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Here’s Your Definitive Guide to Edinburgh Fringe 2026 (you’re welcome)

Right: Edinburgh Fringe.

Chichester Festival Theatre, Curve in Leicester and Belfast’s Lyric Theatre are all bringing shows to this year’s Fringe as part of Pleasance’s Edinburgh National Partnerships scheme, but best of the bunch is Badgers.

Sherman Theatre is backing something equally compelling in Amnesia, a one-woman show about a care worker living in Rhyl, written and performed by Kimberly Hart-Simpson, directed by Kate Wasseberh and produced by Hat Trick Productions with Theatr Clwyd.


Shedinburgh is back too, this time at Assembly Checkpoint from 7–30 August. Bryony Kimmings’ brilliant one-woman show Sex Idiot — inspired by her discovery that she’d contracted chlamydia — is a highlight, and the purpose-built venue will also host work-in-progress shows from Rosie Jones, Sara Pascoe, Lorna Rose Treen, Mischief, Sabrina Mahfouz, Nick Helm and Sh!t Theatre.

At The Space on Niddry Street, two shows sit well together: Without Compromise Theatre’s Collateral Damage follows three women trying to reconnect after trauma tears their family apart, confronting grief, silence and whether some wounds ever truly heal, while Shark Bait Theatre’s Hope This Helps! at the Space takes a lighter tack, satirising wellness culture and life online through five eccentric internet addicts attempting a digital detox.


Over at the Traverse, the season leans into world, UK and European premieres alongside co-productions from Scottish and international theatre-makers, staged across both auditoria and partner venues around the city.

In my opinion, the centrepiece is Cathy, written and directed by Eilidh Loan, which marks Elaine C Smith’s return to the Traverse main stage after 26 years. (Full disclosure: I will be working with the team on this show – but it is a lovely, tender piece of new writing) Anyway. Smith plays a widow navigating grief and family tension in the run-up to Christmas, alongside Alan Orr, Sally Reid and Michele Gallagher.


For something more random, the Gilded Balloon (15–31 August, 1pm) has A Man Proposes to a Balloon, Or Possibly Something Worse — a dark comedy that does exactly what it says on the tin. Elsewhere, Liberace & Liza – A Tribute arrives at the Fringe after a West End run at the Harold Pinter, and Goodbye Dandelion — recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award — brings a humorous, moving new work from writer-performer Maddie Rice and composer Marcus Rice.

At Underbelly Cowgate’s Iron Belly (5–30 August, daily 15:40), Bailey Edwards’ darkly comic Play Dead follows Echo, devastated by a breakup and convinced that kidnapping his ex’s dog is somehow a good idea. Over at the Palais du Variété in Assembly George Square Gardens, magician Ben Hart — of Britain’s Got Talent, Killer Magic and The One Show fame — returns with The Labyrinth, a dark, funny and astonishing journey into the hidden patterns that shape our lives.

Also worth a look: Lil Wenker’s brand-new clown horror comedy Boyking, taking aim at unchecked greed and the pathological pursuit of power.

For nightlife crossover, Relish Theatre’s Acid’s Reign — part club night, part cabaret — runs at Forth, Pleasance Courtyard, throughout August. Nearby, Sad Bride offers a queer, dark comedy drawn from real experiences of the wedding industry, exploring the pressure of performing womanhood online.

And at Pleasance Courtyard: Beyond (5–31 August, 9:30pm), Elf Lyons — winner of the 2025 Sky Arts Award for Comedy — brings The Woman on the Edge, inspired by the breakdown of her engagement while she was alone on tour in Australia, still expected to walk onstage every night and entertain as though nothing was happening.


Don’t miss Alice Fraser’s Oh Man! — sharp, whip-smart comedy at Monkey Barrel’s O’Neill’s (The Tron) that’s well worth the trip.


For something more classic, Stockard Channing directs David Westhead in Samuel Beckett’s darkly humorous Krapp’s Last Tape at Upstairs at The Roxy, 2 Roxburgh Place.
Over at Gilded Balloon at the Museum, Celebrity First Dates star Tom Read Wilson performs his quirky The A-Z of Me, while Gilded Balloon’s Patter House hosts Benjamin Quirk’s Twink Death, travelling all the way from Perth, Australia.

If you missed it last year, see Flo & Joan’s One Man Musical at Pleasance Beyond — a delicious skewering of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. For a late-night laugh, Underbelly Cowgate (9:55pm) has Moon Team IIIV, a one-man multimedia comedy sci-fi odyssey from BBC New Comedian Award semi-finalist Will BF.
And rounding things off, You and Me (and Whoever Comes Next) is the winner of the Summerhall Mary Dick Award and supported by Hall for Cornwall and it unpacks the complex relationship between a disabled person and their carer.


I am looking forward to being back in Scotland – this year at the start of the bananas festival.


In any event, I hope you have found some use in this guide to what the Fringe world has on offer —and share your tips.


Bye for now,


Carl x

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Top Shows at Edinburgh Fringe 2025

THE Edinburgh Fringe remains one of the bedrocks of the British theatre — a sprawling, vibrant showcase where comedy giants, serious players, and first-timers collide. 

Running from August 1st to 24th, this year’s festival features over 3,500 shows, with appearances from beloved performers like Miriam Margolyes, Jenny Eclair, and Bill Bailey.

There are 325 free shows and 529 pay-what-you-can performances, reflecting the Fringe’s enduring democratic spirit — even as costs spiral.

And spiral they have. Venue rates are up, sponsorships are scarce, and more artists are questioning whether a full-run stint in Edinburgh is viable. Some say the Fringe is in peril. The truth? It’s been in peril before — and probably will be again. 

Indeed, many of the problems are those that beset British theatre more generally all year round.

But when your head’s spinning, your feet are aching, and you’ve clocked 20,000 steps, there’s no better place to feel the pulse of live performance than in Scotland’s capital. 

Even with Oasis (yes, really) and AC/DC gigs pulling in an additional 290,000 music fans later in August, the Fringe feels like it could go pop. Bonkers.

Anyway. I skipped it all last year — but this year? No one knows just what the future holds.

Kieran Hodgson: Voice of America

📍 Pleasance Courtyard
A master of the concept-comedy show, Hodgson returns with a Stateside theme. His previous works explored Lance Armstrong, Brexit, and Gaelic lessons — so expect insight, commitment, and gags. 

I love his consistently funny brain. 

Monstering the Rocketman

📍 Pleasance Dome
Elton John versus the tabloids. Henry Naylor’s gripping play dives into the infamous libel case that ended with a £1 million payout. Lol.

A Teen Odyssey

📍 Summerhall
An innovative, interactive piece for the TikTok generation. La Mecànica, using La Fura dels Baus’s Kalliópê app, explores identity and connection through smartphone-powered storytelling.

Tom at the Farm

📍 Pleasance at EICC
Michel Marc Bouchard’s play, reimagined in rural Brazil by Armando Babaioff, gains sharp relevance in a country where LGBTQ+ violence remains high.

The Butterfly Who Flew Into the Rave

📍 Summerhall
Queer, euphoric, physical, and pulsing with techno beats. A celebration of dancefloor resilience and the transformative power of community.

Hot Mess

📍 Pleasance Courtyard
From the team behind 42 Balloons, this eco-themed musical reimagines the climate crisis as a grand, messy breakup. Love, loss, and looming catastrophe — all set to music.

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Miles

📍 Summerhall
Trumpeter Jay Phelps joins a jazz-drama hybrid, bringing Kind of Blue to life. Benjamin Akintuyosi stars as Miles Davis in this evocative story of genius and legacy.

Celya AB: work in progress 

📍 Monkey Barrel 
Chortle Award winner, BBC New Comedy Award finalist — Celya AB is fast becoming a name to watch. Wry, stylish, and quietly subversive.

Make It Happen

📍 Festival Theatre (EIF)
Wallflower playwright James Graham tackles the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland in a high-stakes world premiere. A gripping chronicle of hubris, finance, and fallout. There are £10 on the day tickets, too.

How to Win Against History

📍 Underbelly, George Square
Seiriol Davies’s gloriously camp musical returns with a fresh lick of paint. Henry Paget, the fifth Marquess of Anglesey, dances back into the spotlight in this hilariously anachronistic, Monty Python-meets-G&S romp.

Ordinary Decent Criminal

📍 Summerhall
Mark Thomas reunites with England and Son playwright Ed Edwards for a raw new story about addiction, incarceration, and experimental reform in the post-Strangeways era.

Motorhome Marilyn

📍 Gilded Balloon
Michelle Collins makes her Fringe debut in this dark comedy inspired by a real-life encounter. Written by talented Ben Weatherill, it’s a sharp look at failure, fame, and faded dreams.

Happy Ending Street

📍 Leith Arches
Jenna Stone’s intimate, powerful drama centres on three sex workers in Edinburgh, each longing for escape. Gritty and heartfelt — a show with something to say

Club NVRLDN

📍 Assembly Checkpoint

Genius Jack Holden presents The Peter Pan story reimagined as an immersive millennial pop musical.

Lachlan Werner: Wonder Twunk

A circus ring of stunts, sea-lions, sci-fi, secrets and minimal lip movement

📍 Pleasance Dome

Eggs and Baskets

Era Theatre present the story of two Jewish girls in their 20s on a mission to achieve feminist perfection, but a series of man-shaped obstacles make their journey almost impossible.

📍The Space

If you have tips, tweet me: @mrcarl_woodward or leave a comment below *thumbs up emoji*.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Gush / Attachment: The Leech Show / Self Raising

There is usually a moment in a Fringe show, often after the first few minutes, when you start to relax. You are sure that you have a grip on it; all fear about making sense of things disappears.

It’s not so in Abby Vicky-Russell’s knotty but moving Gush, a photo of Prince Andrew looms Stage right. Pre-show, – a pulsing soundtrack loops: GUSH – GUSH GUSH – GUSH GUSH.

Then, a figure in a charcoal fluffy body suit and pink bob wig appears. Finally, I thought: showbiz!

Then it all stops.

Vicky-Russell re-enters playing Neil, a plumber from Yorkshire, who has been sent in to fix a leak on the set of the show that we are watching. Her physical comedy is top notch. 

Elsewhere, the resulting part stand up routine, part confessional play within a play gives the character Neil a mundane shimmer, and there are overtones of Victoria Wood in an expertly plotted visual gag involving a quiche and loads of table salt. Chaos. 

But, if anything, that overture understates the level of theatre sorcery going on here: Behind all this nonsense, a real-life, gruesomely compelling story emerges through a confessional monologue about abuse and father-daughter pain.

In any case, Gush, at Assembly packs some emotional punches and is an astonishingly unguarded piece – with a lot of potential – about the cruelties of abuse. 

Elsewhere, at Greenside I caught Attachment: The Leech Show – it’s ostensibly a slapstick piece about influential critic, Bob the Leech.

But only a very few of the gags get their laughs-and when slapstick goes flat, the effect is clunky.

This young company turn the stage into a zestful playground and give it all they have got, though the running gag makes it hard to conjure suspense – are critics really frustrated artists who never like anything? 

Yet in the final few minutes when Bob dies, the company come to the realisation that critics are just as vital to the industry as the artists that they observe.

This timely show strikes me as an enduring cult hit in the making.

Thirteen shows are deaf-led at Fringe this year, and one of those is Jenny Sealey’s lovely Self-Raising at Pleasance Dome.

“Secrets are easier to tell strangers. I work in theatre, that’s what we do.”

Well, quite.

This is an autobiographical play from disability-led company Graeae – alongside her “terp” (sign-language interpreter) where three generations of the Sealey family are unpacked.

Sealey set out to adapt Anne Fine’s book Flour Babies before real life took hold and she changed course. Opportunity and social mobility are underlying themes.

The narration is accompanied by captions, sign language and audio description, along with family pictures, video and voiceovers from Sealey’s son, Jonah. 

This show is beautifully put together, from the cunningly simple design by Anisha Field where three cupboards neatly double as the family kitchen and a darkroom and where family photos – and secrets are developed, to the simple lighting design by Emma Chapman.

There is almost too much here to be squeezed into the brief running time, but director Lee Lyford keeps things motoring.

Sealey and her co-writer Mike Kenny have delivered a charming story that is funny, graceful and fully accessible. Alas, it’s the subject rather than the staging that moves the emotions.

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Edinburgh Fringe: Frankie Thompson and Liv Ello: Body Show / Woodhill / The Boy Out The City

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Frankie Thompson and Liv Ello: Body Show, rip up  snippets of pop culture, lip-sync, clown around, and ultimately craft a rich interrogation of eating disorders and gender dysphoria.

It also happens to be an entertaining hour that is cool, funny, heartwarming and infectiously optimistic too.

Examining the power structures and political intrigue that have shaped man’s world, the duo deliver a dense, ambitious triumph that totally taps into the Barbenheimer zeitgeist.

There are snippets of pop music, flashes of apocalyptic explosions, TVs Come Dine With Me and Bake Off – with the pair miming expertly to the audio and visual segments.

It pincers the audience in a kind of keen, nervous imbalance—it holds our attention by throwing our incredulity at where we are as a society back in our faces.

“It’s great having a break from having a body,” they tell us.

This is a very artfully put together show. Don’t be misled by its bumbling, ditzy qualities.

At Summerhall, LUNG Theatre have created a lyrical and relentless piece of verbatim dance-theatre in Woodhill.

In June 2018, a prison report stated that, “staggeringly”, a total of 20 men had taken their lives in seven years at Woodhill, higher than at any other jail in England and Wales. Disturbingly, there have been more cases since.

Assembled from 70 interviews, Matt Woodhead’s visceral piece focuses on the deaths of three real prisoners deaths –  Stephen Farrar, Chris Carpenter and Kevin Scarlett – in HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes – and their families’ fight for justice.

One of the best things about Woodhead’s production is that it gets the details so right; not just in the relentless score with composition by Sami El-Enany, or Will Monk’s pulsing single lightbulb design, or the painful thump of the music and testimony, but in the way it interrogates so expertly the subject matter.

It is deeper, edgier, more emotionally dangerous than this groundbreaking company’s earlier work; script, design and lighting, soundtrack and choreography conjoin in one lethal embrace.

Up there with the very best of the Fringe shows that I saw, this is a terrifying and haunting 70 minutes; At times it’s like a hallucination looming out of the dark.

“We spent so long trying to keep the men safe from each other,” says one official voice, “we forgot to keep them safe from themselves.”

Powerful, essential theatre.

Declan Bennett’s rough and ready Boy Out The City at Underbelly, Cowgate, is directed efficiently by Nancy Sullivan.

This confessional piece is inspired by Bennett’s experiences of pandemic isolation in Oxfordshire. At the start he tells us. “This is about gay shame and loneliness, not Covid lockdown”.

Sullivan doesn’t always negotiate the switches in mood or the fact that Bennett throws too many back stories into the mix. But the story is never dull, and he is a relatable and compelling storyteller.

It’s a simple setup, but one freighted with complexities. There’s also flourishes of some genuinely great writing here: “You bring a bit of culture into the village,” locals tell him, “but we think they mean homosexuals.” It is the kind of place “where butter forgets to melt out of the fridge”.

Later, Autumn hits “like discarded brown corduroy”.

Just lovely.

His comic timing is also spot-on, and if the reminders of the storytelling veers dangerously close to being self indulgent, overall, it also feels raw and truthful.

Bennett is quite clearly a man who has learned, sometimes the hard way, that you don’t have to put on a performance all the time.

Frankie Thompson and Liv Ello: Body Show runs at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August

Woodhill runs at Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 27 August, then Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 20 September-7 October and North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, 19–20 October.

Boy Out The City runs at Underbelly, Cowgate until 27 August.

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Edinburgh Fringe Shouldn’t Exist In A Civilised Society

The 76th Edinburgh Fringe festival has begun but there is concern some parts of the event may be under threat because of the financial climate.
Organisers of the Edinburgh Fringe have declared the situation has reached a “crisis point” and also admitted the event’s long-running financial model is “no longer viable for anyone”.

The boss of one of the Fringe’s biggest venue operators, Assembly Festival has warned the company may not survive another year due to a £1.5m debt and was surviving on a short-term loan.

The Stage Awards and The Total Theatre Awards, both key opportunities where talent is discovered, won’t go ahead this year. Indeed, ministers respond to growing hardship by telling the public to just work more hours.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti has cautioned that the city is facing an “identity crisis”

Does it matter? This year marks the second largest programming on record, with 3,535 shows registered in 248 venues, it is the Fringe that dominates the city each year and nothing seems to stand in its way. Furthermore, according to a report from The Scotsman, local business and hotels indicate demand for accommodation suggests that the attendance rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels. 

Business as usual. 

But I would say it does matter for several reasons. My real concern, in viewing the ecology of the Fringe are for performers and audiences from low-income backgrounds – incurring debt and making huge sacrifices to be there – accessing the festival. 

What record breaking tourism ignores is that, in the complex ecology of British theatre, everything is interconnected.

In some ways, the “crisis point’ feels most emblematic of all the current systemic failings and their knock-on costs to ordinary people who simply cannot afford them.

Since right now, civilised long weekend accommodation would set you back £1,300-2,000 for four nights – flats are being listed at around £10,000 for the month – that is before travel, food, and theatre tickets.

In a sobering read, The Guardian ran a piece recently that featured performers considering the financial risks. 

As one act puts it: “If you break even that’s a bonus… It’s not just about bums on seats, the more important thing is using the fringe to generate relationships with people interested in the work. We should end up with tour dates for 2024. That’s why you go. It’s an investment.”

Anyhow. Times critic Clive Davis, meanwhile, summed it up in his column: “For the past couple of days I’ve been staying in a run-down student block near Holyrood. My room is cell-like and the soundproofing so flimsy that I can hear the woman in the next room clearing her throat. Four of us are sharing a shower and toilets; on the first day I was here there was no hot water.”

Oh dear.

If all this wasn’t implausible enough, I can only congratulate a group of performers who travelled from the US staying in a disused Cold War bunker after being quoted £30,000 for accommodation in the city centre of Edinburgh for the month of August.

For that you can blame the greed of Edinburgh City Council who, by disobeying the simple rules of supply and demand, have reduced the market value of the Fringe to the point that, sooner or later, it will inevitably collapse.

Too little too late. Sigh.

Anyway, I will be in Edinburgh for 4 nights (17-21 Aug). If you have show tips, email mrcarlwoodward@gmail.com – I’ll be updating this blog daily. 

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Edinburgh Fringe cancelled: How will we cope?

Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been cancelled due to concerns around the Covid-19 pandemic.
This was never a case of if but when.
The world’s biggest arts festival, and the Edinburgh International Festival, will not take place for the first time in 70 years.

In fact, all five of Edinburgh’s August festivals were due to welcome more than 4.4 million people and 25,000 artists.

Shona McCarthy, chief executive of the Fringe society, said the decision was not one that was taken lightly. McCarthy held out hope, though, that they would find ways of “uniting people” under a fringe umbrella.

“It’s too early to say what this will look like, but we are confident that as a collective we can find a way to reach through the walls that currently surround us and inspire, cheer and connect.”

Mark Monahan writes brilliantly in the Telegraph on the inevitability of the 2020 Fringe cancellation: “It was, above all the sheer scale of the Edinburgh Fringe that made it so unlikely to survive lockdown… This means that the amount of forward-planning required is simply colossal, and essentially takes all year. Shows must be written, rehearsed and produced. PRs hired, schedules created, venues assigned (built, even), brochures compiled and printed (in their tens of thousands).”

The effects of coronavirus on the cultural sector has been devastating, with more casualties, closures and job losses to come.

Never before has the theatre landscape shifted so dramatically. Theatres, arts centres and concert halls have all closed their doors indefinitely.

If we are honest, this pause does allow us all to get off the roller coaster and think differently about how the Fringe should and could operate. Sky high accommodation, absurd venue hires, so-called PRs, questionable producers. It was also reaching fever pitch and coming in for regular criticism from audiences and critics alike.

Artists have been saying that the event was becoming increasingly unsustainable and increasingly elitist unless there was a fundamental change to the business model.

Indeed, McCarthy herself said that complacency over the event’s success was the biggest threat to its future.

Kasia Kaminska

Kasia Kaminska

After years of rising costs, hyper-demand and expansion, a new, more cautious fringe landscape could emerge.

Longer term, the big venues won’t be rubbing their hands, tickets will not be sold. Edinburgh Fringe has never been a level playing field and in an era when money for producing and promoting shows is tight, hit shows productions are increasingly programmed by many venues.

Is talk of resilience optimistic?

In this regard, fragile economies like the Fringe and the tireless theatre-makers that prop it up could take years to recover, with anxieties about Covid-19’s legacy and the combined blow of Brexit could prove tricky to rebound before the landscape returns to pre-pandemic health, though.

But as we have learnt in just a few short and cruel weeks, the devastation of this global health crisis on the world, let alone the wider theatre ecology, from Broadway, to the West End have been very difficult to predict and the effects will be no easier to foresee when we eventually do emerge from it.

So where does this leave the Fringe?

The knock-on effects of this will probably last two years, and I believe that this particular period of despair and pent up lockdown demand will prove a healthy trial with a surge of bold, dazzling new work to follow.

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Baby Reindeer will play a strictly limited season at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End

Baby Reindeer
  • Following award-winning, sell out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Bush Theatre, Richard Gadd’s Tour De Force one-man show will play a strictly limited season at The Ambassadors Theatre in the West End
  • A harrowing story of how one act of kindness plunged Richard Gadd into six years of relentless stalking and harassment
  • Tickets go on sale for the production today with over 500 tickets per week priced at £25 or less

“I did question whether I deserved it. Where did my wrongdoing stop and hers begin?”

When award-winning comedian Richard Gadd offers a stranger a free cup of tea, he has no sense of the nightmare to come. One act of kindness. Six years of torment.

The sell-out smash hit of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Baby Reindeer is the “blistering” debut play (The Daily Telegraph) from Richard Gadd (Monkey See Monkey Do, Netflix’s Sex Education). Directed by Olivier Award-winner Jon Brittain (Rotterdam), this is a chilling personal account of compulsion, delusion and obsession. Some admirers simply won’t be shaken off. “A haunted, haunting hour.” (The Guardian).

Baby Reindeer will play a strictly limited London run at the Ambassadors Theatre ahead of a New York transfer to BAM in May 2020.

Richard Gadd said: “Baby Reindeer has been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding experiences of my life. With an incredible team behind me, I have pushed myself to ridiculous limits in a show I find incredibly hard to say and do. The show is about the past six years of my life. An incredibly complicated, messy, confusing, and ultimately challenging period of time at the hands of a serial stalker hell-bent on ruining my life. It is a period of my life that I still look back on to this day with much unease. How did it get as bad as it did? How was it allowed to go on for so long? Why was there no help for me? I feel a moral duty to let people know the terrifying reality of going through something like this. I am absolutely delighted to be in the West End at such a prestigious venue like the Ambassadors. It is all a dream come true.”

Francesca Moody said: “It has been truly incredible to watch the success of Richard’s remarkable theatrical debut in Edinburgh and then at the Bush Theatre. Baby Reindeer is one of the most original and brilliant pieces of theatre I have ever seen and I passionately believe that it should be experienced by as many people as possible. I am thrilled to be partnering with Sonia Friedman Productions to bring Baby Reindeer to the West-End and a wider audience.”

Sonia Friedman said: “In the early 2000s, I produced, programmed and oversaw dozens of productions at the Ambassadors Theatre. It occupies a special place in my heart as the venue where I learned to push the boundaries of what is possible in commercial theatre. SFP is thrilled to be returning with this extraordinary play featuring a truly break-out performance from Richard Gadd. Baby Reindeer is the first of several remarkable works my creative development team and I have sought out to bring to this beautiful and intimate venue. We are excited to present this original, vital, small-scale work which demands to be seen by a wider audience in London’s West End.”

***** ‘A haunting, unsettling monologue about the nature of obsession’ – Evening Standard

**** ‘…tightens its grip with terrible inexorability’ – The Guardian

***** ‘A majestic performance – a reckoning, an exorcism’ – The Stage

**** ‘A master narrator full of intelligent insight and sheer descriptive power.’  – The Scotsman

**** ‘Utterly compelling’ – WhatsOnStage.com

**** ‘Baby Reindeer will follow you all the way home.’  – Financial Times

WINNER Fringe First 2019

WINNER Stage Edinburgh Award 2019

FINALIST Offwestend Award for performance and video design

FINALIST Sit Up Award

FINALIST Mental Health Edinburgh Award

Baby Reindeer will play at the Ambassadors Theatre from April 2nd – May 2nd 2020. Over 500 tickets each week will be priced at £25 or less.

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Two HOME-produced Edinburgh Festival hits come back to HOME in October

Co-produced by HOME, double Scotsman Fringe First winner Javaad Alipoor brings Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, the second part of a trilogy of plays confronting modern life in all its unpredictability, to the venue where it was made, HOME Manchester, 23 October – 2 November 2019. 

The first play in the trilogy, The Believers Are But Brothers, co-commissioned by HOME, which was subsequently adapted for a one-hour TV special on BBC4, featured a WhatsApp group unique to each performance. For Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, Alipoor and co-creator Kirsty Housley, inspired by the stories powering waves of unrest sweeping across large swathes of the world, have created a play about climate change anxiety, the collapse of political certainties, and how privileged kids behave on Instagram. 

While the leaders of certain countries preach an austere form of nationalism and religion, their children enjoy the fruits of their parents’ riches and privileges; social 

media means that the poorest can see how the rich are living. All around the world more and more people, like their countries, are running out of steam, and their ruling classes are only out for themselves. Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, one of six HOME-produced shows at Edinburgh in 2019, performed by Alipoor and Peyvand Sadeghian, asks how did we get here, and what might come next. 

The gap between rich and poor is getting ever larger around the world, and social media is accelerating this ever-deepening divide. In the global south, the children of elites and post-colonial dictatorships flash cash, dollar signs, bottles of Bollinger, and infinity pool holidays while people languish under sanctions and dictatorships. 

“Photographs have always done something weird to how we tell stories,” says Javaad Alipoor. “As Susan Sontag pointed out, they have a way of freezing time, and making things look like they start, stop or at least pause at certain places. 

“It’s not that the way we tell the story of our lives on Instagram or by photo is any less truthful than any other way we curate ourselves, but it’s so easy to publish – about 1.8 billion pictures are uploaded to social media every day. That’s 657 billion a year, which is to say, every two minutes human beings share more photographs than existed in total a century ago. And so this is also a show about history, and the way it feels like it is catching up with us.” 

Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is a Javaad Alipoor and HOME co-production in association with Traverse Theatre Company, which is co- commissioned by Diverse Actions, Theatre in the Mill, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, and Bush Theatre. 

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR Wed 23 October 2019, 19:45 Thu 24 October 2019, 19:45 (caption sub-titled performance) Fri 25 October 2019, 19:45 (audio-described performance; press night performance) Sat 26 October 2019, 14:15, 19:45 Mon 28 October 2019, 19:45 Tue 29 October 2019, 19:45 Wed 30 October 2019, 19:45 (British Sign Language-interpreted performance) Thu 31 October 2019, 14:15 Thu 31 October 2019, 19:45 Fri 1 November 2019, 19:45 

Sat 2 November 2019, 14:15 Sat 2 November 2019, 19:45 

TICKETS £12.50 (concessions £5-£10.50) 

https://homemcr.org/production/rich-kids-tehran/ @home_mcr #RichKidsPlay 

Edinburgh Festival 2019 Hit Class, from playwright, actor, director, broadcaster and activist Scottee, comes to Home Manchester 

The third and final show in a triptych of works which began in 2013 with The Worst of Scottee and continued with Bravado, which played at HOME in 2017, Class comes to HOME Manchester, Wed 23 – Sat 26 October 2019. Class is a show for the middle classes. It isn’t made for working-class audiences, for they already know the story Scottee – a HOME Associate Artist – unfolds. 

Scottee grew up around mould, mice and clothes off the market. After a chance meeting with some posh kids, his Mum teaching him to talk properly on the phone, and successfully persuading his parents to take him off free school meals, Scottee knew he didn’t want to be common. 

Co-commissioned by HOME and one of one of six HOME-produced shows at Edinburgh in 2019, Class, created by Scottee with acclaimed director Adele Thomas, uncovers what it is to be embarrassed about where you’re from, how you can pretend to be posher than you are, and explores why we all get a thrill playing god with green tokens from Waitrose. 

Directed by Sam Curtis Lindsay and based on Scottee’s personal experiences, Class will be Scottee’s final solo show, for he will no longer be delving into his past and will instead be working on more collective-based works. In 2018, Scottee set up Working Class Artists Group with Bryony Kimmings (whose solo show I’m a Phoenix, Bitch is at HOME Tue 26 Nov – Sat 30 Nov 2019). WCAG represents 33 artists working in theatre who cause trouble to get the sector to listen to working- class artists and their needs. 

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR Wed 23 October 2019, 19:30 Thu 24 October 2019, 19:30 (press night performance) Fri 25 October 2019, 19:30 Sat 26 October 2019, 19:30 

TICKETS £14-£16 (concessions £5-£12) 

https://homemcr.org/production/scottee-class/ @home_mcr #Classshow 

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Traverse Festival 2019 receives exceptionally strong audience, critical and award reception

Traverse Theatre
  •  Audience numbers reach nearly 36,000
  • Over 40 five-star reviews across the programme
  • Mouthpiece wins the coveted Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, facilitating a New York transfer
  • A total of 13 award wins and four shortlistings

The Traverse Theatre has delivered an exceptionally strong and well-received Festival programme, celebrating resilience and action in the face of today’s challenging times. The range of stories and artists, both emergent and established, speaks to our year-round commitment to new writing and has resulted in us being hailed as ‘the best for original plays’ (The Times) and ‘a cornerstone of the Edinburgh Fringe’ (The Independent), putting the Traverse at the heart of this international cultural celebration.

Audience numbers and reactions reflected the strength of the programme – with total numbers topping last year, reaching 35,754 across the 256 production performances. Particularly strong critical praise saw Traverse Festival 2019 receive a total of 42 five-star reviews, and overwhelming audience demand for several productions resulted in additional performances for Enough, Mouthpiece, Burgerz and Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster.

Touring

Of the record-breaking seven productions bearing the Traverse Theatre stamp, several immediately move on to further engagements with audiences elsewhere: Crocodile Fever  (Traverse Theatre Company in association with Lyric Theatre, Belfast) will tour to The Lyric, Belfast (3-8 September);How Not to Drown (ThickSkin and Traverse Theatre Company, in co-production with Tron Theatre and Lawrence Batley Theatre) will tour to Tron Theatre, Glasgow (11-14 September) and Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield (16-19 September); What Girls Are Made Of (Raw Material and Traverse Theatre Company, in association with Regular Music) will tour to Live Theatre, Newcastle (4-6 September), Soho Theatre, London (9-28 September) and Melbourne International Arts Festival (3-31 October); and Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Javaad Alipoor and HOME, in association with Traverse Theatre Company) will tour to HOME, Manchester (23 October-2 November).

Other Traverse Festival 2019 shows with upcoming tour dates include Trying It On (UK tour, 3 September-31 October); Until the Flood (Arcola Theatre, London, 4-28 September); and Burgerz (UK tour, 9 October-23 November).

Awards

Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award:

  • Mouthpiece

Fringe First Awards:

  • Enough
  • How Not to Drown
  • Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran
  • The Patient Gloria
  • Until the Flood

The Stage Edinburgh Awards:

  • Angus Taylor and Shauna Macdonald in Mouthpiece
  • Dael Orlandersmith in Until the Flood

Herald Angel Awards:

  • Dritan Kastrati in How Not to Drown
  • The Patient Gloria

Total Theatre Awards:

  • Travis Alabanza in Burgerz (Emerging Company/Artist)
  • Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster (Innovation, Experimentation and Playing With Form)

BroadwayWorld Edinburgh Fringe Festival Awards:

  • Crocodile Fever (Best Production)

In addition, there was a SIT-UP Award shortlist for How Not to Drown; a Holden Street Theatres Award shortlist for Mouthpiece; and a Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award shortlist for Burgerz.

Linda Crooks, Traverse Executive Producer, says:

“The success of the Traverse’s 2019 Festival programme must be attributed to the exceptional work of the artists on our stages, the crucial stories they have chosen to tell, the selfless teams who have supported them and our fantastically enthusiastic and open-minded audiences who have once again championed the Traverse and our work throughout the month – we thank them all unreservedly.

We are delighted that so many of the productions will be shortly moving on to further life around the country and the world, taking these vibrant and important stories far beyond the Traverse’s walls – and we are particularly thrilled to have again won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award which will bring Mouthpiece to a New York audience. We are already looking forward to Traverse Festival 2020 and the insightful, innovative and occasionally outrageous productions it will bring!”

 

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Edinburgh Festivals Diary – Day 4

Edfringe 2019

My last day in Edinburgh, always a combination of joyous celebration for my sleep-deprived carcass and much sorrow. 

To the Pleasance for the big Fringe First Awards Ceremony – there were a couple of performances from this year’s Fringe First winning shows, The Patient Gloria and Bobby & Amy, and a closing performance by SK Shlomo, who had also been nominated for the Mental Health Fringe Award. 

oyce McMillan and Stephen Fry at the Fringe First Awards Ceremony

Joyce McMillan and Stephen Fry at the Fringe First Awards Ceremony

Stephen Fry was on hand to help critic Joyce McMillan present awards to the final week of winners.

Later at Pleasance Courtyard, I became aware of a member of the audience snatching a programme from the hand of a young usher. 

‘But I want to sit THERE.’ She hissed, before taking a seat next to me and then putting her head in her hands.

‘Oh my god… I was so horrible to that young man, wasn’t I?’ She asked. 

‘ You were an asshole.You ought to get a grip and go and apologise — immediately.’ I replied.

She did. 

Civil breakdown is never far at this stage of the festival. But there is no excuse for such bad behaviour; the Pleasance, like many fringe venues, relies largely on volunteers. 

dressed

dressed

Anyway, ThisEgg returned to the fringe with dressed, based on the true story of a woman’s response to being sexually assaulted at gunpoint. This is a delightfully layered four-woman show which weaves it’s strands together with accomplished skill and which — like so many shows on the fringe — takes a beautifully messy approach to telling an important story. 

I cried twice watching dressed; tears of pain and joy. I loved it. I loved the costumes, I loved the singing and I loved the degree of self revelation and personal risk taking; a highlight of my week. 

I bump into Producer Denise Silvey, she has four shows on the fringe this year, one of which is ‘Late Lunch With Christopher Biggins’, at Pleasance Dome. 

Late Lunch With Biggins featuring Ian McKellen

Late Lunch With Biggins featuring Ian McKellen

I learn that Ian McKellen will be the special guest, alongside Loose Woman and journalist Kaye Adams. Biggins shines in the role of cheeky chat-show host and it’s all rather a lot of fun. 

In the late afternoon I head to Bryony Kimmings’ sold out show ‘I’m A Phoenix, Bitch’, co-directed by Kimmings and Kirsty Housley.

This mind-blowingly good piece of theatre is about motherhood, heartbreak and finding inner strength. Combining ethereal music, personal revelation, clever live film and art installation. 

Kimmings invites us into her recent traumas and marriage breakdown in an on-stage memory palace of dazzling live art: The stage becomes the site of the painful memories. 

I'm A Phoenix, B*tch © Rosie Powel

I’m A Phoenix, B*tch © Rosie Powel

There’s no two ways about it, ‘I’m A Phoenix, Bitch’ is an unostentatious, meticulously crafted ninety-minute performance that is profoundly touching, intimate and powerful. She has given us something, once again, much to long cherish.

You cannot to wrong with a bit of rimming.

The fringe is overdue a new hero and my final show of the day is Post Popular by Lucy McCormick. 

I sat on the front row at this X-rated show – which is excellent in about 37 different ways – that constitutes what I reckon has to be 2019’s definitive Superstar-Has-Landed moment. She is flanked by two largely mute boy toys in tiny pants – and they all sing and dance terrifically. 

Basically, Post Popular is a comedy about history’s famous women – the joke is that there are only four of them: Eve, Boudica, Florence Nightingale & Anne Boleyn.

Lucy McCormick: Post Popular - Holly Revell

Lucy McCormick: Post Popular – Holly Revell

What follows is an outrageous mishmash of cabaret vignettes. Indeed, McCormick’s willingness to look kinda silly while she’s doing her thing is what makes her so compelling. As a final statement she drops her pants while singing ‘Search For The Hero Inside Yourself’ before pulling a Cadbury’s Miniature Hero out of her vagina. 

Thank you, Lucy: I’d never seen a vagina in real life. Now I have. *thumbs up emoji*

So, that’s all, folks. 

It may be time for a digital detox and go off-grid: no blogs, no theatre, no tormenting. I’m removing social media apps from my iPhone (including WhatsApp) and taking some time out.

It feels like the right time to step back and take a rain check for a while. 

See you on the other side, guys. 

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