s, would think of the country today. Shah is bringing the show back to Edinburgh for those who missed it last time. 12-23 August, Pleasance Courtyard
Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE
This is one of those titles that accurately suggests the level of enjoyable stupidity the show contains. Anyone who’s seen Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave will recognise Patti Harrison as his equal in po-faced asininity and surrealism. Harrison did a few nights of her show at the Fringe last year but had to cancel the rest of the run. She’s bringing it back, thank goodness – it was, according to those who saw it, everything you’d want it to be. 1-11 August, Pleasance Courtyard
Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her
There can’t be many celebs who’ve won both Taskmaster AND Celebrity Mastermind, but the fact that Sophie Duker is one of them is a good reflection of the fact that her shows are very funny and very smart. Her new one is about sugar daddies and how “we should all choose silliness over common sense and hot wet fantasies over cold, bleak reality”. In other words: “delulu is the solulu” (translation: delusion is the solution). 31 July, 1-13 Aug, 15-25 Aug, Pleasance Courtyard
Rose Matafeo: On and On and On
2018 Edinburgh comedy prize winner Rose Matafeo has become super-famous in the last few years, especially after the success of her BBC sitcom Starstruck and loads of TV appearances. Last year’s Fringe outing was a work in progress, but this year she’s back with a proper new solo show. Not much info about it, except this enigmatic line: “Do you ever feel like you’re meeting yourself again and again in a bad way?” 9-16 and 18-25 August, Pleasance Courtyard
Zoe Coombs Marr: Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life
Some Edinburgh comedy shows can feel like a drag, even at just an hour long. That’s unlikely to be the case for this new one by Zoe Coombs Marr – who found renown with her drag-king alter ego Dave, a stereotypically awful male comedian – which promises to cover every single thing in her whole entire life. She’s even created an Excel spreadsheet to keep track.30-31 July, 1-6, 8-13, 15-20 and 22-25 August, Monkey Barrel Comedy
Dylan Mulvaney: F*ghag
Do you remember that weird thing last year when Dylan Mulvaney did an ad for Bud Light and everyone went a bit mad? The star received a huge amount of transphobic backlash after partnering with the brand. Well, now the TikTok celebrity (10 million followers!) and trans advocate is bringing her first solo show to the Fringe. It celebrates her roots as a musical theatre actor – she toured the US in The Book of Mormon – and features lots of original songs. 31 July to 25 August, Assembly George Square
Theatre
The Outrun
Amy Liptrot’s 2016 book has become a keystone of nature writing, following the author from London to Orkney as she battles alcoholism. This stage version, part of the Edinburgh International Festival, combines the forces of brilliant playwright Stef Smith and director Vicky Featherstone, who recently left her role as artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre in London after a decade. Definitely one to catch – and maybe to compare with the film adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan, which opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival at almost exactly the same time. 31 July to 24 August, Church Hill Theatre
The Fifth Step
Speaking of Saoirse Ronan, her partner Jack Lowden (War and Peace, Slow Horses) returns to the stage for this new play by controversial playwright David Ireland. Sectarianism in Northern Ireland provided the meat for his first hit Cyprus Avenue, followed by toxic masculinity and virtue signalling in Ulster American. Also part of Edinburgh International Festival, this one’s about an alcoholic (Lowden) looking for a sponsor. 21-25 August, The Lyceum
The Bellringers
The Roundabout in Summerhall is a byword for high-quality theatre. This new play by Daisy Hall “about love and community at the end of the world” is set in a bell tower as lightning is about to strike. It was a finalist in the Women’s Prize For Playwriting. 1-5, 7-12, 14-19, 21-26 August, Roundabout @ Summerhall
Nation
Another show at the Roundabout, this one is from the brilliantly innovative theatremakers YESYESNONO, behind hits like Five Encounters on a Site Called Craigslist and we were promised honey!. All we know so far about this one is that it’s a detective thriller, it’s about nationhood, and it’ll probably be brilliant. 1-5, 7-12, 14-19, 21-26 August, Roundabout @ Summerhall
Gwyneth Goes Skiing/ I Wish You Well
If I had a penny for every time there was a musical about the Gwyneth Paltrow skiing incident at the fringe…I’d have two pennies. Which isn’t a lot, but weird that it’s happening twice? One (Gwyneth Goes Skiing) comes from the creators of last year’s breakout fringe hit Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story, and received a lot of coverage when it premiered in London at the end of last year. The other stars singer and X-Factor semi-finalist Diana Vickers and is choreographed by Arlene Phillips. 31 July to 26 August, Pleasance Courtyard; 31 July to 26 August, Underbelly George Square
Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us
Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit – known as Sh!t Theatre – have an incredible track record at the Fringe for shows that combine performance art with comedy, music and pure silliness. They did a show about being human guinea pigs in medical trials, one about the housing crisis via post addressed to former tenants of their flat, and one about Dollywood. This new piece, their first in five years, looks at folk music, and ends with a song and a drink in the Summerhall bar. 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25 August, Summerhall
Adam Riches: Jimmy
There’s a lot of it about: comedians making the leap from the “comedy” section of the Fringe brochure to the “theatre” section. But few of those leaps are as exciting or intriguing as that of Adam Riches, the character comedian whose brand of interactive comedy results in audience members pretending to be turtles and being whirled around in a giant tombola. That sort of thing. His theatre show is about tennis player Jimmy Connors; impossible to know yet whether it will be “straight theatre” or whether some of that lunatic brand of comedy will still seep in. Either way, one to catch. 1-11, 13-18, 20-26 August, Summerhall
Edge of Time
This new one-woman musical is inspired by the book Woman on the Edge of Time by Jeremy Gavron, which tells the story of his mother, the sociologist and feminist pioneer Hannah Gavron, who died of suicide at the age of 29 in 1965. Her experiences are intertwined with writer Daisy Boulton’s own, to create a time-hopping, and very moving piece of musical theatre. 1-11, 13-25 August, Underbelly Cowgate
Weather Girl
A new play about the climate crisis by Brian Watkins (who created hit Amazon series Outer Range), coming to the stage courtesy of Francesca Moody, the powerhouse producer behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. She’s also bringing VL by Gary McNair and Kieran Hurley, a follow-up to their wonderful comedy Square Go, and I’m Almost There by Todd Almond, a modern reimagining of The Odyssey as a love story with songs. Worth trying to catch all three. 1-11, 13-18, 20-26 August, Summerhall
Same Team
Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse’s play about a group of women in Dundee who are competing to win the Homeless World Cup in Milan really hit home when it premiered at the Traverse last Christmas. They’re bringing it back for a Fringe run. Will it have a happier ending than the men’s Euros run? Book and find out. 3-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25 August, Traverse Theatre
Edinburgh Festival Fringe runs from 2-26 August; edfringe.com. Edinburgh International Festival runs from 2-25 August; eif.co.uk
