Shows at Summerhall

Dawn

Dawn

Dawn is a hairdresser who likes to rap. 

Green & Blue

Green & Blue

Green and Blue is a touching and thoughtful production about two police officers patrolling opposites sides of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland durin… 

Who Cares

Who Cares

Who Cares is a stunning, fast paced piece of verbatim theatre about the plight of three young carers living in Salford. 

Like Animals

Like Animals

Through a series of slightly disjointed comic scenes, two actors, Pete and Kim, tell the story of three different relationships. 

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland is informed by a treatment for psychosis that has seen amazing results in Western Lapland. The audience is divided in two while sections of the play run concurrently on either side of a wall… 

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland is informed by a treatment for psychosis that has seen amazing results in Western Lapland. The audience is divided in two while sections of the play run concurrently on either side of a wall… 

Cate Le Bon

Cate Le Bon

It was on a mountainside in Cumbria that the first whispers of Cate Le Bon’s latest album poked their buds above the earth after a year of living solitarily in the Lake District which gave way to Reward… 

Give Me Your Love

Give Me Your Love

Theatre legends Jon Haynes and David Woods of Ridiculusmus are back with Give Me Your Love, a funny and profound fable informed by groundbreaking research. Ex-soldier Zach has withdrawn into a cardboard box in a kitchen in West Wales… 

Faking It

Faking It

During a Radio 3 live broadcast, a private detective stuns the audience by accusing a best-selling author of murder. The author denies the accusation and sets out to prove her innocence to the audience… 

One

One

One is the final part in Bert and Nasi’s trilogy on contemporary questions, following Eurohouse and the Total Theatre Award-winning Palmyra. Taking as its point of departure the polarisation of politics today, One begins amid the ruins of unresolved conflict… 

Uncensored

Uncensored

Topical comedy drama for Radio 3 at Summerhall. When a teenage tech genius has a racist word shouted at her, she decides to take direct action. She deletes the word from the entire internet… 

Miss AmeriKa

Miss AmeriKa

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. 

Miijin Ki

Miijin Ki

A woman twirls endlessly, casting trails of pleasure, while another rebuilds beauty among the fall and collapse of her storm. A man and a woman sit together in their spontaneity. Rocks hit ice, water gushes, voices muffled, plastic manipulated… 

Man on the Moon

Man on the Moon

Part of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2019 and presented by Contact and STUN. The award-winning Man on the Moon journeys through space and time to explore the impact of mental health on family dynamics… 

Back of the Head with a Brick

Back of the Head with a Brick

I was young when I chose to love my city. I was in on every joke it pulled on me. I still love home but it’s not the source of strength it used to be. The jokes aren’t landing anymore… 

My Uncomfortable Wardrobe

My Uncomfortable Wardrobe

Tash is trying to fit into her clothes as well as her role in society. Watch her cope with dressing for the five scheduled events that she has to cram into her week. This one-woman show takes an honest, funny and revealing look at the everyday pressure of women squeezing themselves into uncomfortable outfits and situations and the marks this leaves behind… 

Extremely Pedestrian Chorales

Extremely Pedestrian Chorales

The commonplace experience and movement language of the pedestrian as an act of beauty, meaning and gentle comedy. Based on the sublime harmonies of JS Bach’s famous Chorales, it pitches them into our present day lives with just a dash of punk-ish irreverence… 

Science of the Sesh 3.0

Science of the Sesh 3.0

If you’re here at the Fringe for a good time, don’t let the word ‘science’ cancel out the word ‘sesh’. 

Passengers

Passengers

We’re told that ‘Max needs a firm hand’, as the performance launches with three actors clad in balaclavas. 

To Move In Time

To Move In Time

Imagine you can travel through time. Backwards and Forwards. What would you do? Go back into history to change the present? Get rich using knowledge of the future? Written by Tim Etchells and powerfully performed by Tyrone Huggins, To Move In Time is an unfurling trail of thought in which extraordinary and impossible fantasies are dreamt up, lived out and then discarded… 

Garlands

Garlands

It’s the happiest day of Khush’s life. Arriving at the Gurdwara, the kirtan music soothes her nerves until a blood-curdling chant rises. A group of men have forcibly blocked the entrance to the prayer hall inside to stop her wedding… 

Daddy Drag

Daddy Drag

Leyla Josephine presents us with 'Daddy', a seeming parody of Rab C Nesbitt, oozing toxic masculinity. 

Working On My Night Moves

Working On My Night Moves

At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe it can often feel very hard to be alone. 

Men Chase Women Choose

Men Chase Women Choose

A riotous romp through the history of the female body, the patriarchy and the bad science behind the titular gender myth. 

Appropriate by Sarah-Jane Scott

Appropriate by Sarah-Jane Scott

This one person play, written and performed by Sarah-Jane Scott, introduces us to Sorcha who is fresh from fleeing her wedding. 

Ejaculation – Discussions About Female Sexuality

Ejaculation – Discussions About Female Sexuality

Ejaculation - Discussions of Female Sexuality is a raw, visceral exploration of female pleasure, boldly confronting the many themes which act as barriers to this rarely discussed t… 

MOOT MOOT

MOOT MOOT

‘What’s going on…??’ Rosana Cade cries, with their head in the seat of a swivel chair, spinning slowly in front of a fixated and silent audience. 

100% Soul with the Voices of Virtue Gospel Choir Live

100% Soul with the Voices of Virtue Gospel Choir Live

100% Soul: The Voices of Virtue Gospel Choir live. Experience Motown and soul classics all performed live by the outstanding, full 16-piece Voices of Virtue Gospel Choir band and horn section… 

Questions for Quiz Shows

Questions for Quiz Shows

Cora is at the festival to see her ex-boyfriend perform. She rents a room, living with Anabelle and her children. Sapphire is social media obsessed. Oscar is a recluse, convinced of an alien attack and an avid watcher of quiz shows… 

All of Me

All of Me

An abandoned party; a neglected bedroom; a cluttered AV desk. 

Out of Your Mind

Out of Your Mind

Naomi Sheldon (Funny Women Best Show, 2018) returns with a new psychological drama that takes the audience on an exploration of sound and the supernatural. Making maximum use of headphones and binaural sound, Out of Your Mind will be a bold treat for the ears… 

Neither Here Nor There

Neither Here Nor There

Funny, intimate, political, a bit livid, powerful, powerless and patient. Sonia and Jo host a series of six-minute conversations. They have questions about how it’s all going, big questions about the world and small questions about the state of your garden… 

The End

The End

In this new piece, Bert and Nasi dance the end of their relationship, imagining what a future without each other might look like. Above the stage and projected onto a screen, two parallel narratives run alongside each other: the end of the Earth and the end of their collaboration… 

Sex Education

Sex Education

As I write this review I find myself enveloped by a certain degree of caution. 

Hold On Let Go

Hold On Let Go

Hold On Let Go sets out to address memory loss and forgetting on both a personal and political scale, asking the question: 'What if we forget something important?' Despite … 

Out

Out

Performed with marikiscrycrycry, originally created/performed with Dwayne Antony, Out is about shapeshifting in a bid to fit in; to be black enough, straight enough, Jamaican enough… 

This Time It Will Be Different

This Time It Will Be Different

Presented by Indigenous Contemporary Scene, performance-based installation This Time Will Be Different denounces the Canadian government’s discourse on Indigenous people and takes a critical look at the national reconciliation industry… 

Your Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters

Your Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters

Total Theatre Award-winner Rachel Mars returns to Summerhall with a gloriously intimate and funny new solo show. Before sexts, there were hand-written letters. And loads of them were proper filthy… 

The Grape That Rolled Under the Fridge

The Grape That Rolled Under the Fridge

Imagine a future world where advances in technology allow the government to monitor everyone’s activities by directly communicating with a person’s shadow, which stores their owner’s entire histories… 

Kathryn Joseph – From When I Wake

Kathryn Joseph – From When I Wake

An intimate and provocative live performance that ‘evolves into a hypnotic whirlwind of warring emotions’ (Herald), Cryptic’s critically acclaimed, poignant staging of award-winning singer Kathryn Joseph’s second album returns by popular demand… 

Hearty

Hearty

‘We must bury our knowledge until the apocalypse passes’. Bearing wings made of sharp knives and shooting fireballs into the air, Hearty tackles the current fascination with trans lives and interrogates the controversial bio-technology of HRT… 

Die! Die! Die! Old People Die!

Die! Die! Die! Old People Die!

Die! Die! Die! Old People Die! Ridiculusmus. Comedy duo Ridiculusmus reclaims humankind’s last taboo from imminent eradication in a fragile farce about ageing, dying and grieving. Amid fumbling, coffee, call centres and cat food, their rants, dribbles, pills and cough bombs litter an ambling blend of symbolist mysticism and synesthesia that has the fear of ageing in its sights and oozes with the positivity of elderhood and good deaths… 

Cyst-er Act

Cyst-er Act

Cyst-er Act by Catherine Hoffmann. A messy live art musical probing into the bloody realms of the womb. What's it like to have your fallopian tube hacked off or to birth a 10lb cyst baby? This new work is about the personal experience of having an ovary removed and the discoveries of others' womb difficulties… 

Before the Revolution

Before the Revolution

By mixing fiction and non-fiction, this performance transports the audience to the moment before the inevitable eruption, allowing them to understand and feel the causes that led to the revolution, within a specifically designed visual and soundscape. 

Cardboard Citizens: Bystanders

Cardboard Citizens: Bystanders

Bystanders begins with staging reminiscent of a police detective’s office – plain desks, a few chairs, and piles of boxes full of paperwork and evidence. 

The Populars

The Populars

So, you think you’re cool? The stage is non-existent, you’re stood beneath the pseudo-stage lights and it seems as though you might be a part of the performance… So, what exa… 

Pizza Shop Heroes

Pizza Shop Heroes

Phosphorus Theatre works with refugees and asylum-seekers to create original collaborative autobiographical storytelling. 

Traumgirl

Traumgirl

Traumgirl explores the myths and stereotypes around sex work, laying bare the women behind the industry in a bold narrative which will change the preconceptions of anyone who didn… 

My Best Dead Friend

My Best Dead Friend

The black box space in Summerhall is perfectly suited to Zanetti Productions’ new one-woman show My Best Dead Friend, at once intimate and epic in its proportions. 

Coma

Coma

Bunk beds line the walls, a sterile cream colour melting into plastic mattresses. 

Buzz

Buzz

A body is washed up on the shores of the Faroe Islands, rain softly splatters on a coat, a video projection comes into view and live music fills our ears. 

Vigil

Vigil

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has, for many years, produced and maintained a “Red List” of species which are either already extinct or in danger of bei… 

The Afflicted

The Afflicted

The Afflicted, a startling theatre-dance piece produced by Groupwork and performed at the Summerhall Demonstration Room, is a brilliant re-definition of the docu-drama format. 

Pass

Pass

A mother and daughter’s relationship through transition… A funny, compassionate and modern drama about family relationships from award-winning performer and writer, Kate O’Donnell… 

My Mum's a Twat

My Mum's a Twat

What happens when your mum abandons you at the age of 12 to join a cult and move to Canada? That’s exactly the predicament Anoushka Warden found herself in, subsequent to her par… 

Phrases

Phrases

Phrases is an inventive and open-minded solo performance from dance artist Lewys Holt, honouring and making space for the confusion and miscommunication which we often seek to avoi… 

Mustard

Mustard

Eva O’Connor’s one-woman show about heart break and madness is crammed with life, wit and tragedy. 

First Time

First Time

This is definitely not the first time I have seen a play about being gay or about the AIDS epidemic, but it is the first time I have seen an eclectic and moving look at life post H… 

A Khoisan Woman

A Khoisan Woman

Her skin is black. Her hair is kinky. Her hips are wide. Her tongue clicks the songs of the Khoi language. Saartjie Baartman is the proud embodiment of the Khoisan women of South Africa… 

James Rowland's Revelations

James Rowland's Revelations

A couple of years ago James’ best friends, Sarah and Emma, asked him for his sperm. This is the tale of what happened next and what happened after that, and what happened after that… 

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

Fringe University believes that the Edinburgh Fringe makes an excellent classroom. Come meet and network with other university professors from around the world planning to, or already using, the Fringe for educational purposes. 

Where to Belong

Where to Belong

What makes a home? It’s one of a number of questions that Victor Esses asks of audience members as they come in, taping their responses for use later on in his show. 

Resurrecting Bobby Awl

Resurrecting Bobby Awl

"Poor Fellow. 

Traumboy

Traumboy

In Traumboy, his one-man show about his experiences as a gay male prostitute, Daniel Hellmann emerges as a performer that is as eloquent with his voice as he is with his body. 

Feast

Feast

A show about food. From primitive struggle, through the baroque excess to technological perversion, how has our relationship with nourishment changed throughout history? This one-woman show employs physical theatre, clowning and multimedia to delve into consumerism’s excesses and extremes… 

Ali and Alpo

Ali and Alpo

A beautiful wordless dialogue between Iraqi traditional music and Finnish contemporary dance. The original aim of the work by oud lute virtuoso Ali Alawad and choreographer Alpo Aaltokoski was to contemplate the similarities and differences between two mutually alien cultures… 

The Ladies Room

The Ladies Room

Gemma Bedeau is a writer, costume designer and graphic novelist. In The Ladies Room she wonders, how do you stay friends when people change? She invites us to join Amy, Becca and Keisha on a girls’ night out in the Ladies room of a nightclub… 

Andrew Wasylyk: The Paralian

Andrew Wasylyk: The Paralian

Scottish musician and producer Andrew Wasylyk accepted an extended residency invite from arts centre and historic house Hospitalfield, in Arbroath, Scotland to create new music for their restored 19th-century Erard Grecian harp… 

The Desk

The Desk

A dimly lit stage, five women and their leader, to whom they will give everything until there is nothing left to give: this is the basic set-up for Reetta Honkakoski Company’s ca… 

Everything I See I Swallow

Everything I See I Swallow

Something special is about to happen - we know this deeply and cerebrally as we enter stage to the mesmerising image of Maisy Taylor intricately entwined in shibari ropes, barely v… 

For All I Care

For All I Care

For All I Care is, first and foremost, the story of two women. 

Shit

Shit

Shit is an award-winning compelling, raw and powerful play which examines the intersections of class and misogyny. It is provocative, tragic, heartbreaking, bracing and bitterly funny… 

James Rowland's A Hundred Different Words for Love

James Rowland's A Hundred Different Words for Love

Five years ago, at his best friends Sarah and Emma’s engagement party, James met the love the love his life. Two years later, they broke up. It was definitely absolutely not because James found it impossible to say three simple words… 

LipSync / Cumbernauld Theatre

LipSync / Cumbernauld Theatre

Biographical performances like LipSync, produced by Cumbernauld Theatre as part of their Invited Guest project, don't always have some obvious, political point to make; they… 

Free Love Plus Guests

Free Love Plus Guests

Free Love is the latest manifestation of the Scottish experimental pop duo formerly known as Happy Meals, known for their extraordinary sensual live ceremonies. Their utopian dance pop experiments released on Night School Records and Optimo have seen them nominated for Scottish Album of the Year… 

James Rowland's Team Viking

James Rowland's Team Viking

Eight years ago, James’ best friend Tom was diagnosed with heart cancer and told he had three months to live. Inspired by the 1958 Kirk Douglas movie Vikings, Tom’s last wish was to be given a full viking burial… 

21

21

When did you turn 21? In this ambitious video installation, Mats Staub explores how world history is mirrored in personal memories. From Germany to South Africa, Australia to Scotland, he interviews more than 200 people from all age groups and backgrounds about their memories of the year they became an adult – then several months later, asks them to listen back to their words… 

Wild Women and Oneironauts

Wild Women and Oneironauts

Three goddesses are summoned to Earth through an ancient ritual; instead, the heavens send the women your mother hoped you would never become. These grotesque creatures go on a hilarious, offensive journey of feminine storytelling (from Eve to Cinderella) to discover what has happened to the Wild Women… 

Barney's Brewery Tour and Walkabout

Barney's Brewery Tour and Walkabout

Step behind the old horse stable doors and discover Summerhall’s very own brewery: Barney’s Beer. Visit the brewery, explore the local area and taste Barney’s Beer. Brewery tour, historic walking tour and beer tasting… 

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes are additional information at the bottom of the page. They can add some context to what is being discussed in the main text, helping the reader better understand the discussion or possibly suggest places for further research… 

Yukon Ho! (Tall Tales from the Great White North)

Yukon Ho! (Tall Tales from the Great White North)

Comic dance-theatre conceived and performed by Yukon born ‘Intrepid’ Jen. This is the story of Jen’s life and survival in the remote wilds of the Yukon Territory, Northern Canada… 

Swallow the Sea Caravan Theatre

Swallow the Sea Caravan Theatre

From the absurd to the moving, magical, funny and intriguing. Swallow the Sea Caravan Theatre gives an escape from the norm and plunges audiences into a different world. Shadow and tabletop puppetry, object theatre, poetry, installation and live soundscape give a rare opportunity to experience intimate all-immersive theatre in the tiniest of settings with the smallest of audiences… 

Native Girl Syndrome

Native Girl Syndrome

Presented by Indigenous Contemporary Scene, Native Girl Syndrome is inspired by the experience of Lara Kramer’s own grandmother’s migration from a remote First Nations community into an unfamiliar urban environment as a young woman… 

Limbo

Limbo

Meeting Place Theatre and Teresa and Andrzej Welminski Foundation present Limbo. The show is the latest addition to the catalogue of Kantorian-inspired theatre, taking inspiration from the work and practice of Polish theatre director, visual artist, designer and writer Tadeusz Kantor and Cricot2 Theatre… 

A Pickering's Gin Jolly

A Pickering's Gin Jolly

Take a gin jolly with Pickering’s Gin in their home at Summerhall Distillery. Pickering’s and Tonic in hand, discover how the former kennels of the Royal (Dick) Vet School came to be Edinburgh’s first exclusive gin distillery in 150 years… 

Before the End

Before the End

April 2015, Michel Graindorge passed away. The famous Belgian lawyer was also Catherine’s father. A man dies, a daughter loses her father. Catherine Graindorge, writer and violinist, tells us of the universal bond between father and daughter… 

Taiwan Season: Bout

Taiwan Season: Bout

Taiwan’s Chang brothers (co-creators of Bon 4 Bon, a five-star hit at the 2018 Fringe) bounce back with a dance that reveals fresh facets of their fraternal relationships and the rich possibilities – and inherent conflicts – of male bonding… 

Drone

Drone

A live jam of music, video and poetry, this multimedia theatre show tells the true story of a military drone’s life and fears. The Drone is a weapons system, an office worker, a background hum… 

Everything I Do

Everything I Do

Everything I Do premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival in a sell-out run at Project Arts Centre. It’s a music-driven theatre piece about the universality of love, pain and hope. In an intimate and soulful performance based on personal material, for which Zoe Ní Riordáin received the Best Performer Award at the Dublin Fringe, the show searches for a meaningful connection with the audience… 

Jonny Donahoe: Forgiveness (Work-in-Progress)

Jonny Donahoe: Forgiveness (Work-in-Progress)

Forgiveness is a work-in-progress about the cycles of abuse that form and affect who we are; if and how we can escape them and move on. Jonny Donahoe is the co-creator and performer of Every Brilliant Thing, which he performed more than four hundred times over four continents, including five months off-Broadway… 

Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats

Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats

Celebrating their final year as Europeans, island monkeys Becca and Louise got invited to the 2018 European Capital of Culture in Malta. Lads on tour and ‘the rising stars of performance art’ (Telegraph) Sh!t Theatre went to drink rum with Brits abroad but found mystery and murder in the fight to be European… 

First Piano on the Moon

First Piano on the Moon

Adapting Mozart, Chopin and Scott Joplin for outer space requires a specially equipped pianist. Will has been doing some groundwork. As schoolmates study for exams, he’s busy making preparations for his lunar recital… 

Community Circle

Community Circle

A social experiment? A support group for people looking to find their own comedy? 12-step meeting? Literal mind-reading show? A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? (Unless you go back the next day?) A prayer group? A waste of everyone’s time and money? Those who wish to participate are free to do so, as are those who prefer to sit back, relax and watch the spectacle unfold… 

Life Is No Laughing Matter

Life Is No Laughing Matter

‘Sometimes I think I have felt everything I’m ever gonna feel and from here on out, I’m not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I’ve already felt’. Life is No Laughing Matter’s a performance about mental illness, suicide and radical cure attempts… 

8:8

8:8

Eight ordinary people stand before eight spectators. But how ordinary are they really? Can you trust how people look and what they say? What makes someone a suspect? With a diverse cast of eight accomplices drawn from the Edinburgh community, this intimate play of truth and deception challenges the judgements we make about the people we pass every day… 

Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is a funny, magical trip to the moon, with singing and dancing thrown in: one woman’s extraordinary story of how she survived growing up with severe depression. A raw and powerful performance, with humour, heart and soul, with stunning vocals and beautiful imagery in the storytelling… 

My Name Is Irrelevant

My Name Is Irrelevant

In a world created by your imagination it can be difficult to work out what is fiction and what is reality. 

Umbrella Man

Umbrella Man

Umbrella Man is the story of a young man from the north of Scotland who tries to prove the Earth is flat. Using poetry, storytelling and improvised piano to take audiences on a journey to the outer limits of common sense, Umbrella Man comes to Edinburgh fresh from a critically acclaimed tour of the southern hemisphere… 

Taiwan Season: Fish

Taiwan Season: Fish

Sign language meets puppetry in this engaging, BSL-signed production based on a short novel by the revered Taiwanese author Huang Chunming. Pinned to the expected delivery and unfortunate loss of a much-desired fish, the conflict between a grandfather and grandson unfolds in a touching, richly sensory experience aimed at – but by no means limited to – hearing-impaired audiences… 

Oh Yes Oh No

Oh Yes Oh No

This is about having sexual fantasies that don’t align with your politics. About understanding what you want and wondering how to ask for it. Award-winning performance artist Louise Orwin asks the difficult questions, taking you on a surreal joyride through female sexuality and violence… 

Cotton Fingers

Cotton Fingers

Aoife’s hungry and bored. Cillian makes a mean cheese toastie. As boredom and hunger are satisfied by half an hour in Cillian’s bed, Aoife’s life changes forever. As social and political upheaval grips her country, what hope does Aoife have to regain control? A timely, politically-charged show written by award-winning writer Rachel Trezise at the time of the historic referendum of the eighth amendment in Ireland, Cotton Fingers takes us on a journey from Belfast to Cardiff. 

Tröll

Tröll

It’s 1998. Otto is 12 but online he’s 13 and he’s pretty sure he gets away with it. He lives with his mum, dad, and sister, a chain-smoking Icelandic granny, and an ancient malevolent troll that’s living in the wall… 

Sparkle

Sparkle

Scottish theatre-maker Annie Cusick Wood worked with companies such as Visible Fictions and Catherine Wheels before moving to Hawaii where she collaborates with Hawaii’s Honolulu Theatre for Youth… 

Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks

Mandy is an idiot. 

Contra

Contra

Drawing from circus, stand-up and live art, Contra is a solo-cabaret of contradictions. Fierce, witty and uncompromising, this highly physical show interrogates personal, social and historical occupations of the female body and explores, literally, where such bodies are positioned and how we are meant to look at them… 

Claire Dowie's When I Fall If I Fall

Claire Dowie's When I Fall If I Fall

Leaping barriers of age, sexuality and gender, Gloria prepares to dance the can-can one last time. When I Fall If I Fall tells Gloria’s story about growing up feeling different and not fitting in… 

Nightclubbing

Nightclubbing

Rachael Young and her badass band of superhumans embrace Afrofuturism and the cult of Grace Jones in Nightclubbing; an explosive performance bringing visceral live music and intergalactic visions to start a revolution… 

Louder Is Not Always Clearer

Louder Is Not Always Clearer

Meet Jonny: teacher, father and football fan. He’s an artist, campaigner, and deaf. He wishes he could sing and loves to dance, but he can’t hear the music unless the bass is loud. Jonny grew up in a hearing family, surrounded by fear of the stigma of disability… 

Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy

In September 1996, Channel 4 screened a documentary about River Phoenix as a gay icon. One participant in that film was a 23-year-old Chris Goode. Chris’s new solo show uses the life and death of River Phoenix to look back on the turbulent experience of queer life in the 90s – including the intense summer of his first Edinburgh Fringe, twenty-five years ago… 

James Rowland's Songs of Friendship

James Rowland's Songs of Friendship

For the first time James performs his multi award-winning trilogy of storytelling shows, Team Viking, A Hundred Different Words for Love and Revelations back-to-back in one evening… 

FrontX

FrontX

FrontX shows a range of international street artists who combine exceptional energy and resilience. Their fascinating personal life stories are the main theme of the show. As spokespersons of our contemporary society, these performers embody the true sense of integration, since the first meaning of the verb to ‘integrate’ is ‘to make complete, whole’, and, in so doing, build a complete ensemble… 

Niteworks

Niteworks

Niteworks are Ruairidh Graham, Allan MacDonald, Christopher Nicolson and Innes Strachan. Formed on the Isle of Skye, they fuse Gaelic language and traditional music with electronic influences to create a fresh and exhilarating sound... 

A Generous Lover

A Generous Lover

A Generous Lover is La JohnJoseph’s heartfelt account of caring for a bipolar partner. Orpheus and La JohnJoseph pass through various institutional limbos including health services, art therapy seminars and medication focused recovery plans... 

Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas (Work-in-Progress / Open Rehearsal)

Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas (Work-in-Progress / Open Rehearsal)

Following the success of the Total Theatre Award-winning Palmyra and Eurohouse, Bert and Nasi present an exclusive work-in-progress showing of their latest piece. Part open rehearsal, part durational performance, the final piece in this trilogy of work looks at the left through the prism of the right, considering the polarisation of political debate and the rise of populism across nations... 

The Transatlantic Ensemble Perform Fleetwood Mac's Rumours

The Transatlantic Ensemble Perform Fleetwood Mac's Rumours

Fresh off the back of their last two outstanding, sell-out Summerhall shows, the amazing Transatlantic Ensemble return once again, to perform Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Album, live and in its entirety... 

Welcome to Night Vale

Welcome to Night Vale

Welcome To Night Vale is one of the most downloaded podcasts in the world. The podcast comes to life at Edinburgh Fringe as WTNV premier their all new show before they embark on a world tour... 

Neil Hilborn

Neil Hilborn

Bestselling author and most watched poet of all time Neil Hilborn – famous for the internationally successful poems OCD and Joey and The Future, Neil Hilborn's poems have been viewed over 150 million times on YouTube... 

Sage Francis and B Dolan Are: Epic Beard Men

Sage Francis and B Dolan Are: Epic Beard Men

Returning for their third Fringe – after a decade of sharing stages and crafting collaborations in the studio, real-life rap BFFs Sage Francis and B Dolan have finally caved to years of fan pressure to form an official group: Epic Beard Men... 

Status

Status

Chris Thorpe's solo show for this year is about grappling with national identity as a white british man. It uses a mix of storytelling music, song, wonderful visuals and projection, to tell us the story of struggling with your national identity when your nation does something you fundamentally disagree with... 

Closed Doors

Closed Doors

When the cast of Closed Doors were taking their bow, they mentioned that this show existed as a book and as an album, and I immediately wished I had listened to the album. Not because I was floored by the show’s brilliance, but because Closed Doors felt like an album and a poem retrofitted for the stage... 

Void

Void

Void is really intense, in the best possible way. If you're looking for a break from the stand-up comedy and the wordy theatre then get down to The Old Lab in Summerhall, and strap in for 45 minutes of 'experimental dance and abstract glitch-video landscapes... 

How to Keep Time: A Drum Solo for Dementia

How to Keep Time: A Drum Solo for Dementia

There’s a line in How to Keep Time that sat very deeply in my heart: “All my memories have been rewritten for who you are now.” That a person who handed a child a gooseberry and told him stories of the war in Poland and made him smile so much would be remembered not as the good man he was, but the stuttering mess he is... 

Everything Not Saved

Everything Not Saved

What can you remember from five years ago? Or five days ago? Five minutes ago, even? What can you be absolutely sure, beyond all doubt that you remember? MALAPROP Theatre’s new show Everything Not Saved takes the scientific theory that on a neurological level memory and imagination are exactly the same, open to endless manipulation with sometimes amusing, sometimes chilling results... 

Pussy Riot: Riot Days

Pussy Riot: Riot Days

It’s very rare that you go to ‘the theatre’ and feel as though you are witnessing a moment in history; with Riot Days, Pussy Riot successfully creates this feeling. The piece combines spoken word and performance art with a live punk gig and documentary with unquestionable impact... 

DollyWould

DollyWould

Sh!t Theatre’s sell out show from last year returns for a limited run at Summerhall, in what is perhaps the most bizarre, strange and utterly hysterical hours of performance art you’re likely to see at this years festival... 

Fallen Fruit

Fallen Fruit

Two Destination Language are encouraging audiences to see the personal narrative behind history with their performance Fallen Fruit. Set in 1989 at the fall of the Berlin Wall, Katherina Radeva presents two perspectives on this life-changing moment... 

A Fortunate Man

A Fortunate Man

There are books which are called seminal largely because so many people have read them. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Pride and Prejudice. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (hush you - we're in Edinburgh - show some respect…)Far more intriguing, however, are those texts which are largely unknown outside of a specific community but, for those communities, are touchstones for their profession... 

NEHH, Made in Scotland and Meursault Present... Crow Hill

NEHH, Made in Scotland and Meursault Present... Crow Hill

Meursault presents Crow Hill, a series of urban horror story vignettes, set in the titular, fictional, Scottish town. A project comprising of a studio album, a feature film and a graphic novel, Meursault will be performing Crow Hill in it's entirety, accompanied by projections, dancers and actors... 

The Ballad of the Apathetic Son and His Narcissistic Mother

The Ballad of the Apathetic Son and His Narcissistic Mother

This high-energy performance features real-life mother Lucy and her 15-year-old son Raedie. Not much connects them anymore, but they both love the singer Sia. They love her music, her videos and her hair – especially when it moves in a choppy, black-on-platinum swivel... 

East Belfast Boy

East Belfast Boy

Prime Cut Productions: East Belfast Boy by Fintan Brady. Pumping techno, pulverising movement and street sharp poetry. East Belfast Boy is a cliche-free zone. Meet Davy. The things he sees... 

Tetra-Decathlon

Tetra-Decathlon

The Tetra-Decathlon is a gruelling 14-event athletics competition, requiring a unique combination of skills to complete. Having never before set foot on a running track, Lauren Hendry decided to sign up for the event, joining only a dozen other women in the World Championships... 

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Following two critically acclaimed sell-out runs, the National Youth Theatre present the Edinburgh debut of Mohsin Hamid's Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, adapted for stage by Stephanie Street and directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah... 

See-Through

See-Through

All you need is a camera, an internet connection and something to say. Last year, 34% of young people voted YouTuber as their top career choice. Claire was intrigued. She decided to have a go... 

Get Rreel

Get Rreel

The world's biggest girl band Get Rreel are on the brink of collapse. They are at the height of their fame, and playing sold-out stadiums worldwide. But backstage their lives are crumbling... 

The Hit

The Hit

A very black comedy – Mikey is a hitman exposed to parts of the brain he never thought he would see. After an accidental death, some nagging last words, and a chance encounter in a steam bath he's trying to straighten things out... 

The Midnight Soup

The Midnight Soup

The Midnight Soup is a piece of theatre during which the audience prepare a meal that they share at the end. The Midnight Soup starts as a monologue and gently opens out to become a conversation... 

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

Fringe University believes that the Edinburgh Fringe makes an excellent classroom. Come meet and network with other university professors from around the world planning to, or already using, the Fringe for educational purposes. 

Achilles

Achilles

With roots in Grotowski’s theatrical style and the laboratory theatre of 1970s Poland, Company of Wolves are known for their striking, collaborative work that fuses dance, physical and experimental theatre... 

The Basement Tapes

The Basement Tapes

Cleaning out her grandmother's old basement after her death, amongst the usual detritus a woman finds a tape recorder and an accompanying tape which tells the kind of story usually reserved for The Twilight Zone... 

Orpheus

Orpheus

Alexander Wright, our poet for the evening, tells us that this piece was written in The Meadows – the park not very far from Summerhall where they are performing now. Both the barefoot boys, Wright, with his long hair and hat, and Phil Granger with his patchwork harem pants and acoustic guitar, look like they could have been freshly plucked from the locals regularly seen strewn across the grass... 

Evros

Evros

Follow Doaa who dreams of a better life amongst a backdrop of war, terror and enduring love. The boy from the local garden centre, whose tranquil existence amongst the flowers is torn apart... 

Flight

Flight

Darkfield – creators of last years Séance – have brought their shipping container back to Summerhall for their latest aeronautically themed immersive audio performance, Flight... 

War With the Newts

War With the Newts

Knaive Theatre’s reworking of Czech author Karel Capek’s 1937 novel War with the Newts is a striking adaptation of an unfairly forgotten sci-fi masterpiece that will leave you laughing, gasping and shaking with terror... 

Revelations

Revelations

James Rowland may not strike you as a sperm donor if you met him in the street, but this is a man prepared to go to the ends of the earth to help his best friend and her wife find their happy ending... 

Cock, Cock... Who's There?

Cock, Cock... Who's There?

Cock, cock… Who’s there? is a multimedia, autobiographical documentary-cum-social experiment all about writer-performer Samira Elagoz’s relationship with men after being raped... 

Love Song to Lavender Menace

Love Song to Lavender Menace

We in the L.G.B.T.+ community are often slightly adrift from our own history. The legal and cultural oppression that has existed for almost the entirety of modern history has left many of us disconnected from our past and shared communities... 

Egg

Egg

The Edinburgh Fringe is the sort of place where you expect to see experimental, strange and unusual performances, and Paper Doll Militia’s Egg will certainly satisfy audiences looking for that ‘Fringe theatre’ experience... 

NEHH Presents... The Kevin Rowland DJ Show

NEHH Presents... The Kevin Rowland DJ Show

Kevin Rowland – Style icon and leader of the band Dexys (formerly Dexy's Midnight Runners) is renowned for his vast wealth of musical knowledge and a highly charged eclecticism, which in turn has secured his standing as a fascinating and entertaining DJ... 

Taiwan Season: Once Upon a Daydream

Taiwan Season: Once Upon a Daydream

Once Upon a Daydream, produced by Sun Son Theatre, bursts with life and colour. A show which will appeal to adults and children alike (four upwards). Live actors and musicians on stage interact and slide in and out of the fantasy world of a lonely young girl in pursuit of love... 

Valerie

Valerie

Through the thick haze and wash lights, the three piece band of performers that make up Valerie can just be seen, shimmering like figures from the past. Clocking the guitars and drums, you can tell, this is going to get loud... 

Notorious Strumpet & Dangerous Girl

Notorious Strumpet & Dangerous Girl

Make sure you arrive at Notorious Strumpet & Dangerous Girl a few minutes early; performer Jess Love is thrilled to offer you a coffee, a tea, or a biscuit in the queue. You’ll definitely want to be fully alert in order to keep up with her whip-sharp transitions... 

Backup

Backup

Backup, a mix of puppetry and gestural object theatre, is a half hour of pure delight. Performers Julie Tenret, Sandrine Heyraud, and Sicaire Durieux are joined onstage by an absolutely stunning miniature set by Zoé Tenret and beautiful puppets by Waw Studios and Joachim Janin... 

NEHH Presents... Start to End – Solid Air by John Martyn

NEHH Presents... Start to End – Solid Air by John Martyn

Start to End return with a live band interpretation of John Martyn's classic fourth solo studio album Solid Air, following a sold-out appearance at Celtic Connections 2018. Featuring Sam West on vocals – who provided the voice for their performance of Jeff Buckley's Grace last month – and a very special line-up of musicians from Admiral Fallow, Roddy Hart & the Lonesome Fire, Pronto Mama and more... 

The Myth of the Singular Moment

The Myth of the Singular Moment

On a train heading south, the eyes of a tired man meet those of a woman weeping, if only for a moment. Nothing more than a look links these travellers, though over the course of the next hour, performers Jim Harbourne and Kirsty Ella McIntyre will convince otherwise... 

Duckie

Duckie

Le Gateau Chocolat has brought his background in drag to this kids show, which is a solo act loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling. We follow along a duckling called Duckie, as they find their voice, literally... 

The Flop

The Flop

It seems that Cardiff-based Hijinx Theatre Company are happy to take risks. Not when it comes to integrating professional actors with learning disabilities in their productions; that's been a successful, creatively fulfilling policy for years... 

Blackout

Blackout

I’ll begin by noting that this particular viewing was unfortunately tarnished by a very inconsiderate audience, where both latecomers and six mid-show phone calls bombarded the five actors with distractions... 

Unsung

Unsung

With the advent of the internet, smartphones and social media, today’s politics happens under an unprecedented level of scrutiny. Our leaders live their lives out in the open, permanently exposed, public figures made more public than ever... 

The Last Straw

The Last Straw

People Show have been producing work for more than 50 years which, given the self-indulgence of People Show 130 (or The Last Straw, to give its more Fringe-friendly title), is something of a surprise... 

The Egg Is a Lonely Hunter

The Egg Is a Lonely Hunter

Single person monologues have long been a fringe staple, but nevertheless they are incredibly difficult to successfully pull off. With her show The Egg is A Lonely Hunter, Hannah Mamalis just about manages... 

De Fuut

De Fuut

Winner of the 2017 Best International Performance Award at the 2017 Fringe Festival, Amsterdam and hit of the 2018 Brighton Fringe. The thing about Lolita is that you're just completely consumed and engrossed by the ardent passion of a man, who is forever doomed to crave something sinister, something twisted... 

BBC Pop-Up Radio Drama Studio at Summerhall

BBC Pop-Up Radio Drama Studio at Summerhall

The BBC is creating an intimate live pop up radio studio at Summerhall. Eight fresh audio plays from leading writers are being recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. This is a unique opportunity to see how a radio drama is put together – complete with a full cast and live sound effects... 

And So I Watch You from Afar

And So I Watch You from Afar

And So I Watch You from Afar released The Endless Shimmering on the 20 October 2017 on Los Angeles based record label Sargent House, home of fellow noiseniks Deafheaven, Chelsea Wolfe and Russian Circles... 

Jan Tait and the Bear

Jan Tait and the Bear

Based on a medieval story handed down by oral tradition, Emily Doolittle's comedic chamber opera tells the story of Jan Tait, a rugged and roguish Shetlander who is always ready for an adventure... 

Ur – Medëa

Ur – Medëa

Desire is the place of not yet having. Choose a literary figure as the body. Merge your identity with this character. Create an autonomous being. Live fully, personally, passionately, without personal agenda... 

Alma, a Human Voice

Alma, a Human Voice

Alma: A Human Voice is a one-person performance focused on portraying and contrasting two characters from the early 1900s. One of these is painter Oskar Kokoschka, who famously made a life-size doll of his former lover, and muse, Alma Mahler; the other is the main character in Cocteau’s Opera, La Voix Humaine, a heart-broken woman... 

Never Vera Blue

Never Vera Blue

Never Vera Blue is a brave and commendable production, which interrogates the effects of gaslighting in an emotionally abusive relationship. Laura Dos Santos delivers an arresting performance as the protagonist, referred to only as ‘Woman’, who constantly tries to assert her version of events across three complementary strands of imagery... 

Ruth Cockburn – Love Letters from Blackpool

Ruth Cockburn – Love Letters from Blackpool

"Welcome to Blackpool!" Cockburn beams as her audience files into Summerhall’s Anatomy Lecture Theatre. It’s a good choice of venue. The dark wood of the desks, the sickly pale turquoise of the walls and the blacked-out pyramid skylight of the ceiling all contribute to a performance space reminiscent of seaside music halls... 

My Left Nut

My Left Nut

"Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve. "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz. Some song by the Spice Girls. My Left Nut's pre-show soundtrack alone does a great job of taking us back to 1998, although it's left to Michael Patrick to give us the geographic context of Belfast... 

Baby Face

Baby Face

“Have you ever fantasised about someone like me?” Katy Dye asks the audience, not as an adult woman, not as a performance artist, but as a 15-year-old school girl. Dye’s performance, Baby Face, asks hard-hitting, uncomfortable questions about how we, as a society infantilise women... 

Bottom

Bottom

Willy Hudson’s heart-filled, charming and hysterical one man show storms the stage at Summerhall and sheds light on the hugely under-discussed areas of gay sexual politics with deft wit and incredible heart... 

Goblin Perform Dawn of the Dead (Live) – 40th Anniversary

Goblin Perform Dawn of the Dead (Live) – 40th Anniversary

Italian horror soundtrack maestro Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin perform their classic 1978 score live to a screening of George Romero's film Dawn of the Dead (celebrating 40 years)... 

Goblin Perform Suspiria (Live) – 40th Anniversary

Goblin Perform Suspiria (Live) – 40th Anniversary

The Italian horror soundtrack maestro Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin perform their classic 1977 score live to a screening of the famous Dario Argento film Suspiria (celebrating 40 years)... 

Prehistoric

Prehistoric

In an empty and decaying room four performers armed only with limited props, a beat up collection of instruments, and a selection of microphones bring to life a tale of anger, rage, and protest that lifts the spirit and goes down as one of the most thrilling and unique shows you’re likely to see at the Festival this year... 

Handfast

Handfast

Double Fringe First winners Nutshell return with this world premiere in a co-production with The Byre Theatre. The boiler's broken, the owl with the rings is missing, the celebrant's late and the band haven't turned up... 

Barney's Brewery Tours

Barney's Brewery Tours

Operating out of Summerhall since 2012, Barney's Beer invites visitors to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our brewery runs on a day-to-day basis. During the hour-long tour visitors will have the opportunity to taste some of our beers while learning about the actual brewing process and the story of Barney's Beer, as well as the history of brewing in Edinburgh and Scotland, and the history of Summerhall itself. 

Come to Daddy

Come to Daddy

'The children grabbed him (the father) and put him on the table. And he became the food. They took him apart, dismembered him. Ate him up. And so he was liquidated... the same way he liquidated his children... 

The Last One

The Last One

The Last One is the end of all things, and still needing more. A physical, visual and metaphysical battle for total beauty. The Last One investigates the destructive toll of a progressively tame, accommodating and greying existence... 

Erewhon

Erewhon

Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a fantasy novel by Samuel Butler which, first published anonymously in 1872, presented itself as the experiences of its narrator on discovering the mysterious country and near-utopian community of Erewhon – an anagram of "nowhere" – which had largely abandoned the controlling influence of technology... 

Locked In Edinburgh, Escape the Distillery

Locked In Edinburgh, Escape the Distillery

Locked In Edinburgh escape game challenge to solve the mystery of who's plotting against the distillery. Play as a team and puzzle your way out, while saving the gin in the process! Summerhall's previously sold out escape show. 

Woogie Boogie

Woogie Boogie

The vividly stunning screen show of BRUSH Theatre. Fantastic ocean with a lyrical story and vivid illustration. Shiny, sandy beach with live sound effects. Touching story singing the sorrow of parting and expectation of new meeting... 

Our Country

Our Country

'A striking dream world... one of the most ambitious pieces we have ever presented' (Anna Woo, The Getty Villa). California’s marijuana country: the still-Wild West. Annie conducts a forensic exploration of 'the facts' about her outlaw weed farmer brother as this genre-bending work slips into disputed territory: childhood memories... 

Taiwan Season: The Delusion of Home

Taiwan Season: The Delusion of Home

From the Chiayi area of southern Taiwan comes this strong and original documentary-style depiction of local contemporary life refracted through one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies... 

All the Lights Are On

All the Lights Are On

Typical Emmy, to turn brain cancer into a game! Her husband attempts to care for her, even as the illness eats away the woman he knows and loves, and her mother holds faith with internet voodoo and blueberry juice... 

Drive-By Shooting

Drive-By Shooting

A street art opera. A comic story of passion and revenge played out by octogenarians on zimmer frames. He's been playing around with the next-door neighbour. She's going to shoot the fecker in the pecker with his Daddy's own gun... 

My Kind of Michael

My Kind of Michael

Ever since he was a kid, Nick has loved Michael Barrymore. In this heartfelt and playful tribute, Nick invites you to examine the turbulent relationship between showman and spectator... 

Extinguished Things

Extinguished Things

'My neighbours leave their flat one morning but don't return. Al and Evie, married 40 years, no kids. I have their spare keys. I cannot resist.' Award-winning writer/performer Molly Taylor pieces together the story of two lives intertwined... 

Big Aftermath of a Small Disclosure

Big Aftermath of a Small Disclosure

By Magne van den Berg, UK premiere. 'ATC inspires me to reconsider what theatre can do' (Simon Stephens). Louise and Jon. Happy together. Except. Jon's got something to say. A small disclosure with big consequences... 

Until You Hear That Bell

Until You Hear That Bell

Told through spoken word and within timed boxing rounds, Until You Hear That Bell is a story about ten years of amateur boxing and a changing relationship between father and son. ‘A winning performance from a skilled storyteller’ **** (Stage)... 

Another One

Another One

If you break my heart, I’ll break yours too... This thrilling and inventive new work from one of Belgium’s most exciting young companies explores the world of both tolerating and being tolerated... 

European Citizen Popsong

European Citizen Popsong

Music’s power has erased boundaries before, but can it make us feel connected as citizens, even after the Brexit? Last year, theatre maker Marieke Dermul researched if such a thing as a European identity or a common European sense exists... 

Portraits in Motion

Portraits in Motion

A flipbook might look like an ordinary but unusually shaped book, but appearances can be deceptive. Open it, flip its pages and you'll see a miniature movie. In Germany, home of Volker Gerling, the word for flipbook is Daumenkino – literally thumb-cinema... 

Nele Needs a Holiday: The Musical

Nele Needs a Holiday: The Musical

A Belgian pop star moves to London to steal the job of British pop stars. Luckily, austerity is there to stop her. A witty pop-opera about a girl called Nele who turns her life into a big international mess because she wants to be famous on the other side of the English Channel... 

Where It Hurts

Where It Hurts

The NHS saves lives. It's there when no-one else is. A group of Edinburgh residents, carers and health professionals are invited to audition for a new play which examines their experiences of seeking and providing care in the NHS... 

The Sauna

The Sauna

The Sauna is a story of an old woman. Her intention to die is distracted by irritating spirit of sauna. This mythical creature, also known as the elf of sauna, evokes the corporal memories of the lady and takes her through the chapters of her womanhood... 

A Pickering's Gin Jolly

A Pickering's Gin Jolly

Take a gin jolly with Pickering's Gin in their home at Summerhall Distillery. With a G&T in hand, discover how the former kennels of the Royal (Dick) Vet School came to be Edinburgh's first exclusive gin distillery in 150 years and Visit Scotland's best visitor attraction in Edinburgh... 

Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

'Why should I continue to be tolerant, when the world has been so intolerant of me?’ Trojan Horse was a local story that hit the national press, accusing ‘hardline’ Muslim teachers and governors of plotting extremism in Birmingham schools... 

After the Cuts

After the Cuts

Produced by Raw Material, in association with the Beacon Arts Centre. A dark comedy by Gary McNair, directed by Beth Morton. It's the future; just like now, but a bit more... well, shitey... 

Bruford Warm-Up Mornings

Bruford Warm-Up Mornings

Start each day with a warm-up! Professional practitioners will lead morning movement warm-ups in the Upper Church space at Summerhall for Fringe performers from all venues. An opportunity to have some time and space for yourself and to prepare, recoup your energy and maximise your time at the Fringe with other artists... 

Maz and Bricks by Eva O'Connor

Maz and Bricks by Eva O'Connor

Triple Fringe First and Olivier Award-winning Fishamble present Maz and Bricks. It tells the story of two young people who meet over the course of a day in Dublin. Maz is an angry young woman planning to attend a political demonstration, while Bricks is planning to take his young daughter to the zoo... 

May I Speak About Dance?

May I Speak About Dance?

A dancer dances, while another explains. A witty performance-lecture about the problems of dance and meaning, referencing iconic figures in contemporary dance such as Yvonne Rainer, Tatsumi Hijikata and Jerome Bel, and getting tangled in non-dance, Butoh and somatic practice... 

Lovecraft (Not the Sex Shop in Cardiff)

Lovecraft (Not the Sex Shop in Cardiff)

Lovecraft (Not the Sex Shop in Cardiff) is a one-woman science/comedy/music show. A brutally honest and witty show about the neuroscience of love and loneliness. Drawing from her own experiences, Carys combines smart and ludicrously funny songs (The Love Monger, Space and Time, Tit Montage) with heartfelt tales, taking you on a journey to discover how love works, why it makes us do crazy things and why hugging is the answer... 

Katie & Pip

Katie & Pip

Katie & Pip celebrates the relationship between Katie, a 15-year-old Type 1 Diabetic girl and Pip, her five-year-old border collie, trained by Katie to save her life on a daily basis... 

Heads Up

Heads Up

Kieran Hurley works towards an overwhelming state of urgency with the audience in his solo show Heads Up. Delivered with effective use of second-person narration, Heads Up is a story about the end of the world, and we follow the plight of four individuals who are deeply distressed and disconnected with the world around them... 

NEHH Presents: Xylouris White

NEHH Presents: Xylouris White

Master of Cretan lute George Xylouris and Jim White (Dirty Three), a most innovative and charismatic drummer, are creating a musical duo. Fluid in nature, exciting and edgy, the music is riveting, compelling and spellbinding. 

A Machine they're Secretly Building

A Machine they're Secretly Building

The audience were completely absorbed by Proto-Type Theater’s exposition of global mass-surveillance in A Machine They’re Secretly Building, the title aptly born from whistleblower Edward Snowden... 

NEHH Presents: Charlotte Church's Late Night Pop Dungeon

NEHH Presents: Charlotte Church's Late Night Pop Dungeon

Up the dark, dark stairs, upon the bloody gallows of soft rock, through the oubliette of cheese, into the torture chamber of disco, you are welcomed to the Late Night Pop Dungeon. The Grand High Executionatrix, dungeon mistress Charlotte Church, will give her MK Ultra treatment to the greatest tunes that time forgot and some that will forever haunt our collective memory... 

NEHH Presents: Pictish Trail & Friends

NEHH Presents: Pictish Trail & Friends

Svelt, intelligent, adorable balladeer trapped inside the body of an oversized, oft-bearded folk ogre. 'A heady and enthralling mix of genres are each anchored in with solid melody... 

Josie Long

Josie Long

A few ideas structure Josie Long’s new show, the central one being simply that “not everything is for everyone.” In the hands of a lesser comic this sort of truism could seem trite, but with a stand up as politically and socially attuned as Long, something like this can take on a much greater significance... 

NEHH Presents: Julie Byrne

NEHH Presents: Julie Byrne

American wanderer Julie Byrne's second album, Not Even Happiness, vividly archives what would have otherwise been lost to the road – bustling roadside diners, the stars over the high desert, the aching weariness of change, the wildflowers of the California coast, as well as the unsolvable mysteries of love... 

Eurohouse

Eurohouse

Following last year's Fringe success and UK tour, Bertrand & Nasi's darkly comic look at the EU’s founding ideals returns to Summerhall for just four performances. Two performers – one Greek, one French – dance and shout, cry and sing, agree and disagree, about life in the Eurohouse... 

Workshy

Workshy

Workshy is a performance art piece by Katy Baird, a lady more experienced in customer service roles than theatrical ones. Despite this rather steep career change, you could be forgiven in taking Baird to be a seasoned professional – her command of the stage and her unashamed approach to storytelling could rival several large names, and her first-hand experience of the issues she addresses gives the whole piece an authentic air... 

NEHH and Braw Gigs Present: Blanck Mass

NEHH and Braw Gigs Present: Blanck Mass

Electronic artist from the UK and one half of F*ck Buttons. Blanck Mass is a heavy, shimmering and orchestral work defined by manipulated field recordings, warm analogue synth, heavy sub and deep drone. 

Our Carnal Hearts

Our Carnal Hearts

Our Carnal Hearts is a wicked and totally absorbing cathartic purging experience, exalting the darker shades of humanity that dwell within us all. Particularly focusing on seething green-eyed envy and our burning desire for distraction... 

Give Me Your Love

Give Me Your Love

A dirty, disused room, empty except for a box with lots of holes in it. What we don’t know is that Zach, an army veteran played by David Woods, is hiding inside the box and refuses to come out of it... 

Amy Conway's Super Awesome World

Amy Conway's Super Awesome World

Amy Conway’s Super Awesome World is a hidden gem of the Fringe that starts off all fun and games (literally) before delving into an account of living with depression that is so heartfelt and honest that it left this stony-hearted critic a tearful mess... 

Jogging

Jogging

Hanane Hajj Ali is a Lebanese performer with French citizenship who jogs daily to prevent osteoporosis, depression and obesity. In this show, as she navigates the streets of Beirut and traces familiar paths, Hajj Ali uses Greek myths and modern day examples to explain the roles of actor, mother, wife, refugee and citizen... 

NEHH & MiS Present: Withered Hand, Iklan, Savage Mansion

NEHH & MiS Present: Withered Hand, Iklan, Savage Mansion

A live eclectic ballad of works from pioneers of the contemporary Scottish music scene. NEHH teams up with the Made in Scotland Showcase to refine and reinvigorate the ideology of gigs... 

Eggs Collective Get A Round

Eggs Collective Get A Round

Oh no. I really didn’t want to write this review. I really, really wanted to love Eggs Collective’s show Get A Round, especially after all the fantastic reviews that have been written about it, and the fact that it’s even going to be appearing on BBC 2 very soon! The performance is advertised as something between theatre and cabaret, and the premise is that the three female performers are taking the audience on a great night out... 

Locus Amoenus

Locus Amoenus

Locus Amoenus is a poignant, slightly absurdist masterpiece in dramatic irony, in which the audience watches three strangers on a train slowly, unknowingly, going towards their deaths... 

Richard Gadd: Monkey See Monkey Do

Richard Gadd: Monkey See Monkey Do

The Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning show that 'defined comedy in 2016' (**** Guardian) and earned a Total Theatre Award nomination for Innovation returns for 10 days only. Come and see the 'hot ticket' (**** Evening Standard) of last years festival before it finishes its international tour here at the Edinburgh Fringe... 

Arm – Mireille & Mathieu

Arm – Mireille & Mathieu

Arm is the spooky exploration of junkyard puppetry you never thought you wanted. The stage is a landfill of dirty dolls, lumpy blankets, moth eaten chairs and a rack of flea-market clothing... 

Velvet Petal: Bedroom

Velvet Petal: Bedroom

Tough girls and pretty boys living life in the margins, dreaming about being at the centre. This bespoke extract from the full-length production explores the transformative power of beauty, created out of whatever is on the bedroom floor. 

NEHH Presents: Hinds & Support

NEHH Presents: Hinds & Support

Since bursting onto the Madrid DIY scene, Hinds – Ana Perrote, Carlotta Cosials, Ade Martin and Amber Grimbergen – have mastered a raw and playful sound all their own. With just a handful of released singles under their belt, Hinds already earned early support from BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 6 Music, NME, Guardian, Beats 1, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, FADER, GorillaVsBear... 

How to Act

How to Act

How to Act is set up as a masterclass in acting with a fantastic twist that brings questions of race and gender into a topical debate. Robert Goodale plays Anthony Nicholl, the teacher who welcomes the audience as though they are about to watch a masterclass, which we certainly are... 

Lands

Lands

Antler Theatre are no strangers to the Edinburgh Fringe, making their debut with This Way Up and Maria, 1968 in 2012. I was lucky enough to see both of these shows back then and really enjoyed this up and coming company’s unique and engaging style of theatre, so I was interested to see their latest project Lands... 

The Class Project

The Class Project

This is a show about belonging. About tribes and families. About the place you belong because you were born there and the places you change yourself to try and belong in. It’s about class mobility... 

The Shape of the Pain

The Shape of the Pain

China Plate’s The Shape of the Pain is an innovative artistic and scientific collaboration combining words, sound and projection to start a conversation about Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CPRS)... 

Heather

Heather

Fifty years ago, Roland Barthes told us to forget what we know about an author when reading a text. Today, writers tweet every hour, grace the broadsheets every weekend and even host their own media channels... 

Eggsistentialism

Eggsistentialism

Joanne Ryan’s ode to motherhood, Eggsistentialism, is emotionally poignant and amusingly informative. Alongside Joanne’s musings about whether or not she is ready to have a child, this show seamlessly integrates the history of Irish contraception laws... 

Séance

Séance

Theatre today increasingly falls into one of two broad camps. On the one side is the traditional fourth wall performance – you sit here, we stand here, we tell a story and you listen... 

DollyWould

DollyWould

Sh!t Theatre are excited to present their ‘mainstream crossover’ hit following their 2016 show Letters to Windsor House that earned them a Fringe First. This year their show is not about the housing crisis but about their hero Dolly Parton... 

Taiwan Season: The Backyard Story

Taiwan Season: The Backyard Story

The Backyard Story, directed by Chen-Chieh Sun with lively music composed by Chien-Hsun Chen, is a charming black-light theatre show for children aged 5+. It features two human neighbours who are spiteful to each other as they try to rival each other’s colourful clothes on a washing-line... 

Ancient Shrines and Half Truths

Ancient Shrines and Half Truths

Tripadvisor meets Pokemon Go in this absurd, fantastical tour that proves how liable we are to being led.Keeping up with contemporary demands, faux tour operators Binge Collective have installed a travel app in devices, which they allocate to audience members upon arrival... 

Eaten

Eaten

Tucked away in a decently sized room at the beautiful venue of Summerhall, Eaten stars Mamoru Iriguchi as both Mamoru, Lionel the Lion, and, believe it or not, Dr. Poop. While the names and characters are truly silly, the show works on a multitude of levels for an audience of all ages... 

NEHH Presents: Orkestra del Sol

NEHH Presents: Orkestra del Sol

2017 is their last year! Edinburgh’s favourite purveyors of sousaphone-fuelled brassy honkstep will be hanging up their horns at the end of this year. Catch them one last time as they celebrate the release of their fourth album and wrap up 13 years of musical adventures as one of the UK’s most exciting, inventive and theatrical live acts... 

Taiwan Season: Ever Never

Taiwan Season: Ever Never

Poignant and humorous, this is a semi-autobiographical piece of writing which roots itself in Co-coism director Hung Chien-Han’s upbringing. Ever Never is made up of mutually exclusive scenes which look at the idea of an airplane cabin as a timeless space which invokes past events and memories... 

Mia: Daughters of Fortune

Mia: Daughters of Fortune

This startling, if indistinct production from Mind the Gap, England’s largest learning disability theatre company, gets straight to its point, with cast members slipping into ‘Dear Diary’ mode to talk about love, sex and… babies... 

(I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow

(I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow

FK Alexander returns with her Total Theatre Award-winning sell-out 2016 show. FK sings live to the recording of the last time Judy Garland ever sang Over the Rainbow recorded four months before her death against a wall of noise music... 

Break Up (We Need to Talk)

Break Up (We Need to Talk)

Five hours is a long time for everyone – it’s a long time for a viewer, it’s a long time for an actor, and it’s a long time to have an excruciating conversation about your relationship with your partner... 

Slut

Slut

Slut tells a story which is sadly the experience of many women; girls who have the benefit of naivety during their younger years, which is then destroyed when they face the reality of a misogynistic culture that prevents them from exploring their true identity... 

Last Resort

Last Resort

The beginning of Last Resort definitely hooks you in. You walk into the small Summerhall basement and are immediately handed a Cuba Libre and encouraged to make yourself comfortable on a deck chair with your own little basket of sand underneath... 

Ramy: In the Frontline

Ramy: In the Frontline

We all saw the coverage of the Egyptian revolution in 2011, but who can say they’ve been in the same room as someone personally involved? Ramy wasn’t just a participant in the action; he became a musical icon during the public’s fight for freedom... 

Bombastic Declaration of Love – Julie Cafmeyer

Bombastic Declaration of Love – Julie Cafmeyer

There is nothing more personal that the truth, and to present the truth of stage is an invariably brave act. The stage after all has for many years been an arena of lies and performance... 

Border Tales

Border Tales

Following a turbulent year of politics and current affairs, this year’s Fringe programme is unsurprisingly loaded with all manner of shows trying to make sense of the world in 2017... 

Sasquatch: The Opera

Sasquatch: The Opera

I’m not sure where to begin in dissecting Sasquatch: the Opera. It defies dissection just as it defies categorisation. The show bends genre, form and technique in a way that, even in the context of the Fringe, makes it unique and one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen... 

NEHH Presents: Lemon Bucket Orkestra & Ben Caplan

NEHH Presents: Lemon Bucket Orkestra & Ben Caplan

The Lemon Bucket Orkestra is Canada's only balkan-klezmer-gypsy-party-punk super-band. Born on the streets of Toronto as a busking band in 2010, the original quartet of guerrilla-folk troubadours quickly amassed a battalion of troops armed with brass and bows and started touring the world... 

Mark Thomas: A Show That Gambles on the Future

Mark Thomas: A Show That Gambles on the Future

Early in his Fringe show Mark Thomas reveals the impressively religious character of his upbringing. The discovery that the comic's family tree is littered with preachers and clergy cannot help but elicit an ‘Oh really? Ah that makes sense’ response... 

No Show

No Show

No Show is perhaps the perfect show: one that claims to be nothing at all.It opens with a feminine, smiling, lyrical, tumbling dance number that feels a bit off and out of sync. All the gymnastics the women perform are, of course, very impressive, but something about this opening number makes you feel as if the performers are holding back, making you wait and trying to tell you something... 

Palmyra

Palmyra

In her opus Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag explores the ways in which images of conflict can be altered for the benefit of a particular social cause or political group. No photograph, no snapshot of violence is neutral, she argues... 

A Hundred Different Words for Love

A Hundred Different Words for Love

"I'm aware there isn't much art made about love, so I thought I'd nip in and nail the definitive article before anyone else could."So jokes James Rowland, the one-man wonder behind last year's spellbinding Team Viking, an ode to a lost friend and their final request for a Viking funeral... 

BlackCatfishMusketeer

BlackCatfishMusketeer

You meet someone online. All you know is their name and that they seem to like you as much as you like them. In fact, you think you love each other. But do you? Can you? What even is love, anyway? Maybe we not only don’t know, we can’t know; we can only know what love isn’t... 

Chill Habibi

Chill Habibi

A cabaret with the best performance Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Morocco and Scotland have to offer! Come relax with the best drama, comedy, dance, music and otherness from the Arab World, and see new work and collaborations from the best of established and new Scottish voices, including David Greig, Julia Taudevin and Karl Sharro... 

Locked in the Distillery Escape Game

Locked in the Distillery Escape Game

In the wake of a heinous break-in at Summerhall Distillery, the situation we all feared has come to pass: a vodka themed group of extremists is determined to put a permanent end to the success of Pickering’s gin... 

Your Love Is Fire

Your Love Is Fire

In the latest text by Mudar Alhaggi, this play is about daily life in the midst of the Syrian war, the waiting and the disappointed illusion that the next day might bring about change... 

Rosalind

Rosalind

In this portrait of Shakespeare’s most beloved heroine – the curious and courageous Rosalind – rising star choreographer James Cousins asks whether women still need to emulate stereotypical masculinity to find equality in our modern world... 

Arab Arts Focus: Dance Double Bill

Arab Arts Focus: Dance Double Bill

Due to some of the artists being refused visas to enter the UK, we have had to make some changes to the Arab Arts Focus Dance Double Bill. Choreographer Shaymaa Soukry will introduce the performance... 

NEHH and Mediterraneo Present: Mediterraneo Opening Party

NEHH and Mediterraneo Present: Mediterraneo Opening Party

Mediterraneo is bringing Africa, southern Italy and Scotland crashing into Summerhall for a huge festival opening party. A wild night of live Italian pizzica, Zimbabwean Jit-jive, and electrocharged Scottish folk music... 

Doglife

Doglife

Following on from the critically acclaimed Doubting Thomas, Jeremy Weller (winner of six Fringe First awards) and Grassmarket Projects return with part two of a devised trilogy with Thomas McCrudden: a former gangland enforcer who struggles to change from a violent past to a more hopeful future... 

Taiwan Season: Heart of Darkness

Taiwan Season: Heart of Darkness

A psychic journey, through physical theatre and music, Sun Son Theatre’s Heart of Darkness explores the damage inflicted on a woman by arranged marriage. Inspired by the choreographer and dancer, Low Pei-Fen’s grandmother – who the males in the family called crazy – this show is a little gem... 

Barney's Brewery Tours

Barney's Brewery Tours

Welcome to Edinburgh’s longest established non-continuously operating brewery! Ever wondered what really goes on inside a brewery? You’re welcomed in to Barney’s Beer at Summerhall to do just that... 

Jihan's Smile

Jihan's Smile

Jihan is an ordinary child who woke up one day to discover that she had lost her smile. The sun set, the moon disappeared, everything lost its colour, cold spread throughout the town and the people got sick... 

Start Swimming

Start Swimming

A Young Vic Taking Part Production. It’s small versus big. It’s pressures of the future. It’s everything being stacked against you and all options feeling equally terrible. James Fritz (Ross and Rachel) teams up with Genesis Future Directors Award winner Ola Ince (Dutchman) to bring you a show about occupation, revolution and the future of our youth... 

A Strange New Space

A Strange New Space

Amira is obsessed with space and dreams of becoming an astronaut. One night, the bangs, whooshes and fizzes of her imagination explode out of her dreams, becoming a deafening reality... 

Locked in the Small Animal Hospital

Locked in the Small Animal Hospital

Since closing its doors as a vet school in 2011, Summerhall has become a thriving arts hub full of exhibitions, installations and shows. Even so, some of the old operating rooms remain unused – or so we thought... 

Pianologues (Will Pickvance)

Pianologues (Will Pickvance)

Inside the mind of a pianist, looking out. Solos and stories from Will Pickvance, creator of sell-out Anatomy of the Piano and Pianomorphosis. 'Clever, poetic, his piano playing exudes an effortless, almost careless expertise' (Herald)... 

Lists for the End of the World

Lists for the End of the World

A joyful and touching view of the world through other people’s eyes, Lists… is a show composed entirely of crowdsourced lists. Things I pretend to be interested in, times my eight year old self would be proud of me, places I would hide a body... 

Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi

Stagger me sideways! King Ubu, usurper to the throne of Baloney, carries a mop instead of a sceptre and dreams of his pâté de dog. Meanwhile, he liquidates enemies and friends. Under his reign citizens face unbearable taxation and crippling whimsy, until someone calls for revolution… Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi is an absurd comedy which caused riots and launched the European avant-garde... 

Taha

Taha

Taha Muhammad Ali is the beautiful optimistic picture of the Palestinian people – of all of us. In his beloved verses, Taha documents hopeful survival after 50 years of loss – loss of his home, his lover, his friends and his shop in Saffuriyeh in Galilee... 

Dates – At the Speed of Sound!

Dates – At the Speed of Sound!

From Helsinki, a brand-new speed-dating concept for theatre lovers! First relax, enjoying one of two sparkling comedies about first dates in restaurants from prolific Finnish screenwriter John Lundsten... 

The Second Copy: 2045

The Second Copy: 2045

From out of the future, dissolving himself in fiction, the character of Youness Atbane observes the dynamics of contemporary art in Morocco. As a witness in a documentary made in 2045, he is interviewed on his position as a Moroccan artist and turns this into the subject of his performance... 

Zombie Science: Worst Case Scenario

Zombie Science: Worst Case Scenario

Almost at the start, Gilchrist Muir—here inhabiting the tweed suit of our lecturer, Glasgow University-based Theoretical Zombiologist Dr Ken House—insists that Zombies are not real... 

Reflections of a Constant Monk

Reflections of a Constant Monk

Join a modern monk as he, or sometimes she, makes a poetic and musical journey through the modern world in search of enlightenment and wisdom. Lee Gershuny's mix of theatre, music and spoken word is part of the Luminate festival of creative ageing. 

NEHH Presents... NJTOS, featuring Bill Wells & Wolf

NEHH Presents... NJTOS, featuring Bill Wells & Wolf

Not jazz, nor a trio and not entirely Scottish, The National Jazz Trio of Scotland are Bill Wells (piano laptop), Aby Vulliamy (vocals, viola), Kate Sugden (vocals, marimba), and Gerard Black (vocals)... 

NEHH Presents... Withered Hand & Chris T-T

NEHH Presents... Withered Hand & Chris T-T

Withered Hand is the musical output of Edinburgh-based Dan Willson, a feature of the city's DIY music scene for many years. Dan came late to singing and songwriting at age 30, in a period of crisis between the death of a close friend and the birth of his first child... 

Thirty Years of the Workcenter: A Retrospective

Thirty Years of the Workcenter: A Retrospective

We encounter the Workcenter’s deepening of an exploration of the human being in action, as Mr Richards guides us through the phases of the Workcenter’s performing arts research, interweaving analysis, screenings of film fragments and discussion... 

NEHH Presents... Eska

NEHH Presents... Eska

Eska, one of music's best-kept secrets, has built an inimitable reputation as a writer and performer through collaborations with such legends of the game as Grace Jones, Cinematic Orchestra, Zero 7 and Bobby McFerrin... 

NEHH Presents… Mediterraneo Festival Edition: A Wild Night of Live World Music

NEHH Presents… Mediterraneo Festival Edition: A Wild Night of Live World Music

Mediterraneo is bringing Africa, Cuba and southern Italy to Summerhall for a huge festival edition of their world music concert. A night of Italian pizzica, Zimbabwean jit-jive and Afrobeat tangled with Cuban salsa... 

Beyond Price

Beyond Price

This is a wonderfully complex piece; part intertwining story, part vocalised ruminations of Jack Klaff, a Fringe veteran who gives a stunning performance. The production claims to be a collection of highlights taken from shows that could not make it to Summerhall this year... 

I Used to Hear Footsteps

I Used to Hear Footsteps

A documentary style piece of storytelling which merges fact and fiction, past and present in an interesting tale, that sadly fails to curdle the blood.Jack Britton, our solo performer dressed in a lecturer’s jacket ripe for getting covered in chalk from that promising blackboard presents evidence for the presence of one or more ghosts in the house he grew up in... 

The Underground: A Response to Dostoevsky

The Underground: A Response to Dostoevsky

Is it possible to rid ourselves of that force which engulfs us daily and constitutes a redirection of our destiny? Can we alter a plan nature has etched within us and deviate from the habitual to uncover that which exists within, as if already defined, yet which remains until now unlived? 

If There's Not Dancing at the Revolution, I'm Not Coming

If There's Not Dancing at the Revolution, I'm Not Coming

Taking multimedia representations of young women as its inspiration, If There's Not Dancing at the Revolution, I'm Not Coming picks apart a medley of references to Titanic, Disney princesses, various pop songs and slasher movies like Psycho... 

Presentation of the Film Documentation of Jerzy Grotowski's The Constant Prince

Presentation of the Film Documentation of Jerzy Grotowski's The Constant Prince

Carla Pollastrelli will carry the public through an outline of Jerzy Grotowski’s creative biography with a specific focus on the theatrical phase he carried out between 1959 and 1969 with the Laboratory Theatre Company, first in Opole and then in Wroclaw (Poland)... 

Nancy's Philosopher

Nancy's Philosopher

“Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” Reason and passion were driving forces in the life of Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume. His reason got him labeled a genius, while his passion manifested as a stubbornness that had him labeled an atheist... 

Eurohouse

Eurohouse

For many people unaffected by it, the debt crisis in Greece is a distant, vaguely distressing situation, failing to provoke public outcry due to a misapprehension that it is somehow very uniquely Greek, and surely entirely the fault of the Greeks... 

Presentation of the Film Documentation of Jerzy Grotowski's Akropolis

Presentation of the Film Documentation of Jerzy Grotowski's Akropolis

In this encounter, Carla Pollastrelli, co-director of Fondazione Pontedera Teatro from 1993 to 2012, will introduce and present the video documentation of Akropolis, an outstanding realisation of Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre which has its premiere in Opole (Poland) in 1962 and was also performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1964. 

Outside the Box – A Live Show About Death

Outside the Box – A Live Show About Death

Death is a funny thing when you think about it: it’s the only certain thing in this world yet the majority of us deny its existence, but as performer Liz Rothschild points out, if we don’t think about death then we also don’t think about life... 

A Pickering’s Gin Jolly

A Pickering’s Gin Jolly

Gin is on the up. In the face of hundreds of new micro-breweries making the most of relaxed alcohol laws over the past couple of years, I'm assured that Pickering's Gin three year-old brand is now considered an old name by modern standards... 

The Castle Builder

The Castle Builder

With the feel of an interactive workshop rather than a theatrical ‘show’, The Castle Builder is a lo-fi exploration of outsider art that alternates between informal lecture and untidy pop concert... 

Bildraum

Bildraum

Bildraum is part of the 'Big in Belgium' series, featuring six of the country’s many outstanding theatre and performance companies. This work is likely to be most people’s first exposure to anything of its kind, so if you are looking for a completely new experience this might well be it... 

Remember to Breathe

Remember to Breathe

Following the story of an Irish emigrant’s relationship with her father, Remember to Breathe is quietly affecting rather than arresting; assured and well-rounded rather than boundary-pushing... 

Lost in Blue

Lost in Blue

As hilarious as it is poignant, Lost in Blue is an individual and gripping story from one of the UK’s top storytellers. With her self proclaimed ‘austerity theatre’, Debs Newbold deftly commands the bare space around her... 

All In

All In

Here’s what happens in order: A parody of bourgeois conversation by actors in black morphsuits; a light show to the gaiety of the Ode To Joy; unembellished description of said piece; a demented, Sesame-Street-type lesson on cooking and friendship; a plastic-covered man holding his drink in a nightclub while an omnium-gatherum of object names gets projected behind; footage of North Korea’s Arirang Mass Games; a penumbra-umbra light show to wrap it all up... 

NEHH Presents... Broken Records & Adam Stafford

NEHH Presents... Broken Records & Adam Stafford

Broken Records bring their expansive, soaring mix of elation and melancholy to Summerhall’s Dissection Room, with the raw energy of Springsteen and the drama of Arcade Fire. Having spent 2015 working relentlessly on brand new material in their studio, this will be the first outing, and a unique chance to hear material from their upcoming untitled fourth album... 

NEHH Presents... The Soul Foundation

NEHH Presents... The Soul Foundation

Their third show at the Dissection Rooms, the TSF crew returns with an explosive live set of motown classics along with new renditions of northern soul dance floor escapisms. The night will fully embrace this musical scene with DJs spinning the masterworks of Holland-Dozier-Holland along with early ‘70s disco releases... 

Camille

Camille

Most Fringe shows think they can squeeze two hours into fifty minutes. Not Camille: it’s focused and the pace of it is of a kind gallingly absent from Edinburgh.Musing, Camille takes the stage quietly, though don’t assume this means she’s content... 

Dive and Summerhall Present... C U Next Tuesday Cabaret

Dive and Summerhall Present... C U Next Tuesday Cabaret

Sometime in between Jak Soroka cracking eggs on her naked body and Sam Reynolds dry humping someone in the audience, you realise nights at Dive’s C U Next Tuesday cabaret can get pretty wild... 

On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover

On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover

On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover definitely wins the title of most intriguing show title at the Fringe, and it’s definitely worth seeing for the demented, skewed logic of why Richard Meros, B... 

4D Cinema

4D Cinema

In 1923, Marlene Dietrich made the transition from stage to cinema through a bit part in German silent comedy The Little Napoleon. Ninety-three years later, Mamoru Iriguchi delivers a monologue about Dietrich’s life, with a projector screen around his head... 

NEHH Presents... Mount Kimbie (DJ Set), Hi & Saberhägen

NEHH Presents... Mount Kimbie (DJ Set), Hi & Saberhägen

One of post-dubstep’s bright lights, Mount Kimbie come to Summerhall’s Dissection Room for a genre-evading late-night DJ set, drawing from a thick soup of influences that leaves them standing out as something genuinely special... 

The Living Room

The Living Room

The Living Room takes us home, to a place in which we welcome another. By starting from this fundamental action that can take place in a living room, we enter an investigation into how the potentialities of performance craft can both enrich and be enriched by daily interpersonal relations and realities... 

Graeme Stephen’s Metropolis

Graeme Stephen’s Metropolis

‘Stephen’s far-reaching guitarist-composer’s voice, now vast and scary, now dreamily delicate, now devilishly catchy, that’s making this strain of his output so enthralling’ (Herald)... 

NEHH Presents... Richard Dawson & Nev Clay

NEHH Presents... Richard Dawson & Nev Clay

Richard Dawson brings his wonderfully shambling exterior, tales of pineapples and underpants, ghosts of family members and cats to Summerhall’s Dissection Room. Rising up from the bed of the River Tyne, a voice that crumbles and soars, that is steeped in age-old balladry and finely chiselled observations of the mundane, Richard Dawson is a skewed troubadour at once charming and abrasive... 

Under Ice

Under Ice

Lithuanian director Arturas Areima mounts an adaptation of Falk Richter’s play of the same name, Under Ice. If these names ring obscure, fear not: know that Areima is a brilliant director with a spirited cast of performers and Richter’s words manage to make an impact... 

Us / Them

Us / Them

I can count on one hand the number of plays that have sent shivers down my spine: Us/Them is one such show. Telling the true story of the Beslan school siege in 2004, Us/Them is a phenomenal piece of theatre that I urge anyone in Edinburgh this August to see... 

Blank

Blank

Nassim Soleimanpour is known for his intelligent plays that have no need for a director, designer or even rehearsals. No, all that’s needed for one of his plays to be performed is an actor and an audience (okay, and a technician if we’re being pedantic) – it’s a trick he used in White Rabbit Red Rabbit and while Blank develops on this form it also remains too distanced and acknowledges its own intelligence far too much to make a lasting impact... 

Mungo Park – Travels in the Interior of Africa

Mungo Park – Travels in the Interior of Africa

Mungo Park proved that any true Scotsman would do almost anything to avoid spending another bloody day in Selkirk. He was an African explorer before it was fashionable and a complicated man in a complicated time... 

Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night

Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night

Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night is both exactly what it says it whilst also proving to something rather different altogether. Armed with just a few microphones and moveable desks writer and performer Francesca Millican-Slater tells us “I’ll take you through the night... 

Don’t Panic! It’s Challenge Anneka

Don’t Panic! It’s Challenge Anneka

Being both a chronic worrier and a huge fan of television from the 1990s, I had high hopes for Don't Panic! It's Challenge Anneka: a one woman show that uses the programme, Challenge Anneka, as a springboard by which to explore anxiety... 

The Lady Vanishes

The Lady Vanishes

The Lady Vanishes is one of those shows that doesn’t fit into simple categories. Instead it takes some of the best bits of different styles and genres to form something completely different and the result is utterly beautiful and haunting... 

Robert Newman: The Brain Show

Robert Newman: The Brain Show

In a previous show, we witnessed Robert Newman intellectually tear down Dawkin’s view of evolution. Now in his second science-themed piece, Newman pierces deep into the heart of fashionable pop science and cynical neuroscience... 

Ubu on the Table

Ubu on the Table

La Pire Espèce have been rummaging in the cupboards: in Ubu on the Table coffee pots, cutlery, a glass jug and drawers full of unassuming objects populate the cast in an energetic object theatre version of Alfred Jarry’s late nineteenth century surreal tragedy Ubu Roi... 

I'm Doing This for You

I'm Doing This for You

The premise of the show is deceptively simple, and the clue is in the title: what a woman would do or go through for a man who she wholeheartedly loves, even though he has already moved on... 

Last Call

Last Call

Angst. Millennial or Generation X — we don’t know, but it’s definitely angst. A teen has run away from her Belgian home because she doesn’t feel connected to life or herself... 

Faslane

Faslane

On the surface Jenna Watt’s new show Faslane sounds like it should be a simple comparison of the reasons for and against renewing the Trident nuclear base; it turns out to be just as tricky and knotty as its subject... 

The Road to Huntsville

The Road to Huntsville

Stephanie Ridings does a lecture on state homicide with drama. Framed on one level as a straightforward research project into Death Row, Ridings can’t help but get involved in another sense... 

Meet Fred

Meet Fred

We meet Fred as he wakes up - cute little puppet stretching and yawns ensue. But it’s when the lovable little puppet you see standing onstage begins to realise there are three pairs of hands attached to him, screams in terror, tries desperately to detach them from himself then gives up, deflated, that we get the first hint of Meet Fred’s modus operandi: self-aware and visually inventive comedy seasoned with a hint of existentialism... 

A Man Standing

A Man Standing

“You come in like a lion and you leave like a lamb”. This was just one of the marks left on the walls which met the eyes of Jean-Marc Mahy as he passed, under guard, along the corridors of his prison, in which he was to spend three years of his sentence in solitary confinement... 

Snakes and Giants

Snakes and Giants

Sometimes a good performance doesn't fulfill the purpose of normal theatre. It doesn't raise pertinent political questions. It doesn't strive for laughter or for tears. Instead, it explores seas of uncharted human experience, feelings there aren't yet names for, existences that cannot be described... 

Denton and Me

Denton and Me

Never underestimate the power or repercussions of a gift. In 2011, writer/performer Sam Rowe was given a copy of Denton Welch’s journals in which he records his lonely existence in rural Kent and his heartbreaking love affair with reckless land-boy Eric Oliver... 

NEHH Presents... WHITE & Bossy Love

NEHH Presents... WHITE & Bossy Love

WHITE are a hurtling juggernaut of synth stabs, razor-sharp guitars and even sharper attire. A cacophony of pink noise, huge drums, infectious hooks and an explosive frontman channelling Jacques Brel and Nick Cave... 

One Hundred Homes

One Hundred Homes

Yinka Kuitenbrouwer welcomes you into her shed, pours you a cup of tea, gives you a house-shaped biscuit, and the words come out in a torrent. First, just names: the names of all the people in all the hundred homes that she visited for this project... 

Bubble Schmeisis

Bubble Schmeisis

It's hard to imagine a more appropriate venue than the Demonstration Room at Summerhall for Nick Cassenbaum's coming of age tale. Part lecture theatre, part morgue, its spartan walls, patchy concrete floor and echo-chamber acoustics double perfectly for The Schvitz, the Canning Town steam rooms where, after serving the appropriate familial apprenticeship, the young Nick is inducted by the alta kakas (old Jewish men)... 

(I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow

(I Could Go on Singing) Over the Rainbow

It’s a strange and unsettling thing being stood stock-still for a few minutes, gazing into a stranger’s eyes. It’s supposed to be an encounter marked by intimacy, but how close can you get when you’ve bought a ticket and when the stranger across from you shares the same moment every night, with tens of different people? I’m not sure... 

How (Not) to Live in Suburbia

How (Not) to Live in Suburbia

Annie Siddon’s (almost) one-woman show, How (Not) To Live In Suburbia, is an absolute treat from Siddon's first smile to the audience as she takes the stage, until she exits. Subtle, sincere, riotously funny and endearingly raw, Siddon's provides a faultless account of her struggles with loneliness... 

Karmana, Songs of the Roma

Karmana, Songs of the Roma

Scottish virtuoso guitarist/composer Simon Thacker returns to create a new Romani musical journey in this dazzling world premiere featuring reimagined Gypsy songs and original works inspired by Indian, Balkan and Spanish traditions... 

NEHH Presents... GrownUps

NEHH Presents... GrownUps

Back, back, back and bouncier than ever, the exclusive vinyl club night for the more fully fledged music fan returns for a one-off, late night festival special. DJs Kinghorror and The Spotlight Kid will bring along their impeccable music taste and trusty, dusty record boxes to create an amazing mash-up of top tunes from the last six decades... 

NEHH Presents... Orkestra del Sol & The Jellyman's Daughter

NEHH Presents... Orkestra del Sol & The Jellyman's Daughter

Orkestra del Sol, a joyous reinvention of global brassy street music, has left a trail of pummelled dancefloors across Europe and countries including India, Australia and China. The swagger of a Balkan wedding band, a dash of New Orleans marching band and a good dose of Latin carnival – all delivered with a distinctly UK edge... 

Adler & Gibb

Adler & Gibb

Following its run at the Royal Court in London, Tim Crouch’s play reflects on our modern-day obsession with artists’ lives and how this interferes with and indeed obscures our engagement with their work... 

The Lounge

The Lounge

There comes a time in most good plays when you realise you’ve become completely lost in a moment due to its sheer brilliance. The Lounge, performed by Inspector Sands and produced by China Plate, has a truckload of these moments... 

NEHH Presents... Willis Earl Beal

NEHH Presents... Willis Earl Beal

Willis Earl Beal has yet to be born. Critics and publicists defined him before he’d had a chance to define himself. Their expectations were inextricably linked with race and gender, two concepts Beal thoroughly rejects... 

World Without Us

World Without Us

Ontroerend Goed’s World Without Us imagines a future in which humanity has simply ceased to exist, and it’s surprisingly soothing. Rather than dwelling on the details of this extinction or apocalypse, the company is more interested in the philosophical questions of what our absence would mean for the rest of the planet and what (if any) trace would be left of us... 

NEHH Presents... Rachel Sermanni, Matt Norris & The Moon

NEHH Presents... Rachel Sermanni, Matt Norris & The Moon

One of Britain’s most promising folk artists, Highland-born Rachel Sermanni comes to Summerhall’s Dissection Room. An evening of ‘minimal, murky, magnificent’ songs (MOJO) that are ‘stately, poetic and rooted in the traditional’ (Clash)... 

Emballage

Emballage

Emballage refers to Tadeusz Kantor’s concept of wrapping, a utilitarian action taken from the most mundane reality of everyday life. This outcome of an imaginative reworking of the Richard Demarco Archive is supported by Leeds Beckett University’s PhD research programme... 

Cuncrete

Cuncrete

The sheer size of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival means that any performer that manages to distinguish themselves from the wild, multifarious pack is left at a critical crossroad. On the one hand, they gain the pedigree and platform to return to the festival with a better chance of finding success again... 

Tell Me Anything

Tell Me Anything

Fifteen-year-old David Ralfe knows that with “warmth, guidance, and gentle nudging”, Kate, his anorexic girlfriend, can be guided towards a healthier existence. But life is always messier than its theoretical counterpart — and there is just so much mess to contend with: Kate’s family, who don’t know and then don’t want to know about their daughter’s illness; an incompetent, patronising NHS; and Ralfe’s own desire for control... 

The Dwelling Place

The Dwelling Place

Two large basement rooms in Summerhall have been transformed into a remarkable installation and immersive theatre, musical, video, sound, and light performance area. If that seems like a lot to take on board, be assured that overall the experience can be rather soothing... 

It Folds

It Folds

Both touching and humorous, It Folds is an experimental exploration of grief, death and the human condition. In a series of disjointed events, the story of young boy’s abduction is told from the perspective of all members of a community through a variety of mediums... 

MacBain

MacBain

At first glance, there are other plays by Shakespeare that would offer more fruitful parallels with the Kurt Cobain story than Macbeth. Not least Hamlet, with whom, if Charles R. Cross’s biography is to be believed, the Nirvana frontman had a particular preoccupation toward the end of his life... 

Letters to Windsor House

Letters to Windsor House

Picture the scene: two women in letterbox face paint — a pair of punkish, postmodern clowns — sit on a couple of threadbare armchairs underneath an enormous screen, sipping beers, surrounded by stacked cardboard boxes... 

Mikey and Addie

Mikey and Addie

Mikey and Addie is a story about two pre-teen kids who couldn't be more different – Mikey’s life is all about imagination and play, while Addie’s is focused on enforcing rules and regulations with a determination to be “the best playground monitor... 

Doubting Thomas

Doubting Thomas

Jeremy Weller, known for his use of drama as a tool for social intervention, presents a new Fringe offering with a powerful actor and message at its core, but a weak execution that does not do the story justice... 

NEHH Presents... Kathryn Joseph & The Anchoress

NEHH Presents... Kathryn Joseph & The Anchoress

A haunting and utterly compelling SAY award-winning album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled comes to Summerhall’s dissection room. Regarded as one of Scotland's best-kept secrets, Kathryn’s voice possesses the other-worldly quality comparable to Ms Newsom and Björk, but she is by no means of an ilk... 

NEHH and Braw Gigs Present... Cosmic Disco Nights

NEHH and Braw Gigs Present... Cosmic Disco Nights

Step into an interstellar kosmische zone the likes the capital has never seen to launch Summerhall’s amazing musical programme this August. Musically straddling light beams between italo and pan-continental disco futurism – with very special inter and outernational guests to be announced. 

The Trial

The Trial

Josef K wakes up one morning, hungry and disconcerted, only to find himself arrested. He is not told why, nor by whom. He does not get to eat his breakfast. And so begins The Trial... 

Squirrel Stole My Underpants

Squirrel Stole My Underpants

In this poignantly silly adventure tale for families, Sylvie is sent to the backyard to hang up the laundry. The moment her back is turned, a mischievous squirrel steals her favourite piece of clothing and runs off... 

Taiwan Season: The Adventure of Puppets

Taiwan Season: The Adventure of Puppets

A family show guaranteed to tickle the child in all of us. Two engaging and skilfully silly actors bring to life an array of ordinary objects, conjuring a DIY universe full of raucous fun and inventive play... 

Happy Hour

Happy Hour

With their friendship and complicity spanning almost two decades, Mauro Paccagnella and Alessandro Bernardeschi meet again for a choreographic project. Performed by two bodies of the same age and weight that host the same bald patches and the same wrinkles... 

Only Bones

Only Bones

‘...extraordinary inventiveness created by a limitless imagination…’ (TheatReview.org.NZ). Only Bones is an award-winning new production by New Zealanders Thomas Monckton and Gemma Tweedie and Finland-based physical theatre company Kallo Collective... 

We Are Brontë

We Are Brontë

A ludicrous and inventive interpretation of the Brontë myth, taking the real and imaginary worlds of the Yorkshire siblings as inspiration. With only a handful of props, two performers deconstruct not only Gothic themes of love, madness and revenge, but also themselves... 

Heads Up

Heads Up

A city. Right now. A woman staggers home after a two-day bender. A finance worker preaches doom outside Cafe Nero. A priest who doesn't believe in God stares blankly at endless disasters on the TV news... 

Waves

Waves

The story of young Aussie Elizabeth Moncello, the unofficial inventor of the famous butterfly stroke. Elizabeth has a watertight reason for learning to swim and a school of fish, penguins and other amphibian friends to teach her how... 

Locked In: The Distillery Escape

Locked In: The Distillery Escape

The Locked In Escape game comes to the Fringe this year for the first time. Gather your team of clever people (between two and five players) and prepare to be mentally challenged. An interactive experience solving the mystery behind who is plotting the downfall of Pickering's Gin... 

Party Trap

Party Trap

A television journalist and a politician clash live on-air. What begins as a traditional television interview slowly unfolds into a waking nightmare. A trap has been set: which side will walk into it? Standby for Tape Back-Up and BBC Radio 4 star Ross Sutherland's debut play is a darkly comic glimpse into Britain's future... 

Mairi Campbell: Pulse

Mairi Campbell: Pulse

Award-winning Scottish musician’s solo quest to heal cultural wounds. A homecoming in viola, voice, movement, animation and storytelling. From London’s classical Guildhall training, to love and danger in Mexico, discovering step-dancing in Cape Breton, Campbell ‘becomes a bold chameleon in her own back-story, switching characters as she goes… On a stage bare but for a rough-hewn pendulum – its flat stone culled from her family’s croft – Campbell opens her throat in a spirit of belonging that is ancient and modern, and life-affirming for all of us’ **** (Herald)... 

Of, or at, a Fairly Low Temperature

Of, or at, a Fairly Low Temperature

What is meant by being cool? Does anything else matter? Are acronyms in? OOAAFLT mixes contemporary dance with storytelling and comedy to question what is cool these days. This semi-autobiographical show makes Lewys consider the things that are most important to him: to be cool or to be himself, and he will put the same consideration forward to you... 

Pianomorphosis - Will Pickvance

Pianomorphosis - Will Pickvance

Inside the workings of the piano concert, looking out. Solos and stories from Will Pickvance, creator of sell-out Anatomy of the Piano. 'Clever, poetic, his piano playing exudes an effortless, almost careless expertise' (Herald)... 

Lost at Sea

Lost at Sea

On 10 January 1992, the container ship Ever Laurel, several days out from Hong Kong en route to Tacoma, Washington, hit a storm in the North Pacific Ocean. A dozen containers were washed overboard, one of which contained 28,800 “Friendly Floatee” children’s bath toys that came in the forms of red beavers, blue turtles, green frogs and yellow ducks... 

Uncanny Valley

Uncanny Valley

In the near-century since Czech writer Karel Capek first gave us the word “robot” (in his play R.U.R.) to describe a manufactured human being, robotics and artificial intelligence have stepped from the most cliched science fiction into the world around us... 

To Breathe

To Breathe

To Breathe starts with its six performers standing in a circle, staring at the audience, just breathing. Physically, they’re all quite different – five young women of various ethnic backgrounds and physicalities, and the lone muscular maleness provided by Lewis McDonald... 

Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me)

Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me)

I have never before been moved from laughing to tears pouring down my face – in the space of one sentence – until I saw this piece. This is a phenomenal show that draws a huge amount of pathos out of a dusty text... 

Abacus

Abacus

That the character of Paul Abacus was created in 2009 – three years after TED talks became available to watch online – is no surprise at all. That people believed in the construct of this ‘public intellectual’ until 2012 – when he was revealed as a fake at Sundance Film Festival – is a good indicator of the quality of the parody... 

Ventoux

Ventoux

Ventoux is the story of two cyclists, one forbidding mountain and a potent rivalry. You don’t have to be a fan of Lance Armstrong or Marco Pantani to find the tale arresting. It’s a devastating study – enough to leave anyone reeling – about the risk of putting a competitive streak in the public eye... 

Edmund the Learned Pig

Edmund the Learned Pig

Barry Bonaparte’s Travelling Circus is in trouble. Its last surviving animals – the magician’s doves – have ended up in a pie. The memory man is repeatedly forgetting how to find his way home... 

Islands

Islands

Islands is a bit madcap. Caroline Horton's play, which she stars in, was commissioned by the Warwick Arts Centre and the Harlow Playhouse, and is a blatant, angry attack that explores the decadent, exploitative world of tax havens... 

Near Gone

Near Gone

This award-winning devised piece from Two Destination Language clearly deserves its second festival run. This intimate, small-scale work focuses on a single moment yet manages perfectly considered emotional clarity and visual profundity... 

I Gave Him an Orchid

I Gave Him an Orchid

Sarah Calver begins her spirited, witty show with a disclaimer: this show is ideally watched in Berlin at 10pm while a couple of pints down. We might not have been under the ideal circumstances – Edinburgh, 3pm, depressingly sober – but Calver admirably continues with an imaginative and inventive mix of limericks, stand-up and physical theatre... 

Balkanarama

Balkanarama

Come experience the sights and sounds of the Balkans at this riotous night of live Balkan, klezmer and gypsy music, exquisite gypsy belly dancing, fabulous Balkan Beats DJs, live visuals, Balkan brandy tasting and so much more! 

Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone

Gods Are Fallen And All Safety Gone

Four people are onstage at the start of this play: Sean Campion and Scott Turnbull, the actors playing a mother/daughter pair, and a real-life mother/daughter pair. Watching the conversation taking place in front of them, their physical similarity is striking... 

Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett’s new album In Conflict was released in 2014. Made in collaboration with Brian Eno, it features Pallett’s trademark looping string and electronic arrangements – 'beautiful and often strangely euphoric' (Guardian)... 

Tomorrow's Parties

Tomorrow's Parties

Forced Entertainment have a legendary reputation for creating innovative, engaging and challenging theatre and performance. Therefore, Tomorrow’s Parties naturally comes with weighty expectations of being, in one way or another, brilliant... 

Confirmation

Confirmation

At a certain point in Confirmation’s 85 minutes of perspective-smudging, you just want to get up and scream – so inescapably does Chris Thorpe’s script put you face-to-face with an articulate, holocaust-denying white supremacist... 

The Happiness Project

The Happiness Project

'I looked for it on Blackpool beach with my Mum. I looked for it in a raspberry ripple cheesecake. I looked for it in detention. I looked for it online. I looked for it but it got complicated... 

Borderlands

Borderlands

We are on the border between England and Scotland, life and death, fluid and solid. We are on the banks of the River Tweed among the centuries old stone of Dryburgh Abbey. Established in 1150; burned down in 1322; all but abandoned by 1584, the Abbey’s ruins remain today as a remarkably well-preserved reminder of medieval monasticism and sacred solitude... 

The Ex

The Ex

Dutch jazz punk veterans The Ex, have been going for thirty-five years. In that time they have traversed as many styles, from free jazz to African rhythms, rattling through studio albums and band members in the process... 

Titania – A Solo Cabaret

Titania – A Solo Cabaret

A really specific, niche or academic inspiration for a show, adapted in a completely unexpected style that still absolutely suits the material with high levels of audience interaction for the brave among you... 

A String Section

A String Section

Here is what happens in A String Section: five women cut the legs off the chairs on which they are sitting. In most fundamental ways, it does not do anything more or less than this premise... 

Donald Does Dusty

Donald Does Dusty

Donald Torr was, apparently, the best big brother any little girl could have, especially growing up on the outskirts of 1960s’ Aberdeen. Unlike the other slightly older children on their street, Donald didn’t simply ignore and endure the young Diane Torr; conspiratorially, he relished her presence, sensing a kindred spirit... 

La Merda by Cristian Ceresoli, starring Silvia Gallerano

La Merda by Cristian Ceresoli, starring Silvia Gallerano

Six performances only! The multi award-winning international hit play returns for its final Edinburgh performances. Winner of six major awards including Scotsman Fringe First and Stage Best Actress... 

The Furies

The Furies

A gig inspired by Clytemnestra’s Greek revenge myth, casting her Furies of vengeance as front women of a rock band. Operatic laments of a woman wronged are spliced together with heavy metal rages from her aggressor and the haunting lullabies of his mistress... 

Atomkraft

Atomkraft

Atomkraft is a performance with live music. Through a kind of joyfully awkward humour and audience participation it explores the itchy, antagonistic, dependent relationships between art, culture and the global systems of capital and power, as represented by the nuclear industry and large-scale urban development projects... 

The Red Chair

The Red Chair

Award-winning Clod Ensemble returns to Edinburgh with the fabulous tale of a man who eats himself into the chair he is sitting upon, the woman doomed to cook his meals, and their one ‘inveesible child’... 

The Assembly of Animals

The Assembly of Animals

Combining puppetry, magic and scientific-demonstration, THE ASSEMBLY OF ANIMALS gives a glimpse into the inner workings of a laboratory looking for life in everyday objects. As a performed sculpture, a series of delicately composed experiments reveal a proliferating system of surprises and animals within animals... 

What I Learned From Johnny Bevan

What I Learned From Johnny Bevan

It’s easy to get lulled by the constant flow of shows at the Fringe, to give in the mid-afternoon slump and the heavy-eyed semi-slumber. At times like this, what is needed is a play that shocks you upright; that makes your heart beat faster, that punches you right in the chest... 

Pope Head (The Secret Life of Francis Bacon)

Pope Head (The Secret Life of Francis Bacon)

Garry Roost is both writer and performer in this broad, jumbled examination of the life of the troubled artist, Francis Bacon. At times as unnerving and surreal as the artist's most famous works, this one man show takes the form of a confessional, explanatory rant... 

The Sun Ra Arkestra with Richard Youngs

The Sun Ra Arkestra with Richard Youngs

Summerhall is proud to present the Sun Ra Arkestra, live in the Dissection Room. Led by legendary alto saxophonist and original member, Marshall Allan, the band move forward not as a repertory or ghost band, but as a spirit band, maintaining the discipline centred on the study, research and further development of Sun Ra precepts... 

Gomaar Trilogy

Gomaar Trilogy

The Gomaar Trilogy has stylish puppetry and heartfelt sincerity – but its confident aesthetic fails to enliven a tired story of a male artist trying to accommodate his creative impulses in an indifferent universe... 

The Great Downhill Journey of Little Tommy

The Great Downhill Journey of Little Tommy

Is this a music concert? Is it a piece of theatre? Can it be both? Might it be neither? These are the questions that may well fly around your mind after experiencing The Great Downhill Journey of Little Tommy... 

The Temptation of St Anthony

The Temptation of St Anthony

Welcome to the Edinburgh Spiritual Emergency Support Group. The name of this particular organisation is emblazoned on a board at the back of the stage and we feel as though we have entered a meeting with a peculiar twist on the format of Alcoholics Anonymous... 

The Litvinenko Project

The Litvinenko Project

Go ahead and sip the gunpowder green tea poured into dainty cups by Tom Barnes and Matt Wilks, the handsome, engaging young performers of The Litvinenko Project. The more you hear about the cups of that tea that killed Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, however, the bitterer the stuff will taste... 

MacGillivray – Damn Rebel Bitch

MacGillivray – Damn Rebel Bitch

Howl throated ghost poet MacGillivray stramps the stage in folk noir electronica, evocative of post-apocalyptic punk Gaelic, chewed chandelier glass and electric autoharp. For this, her first Fringe outing, expect Damn Rebel Bitch songs, Scots litanies and underground cityscapes... 

where.to

where.to

Post-rock performance troupe Needless Alley present Where.To, an ongoing performance piece sitting somewhere between theatrical performance and live gig. Beginning with a conversation between friends, addressing our shifting perspectives on the state of the world, our right to privacy and social preconceptions of gender and class, it evolves into an exploration of hypothetical realisations of our collective ideals... 

Independence

Independence

Following their critically acclaimed 2014 Fringe debut, leading new music group Ensemble Thing return to Summerhall to perform John De Simone's powerful, moving new work, Independence... 

We Are the Monsters

We Are the Monsters

No two people – or monsters – are exactly the same! Come along and meet some scratchy, shimmering creatures and multi-coloured mini monsters, playing and interacting with one another, their arms and legs moving in strange and impossible ways... 

On Track

On Track

A gallery space with assorted artworks: chainsaw, feathered headdress, a map of the world. The words “Kristien De Proost, 2015” on the back wall in bold capital letters. They relate both to the exhibitor and the exhibited – in the centre of the room is De Proost, running steadily on a treadmill... 

Dive and Summerhall Present… C U Next Tuesday Cabaret

Dive and Summerhall Present… C U Next Tuesday Cabaret

This show is wondrously delightful. The host, the magnificent Miss Annabel Sings, entertains throughout with song, jokes and even a little dancing. She maintains the mood of the show brilliantly, ensuring that her audience feels fully welcomed, and appropriately riled up for every act she introduces... 

Current Location

Current Location

Three women stand on a cliff-edge overlooking their village; a village which is soon to disappear. ‘Sometimes we need to do things like this; we need to step away from our daily lives, and look at them from a distance... 

Shift/ – A Best of Spoken Word

Shift/ – A Best of Spoken Word

Shift is a collective of poets that includes Rachel Amey, Bram Gieben, Harry Giles, Jenny Lindsay, Ali Maloney, Rachel McCrum and Sam Small. Each night of the week one of them presents a solo piece... 

Mark Thomas: Trespass – Work in Progress

Mark Thomas: Trespass – Work in Progress

It’s hard these days to find comics, amongst the slick and edgy big leagues, with a genuine sense of mischief. But if you look up the word “raconteur” in the dictionary, I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw Mark Thomas smiling impishly out from the pages... 

Women's Hour

Women's Hour

“Doesn’t she look lovely?” Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit coo again and again, spitting irony. With their clownish face paint and matching school uniform outfits, they look a little ridiculous - a word that defines this show, though not in a negative way... 

Some People Talk About Violence

Some People Talk About Violence

With the title Some People Talk About Violence one would be forgiven for thinking Barrel Organ’s new show is serious and depressing. It’s not. Despite dealing with institutional violence it is incredibly playful and galvanising, leaving the audience shaken, with questions but no answers, and cementing Barrel Organ’s reputation as one of the cleverest and most exciting new theatre companies working in Britain right now... 

Taiwan Season: The Paper Play

Taiwan Season: The Paper Play

This charming double bill from Puppets Being Theatre uses poise and precision to bring to life ingenious paper creations. Running as part of Edinburgh Fringe’s Taiwan season, The Paper Play is almost entirely nonverbal, making it accessible for children of all ages and languages... 

Smash It Up

Smash It Up

Originally inspired by the demolition of the Chartist Mural in Newport, South Wales, Smash it Up explores the destruction of art, culture and public space. Beginning as a performance lecture, and using performance art and physical theatre it explores the historical acts of cultural destruction by fanatics, institutions and by artists themselves... 

Simon Thacker's Svara-Kanti

Simon Thacker's Svara-Kanti

Scotland's visionary guitarist/composer returns with an astonishingly powerful new trio line-up of his award-winning Indo-Western ensemble, with Raju das Baul, mesmerising exponent of Bengal's mystical Baul folk tradition and possessor of one of the most soulful voices on the world stage, and tabla master Sarvar Sabri... 

Light Boxes

Light Boxes

A space at Summerhall has been transformed into a forest. Karen Tennent’s set design, supported by Simon Wilkinson’s lights and music from the company, is simply sublime. We are surrounded by trees with foil balloons in the sky, woodchips beneath our feet and the smell of mint in the air... 

To Space

To Space

Dr Niamh Shaw is that relatively rare thing – a skilled and engaging stage performer who also happens to be a scientist and engineer, with both a degree and PhD to her name. Clearly, she’s keen on spreading a greater understanding of science and the wonderful universe around us, though always with what could be termed a dose of scientific realism: for example, pointing out that the more we study the universe, the more complicated it appears to become... 

Portraits in Motion

Portraits in Motion

In his softly accented English, German photographer Volker Gerling introduces you to unforgettable faces in his quiet but compelling Portraits in Motion. It’s not a play, not a lecture – it’s artistic “show and tell” storytelling as Gerling talks about his 3500 km walks through Germany and Switzerland... 

Fable

Fable

A charming storytelling piece that fuses spoken word and music, Fable from the Flanagan Collective charts the story of ‘J’. In her late 20s, J dreams of becoming an astronaut when she grows up, but her careworn dreams seem further and further from becoming a reality... 

Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943

Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943

A crucifix, a menorah, the smell of incense. A single chair for a single performer, acting out her four roles. Shelley Mitchell enters this already sacred space slowly, her focus highly practised... 

Antiwords

Antiwords

Antiwords is a piece inspired by Václav Havel’s play Audience, featuring an awkward dialogue between a dissident playwright and a drunken brew master. Spitfire Company and Aurora Theatre’s reworking is amusing, if a little weary at times... 

Orkestra Del Sol – Larger Than Life

Orkestra Del Sol – Larger Than Life

Globally inspired, but distilled in Scotland. Orkestra Del Sol’s explosive reinvention of global brass band music has captured imaginations, set pulses racing and left a trail of pummelled dance floors across continents... 

Poetry Can F*ck Off

Poetry Can F*ck Off

By Heathcote Williams (Herald Lifetime Achievement Award winner). Poetry f*cks off tyrants. The right words can get under the skin of those in power and spark revolution. Featuring the lyrics and verse of Jim Morrison, Billie Holiday, Sophie Scholl, Martin Luther King, William Blake, Arundhati Roy, Victor Jara, Gil Scott-Heron, Lupe Fiasco and many others, this is a celebration of those who have spoken out against tyranny while making our hearts pound... 

We This Way

We This Way

A shamelessly monotonous cycle of intrigue, We This Way casts Seth Kiebel in a haunting light, his deadpan but deft delivery commanding an hour of interactive, communal ‘point-and-click’ adventure... 

Grandad and Me

Grandad and Me

The Letter J’s production of Grandad and Me is simple, moving and effective. Accessible to younger children, it deals gently with themes of loss and memory. A young girl misses her recently deceased grandfather and, with the help of a friendly mouse, revisits the times and experiences they had together... 

A Brief History of Evil

A Brief History of Evil

Who knew that a Dusty Springfield favourite could provide such an effective description of man’s descent into unspeakable evil? Ewan Downie and Jonathan Peck from Company of Wolves apparently, as they croon their way through The Windmills of Your Mind with a hushed intensity that lulls you into a trance... 

The Metaphysical Caravan

The Metaphysical Caravan

The Metaphysical Caravan is an extraordinary mobile stage curated presenting the work of Pinocchio Theatre from Poland. Parked up at Summerhall this festival, it will host three different solo performances with no spoken dialogue and very creative workshops... 

Meet and Greet for University Students

Meet and Greet for University Students

Are you a university student at the Fringe? Network with your tech, acting, management and producing peers – make connections! Come meet other university students at this meet and greet sponsored by Fringe University. 

Awkward Happiness

Awkward Happiness

Awkward Happiness is a reflection on the futility of happiness. We have an uncanny ability to find lovers with demons complementary to our own. Is happiness something that we seek in another person? This moving and thought-provoking physical performance is inspired by themes from Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Bruckner’s Perpetual Euphoria... 

Thread

Thread

Thread is a multimedia dance drama, that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, arousal and disgust, fun and violence, spectacle and authenticity. New York city based BODYART’s accomplished dancers juxtapose high energy contemporary dance with interactive video... 

The Bevvy Sisters

The Bevvy Sisters

***** (BroadwayBaby.com). **** (Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday). BBC's Best of Fest 2014. Thursday evenings with special guests The Bad Boys from The legendary Loveboat Big Band. Nobody knows Edinburgh Fringe better than The Bevvy Sisters and The Bad Boys, and no one so renowned for creating a feel-good atmosphere and an uplifting time... 

Idiot-Syncrasy

Idiot-Syncrasy

Igor and Moreno move. They jump. They slide. They jump. They don't technically do much else. The men are in perpetual motion for the entire hour, though I'm not sure if I could actually call it a dance show... 

Lost in Transition

Lost in Transition

Lost in Transition looks at Romania’s decretei: children born as a result of Ceausescu’s 770 Decree that forbade contraception and abortions. These children, Romanian citizens, lived through numerous transitions: from communism to democracy, from trying to make a home in Romania to making a home abroad, from highly-skilled to illegal and un-skilled labour, from speaking Romanian to dreaming in English... 

Alien Lullabies – Songs from a Decaying Future

Alien Lullabies – Songs from a Decaying Future

As part of the Made in Scotland showcase, off-world electronica and stunning live vocals merge seamlessly with surreal 3D animation to evolve into a multimedia artwork in Alien Lullabies... 

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat play their only Edinburgh gig in support of their acclaimed second album together, The Most Important Place in the World. Their first album, Everything’s Getting Older, picked up the Scottish Album of the Year award in 2012... 

Mitch’s Movie Pitches

Mitch’s Movie Pitches

Mitch (Eric Sigmundsson) loves movies. And he really, really wants to make one. Over 55 crafted minutes, he pitches several to us: a homophobic Santa Claus terrorises a gay couple; a couple find love being burned alive watching a short film; a blind man attempts a tightrope walk... 

A Reason to Talk

A Reason to Talk

Sachli Gholamalizad moved from Iran to Belgium when she was five. For the two years that she and her brothers waited for their father to make the journey, her mother was her protector in this strange new country with its formidable barriers of language and discrimination... 

Project HaHa

Project HaHa

When life gives you lemons, sometimes you shouldn’t make lemonade.That’s the message at the heart of this hugely inventive and arresting new piece by physical theatre collective RemoteControl, a show which feeds off the manic energy induced when we force ourselves to be happy... 

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

University Professors at the Fringe Networking Event

Fringe University believes that the Edinburgh Fringe makes an excellent classroom. Come meet and network with other university professors from around the world planning to, or already using, the Fringe for educational purposes. 

Sun Kil Moon

Sun Kil Moon

Over the last 20 years Mark Kozelek has been ploughing his own unique furrow, through his work in the band Red House Painters and through the moniker Sun Kil Moon, leading him to one of his most critically acclaimed albums to date, Benji... 

Poker Night Blues

Poker Night Blues

In Poker Night Blues, Williams’ masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire is undone – dismantled and distilled to its essential elements. Heightened physicality, dance, humour, and an original text blend together to create this intense, touching and steamy fusion between East and West... 

Anatomy of the Piano (for Beginners)

Anatomy of the Piano (for Beginners)

Following the success of Anatomy of the Piano last year, Will Pickvance is back with an enthralling adaptation of his work for younger theatre-goers. Sitting somewhere between a storytelling and a recital, Anatomy of the Piano (for Beginners) is a delightful romp through piano music and the perfect antidote to scale and arpeggio-induced boredom... 

Can I Start Again Please

Can I Start Again Please

Pay attention as this breathtaking production desiccates, then dissects childhood trauma via its exploration of Wittgenstein and semantics: there’s a wordless sucker punch in Can I Start Again Please that strikes over the course of several minutes, and its impact aches for hours... 

Grown Ups

Grown Ups

An exclusive vinyl club night for the more fully-fledged music fan, DJs Kinghorror and The Spotlight Kid create an amazing mash up of grooves from the last six decades, perfectly crafted for dancing... 

The History of the World Based on Banalities

The History of the World Based on Banalities

‘A fast-paced gem of a play about saying goodbye to your nearest and dearest... full of quick-witted comedy that yields dazzling theatre’ (Knack Magazine). A youngster decides to look after his mother in the last months of her life... 

Alchemy of the Piano

Alchemy of the Piano

What is it like to fall under the spell of the piano? Genre-defying pianist Will Pickvance (creator of Anatomy of the Piano) spent years trying to refine his tendency to go off on meandering solos and outlandish musical mutations, before realising these were the things that define him... 

Summerhall's Opening Night Party – Prosumer with House of Traps

Summerhall's Opening Night Party – Prosumer with House of Traps

Prosumer aka Achim Brandenburg has a fever for Chicago’s Jack flavour with a vision, passion and knowledge which makes Prosumer a guardian of house music history and one of the finest party spinners operating today... 

The Voice Thief

The Voice Thief

“Good girls should be seen and not heard”. This seems to be the guiding principle behind those working at the Mackenzie Institute for the Encouragement of Vocal Harmony (MIEVH)... 

Chicken Licken and the Little Red Hen

Chicken Licken and the Little Red Hen

A baby chick is born and thinks the sky is falling down. On the way to tell the King, she meets Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky and Turkey Lurkey, but there's a shocking surprise! Chicken Licken grows up to be the Little Red Hen and asks her friends to help her make bread, but no one wants to play! Mixed into this recipe of food, puppets and music is the story of Little Red Hen and the sly Foxy Loxy... 

I Gave Him an Orchid

I Gave Him an Orchid

In 1885 Sarah Henley throws herself off a bridge. She lives. In 2015 Sarah talks about it and other things that push us over the edge. It is not about suicide, well a bit, it’s about love and what it makes us do... 

17 Border Crossings

17 Border Crossings

'Brilliant and evocative' (Westword.com). Award-winning director, actor and designer Thaddeus Phillips takes you to the frontiers of Brazil, Serbia, Cuba, Bali, Israel, Colombia, Jordan, and Mexico in a dramatic, visual and surreal examination of imaginary lines, arbitrary passports and curious customs... 

The Overcoat

The Overcoat

Jenny's a mischievous little girl who loves playing with her Dad. But he has to put on his business suit, pick up his briefcase and go to work. When Jenny grabs hold of his overcoat to stop him leaving, a thread unravels, becoming the start of a magical world of adventure and discovery... 

T-Dance

T-Dance

London’s boldest dance theatre brings hit shows to the Fringe. Four dancers explore the fragility and humour of touch. How are we connected even when separated by distance, time or context? How do we touch without touching? We question the limits of the body and the mind’s connections... 

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven

Written and performed by legendary trans playwright, performer and poet Jo Clifford, this unique and extraordinary show combines theatre with storytelling, spoken word and ritual in a way that, according to one audience member, ‘leaves everyone feeling blessed’... 

The Tap Dancing Mermaid

The Tap Dancing Mermaid

Gather round, gather round for the moon’s magical, mystical story about a tippetty-top tap dancer called Marina Skippett, who he has been watching at night. With stunning puppetry, original live music to sing along to and tap-dancing that will make you want to stick 50p pieces to your shoes and join in, this is 'just everything a children's theatre experience should be' (Childplays... 

Ringside

Ringside

Ringside. A girl on a trapeze. The ghost of every glamorous girl you’ve ever seen on a trapeze high up in the big top, performing to the roar of the crowd. But she’s up-close in this intimate one on one aerial performance made for your eyes only... 

Unlimited Exhibition

Unlimited Exhibition

Summerhall’s Meadow Galleries hosts the first Unlimited Exhibition: a collection of ambitious visual and mixed media installations by outstanding disabled artists. Unlimited offers talented disabled artists funds and mentoring support to develop, produce and show ambitious work... 

A Bench On The Road

A Bench On The Road

Billed as “a story of women’s courage, of sisterhood and pride”, A Bench on the Road is a work in progress based on the true experiences of Italian immigrants, Scottish-born Italians and the native Scottish women around them... 

The Gamblers

The Gamblers

Nikoli Gogol's The Gamblers (premiered in 1843) is relatively rarely-performed, at least in comparison with the writer's most famous work, The Government Inspector. Perhaps the latter is more popular because of its broad satirical brushstrokes, and the writer’s decision to ensure his audience is completely in on the deception at its heart... 

Light Killer

Light Killer

This is a very weird play. Its writing is full of clichés and at times feels very derivative, and yet there is something utterly compelling about the production. Despite being somewhat childishly conceived, Light Killer is still able to flit between the poetic, the hilarious and the visually beautiful... 

Duck, Death and the Tulip

Duck, Death and the Tulip

Duck lives a typical duck existence: she eats snails, swims in ponds and sleeps peacefully at night. Death does not understand why the tulip that just sprang out of the earth shrivels at its touch, and it seems like it could do with some company... 

The Hibrow Comedy Hour

The Hibrow Comedy Hour

This was supposed to be a review of a stand-up comedy show. However, due to the vagaries of the Fringe this evening ended up as a review of Sarah Louise Young’s brilliant Cabaret Whore... 

Alison Jackson: A Story in the Public Domain

Alison Jackson: A Story in the Public Domain

Alison Jackson has made a name for herself creating fake behind-the-scenes photographs and videos of celebrities with look-alike models. With Alison Jackson: A Story in the Public Domain she attempts to extend this idea into a long-form theatre piece... 

Maria Addolorata

Maria Addolorata

At the beginning of Maria Addolorata, a man and a woman in caricature-like costumes sob uncontrollably and blow their noses. As they literally fall out of their outfits like shelled nuts, they set up the comedic tone of the next part of the show... 

The God That Comes

The God That Comes

It takes a hell of a lot of stage presence to pull of a one-man cabaret musical inspired by Euripides’ The Bacchae, but Hawksley Workman is certainly up to the task.Opening with a tipsy precis of the original story of the Bacchae - a repressed and angry king is tricked by the god of wine, resulting in the king being torn limb from limb by a crowd of drunk and horny worshippers - Workman launches into a gripping and witty elaboration on the myth, moving between the three main roles of the God, the King, and his mother and his own wry persona as a storyteller... 

Looking for Paul - Wunderbaum

Looking for Paul - Wunderbaum

Some shows take the audience on challenging yet rewarding journeys through layers of meaning, interpretations, and staging. Looking for Paul is one of those shows, but in this case the journey is more like a trip on acid, at the end of which it would be an understatement to say that the audience is left puzzled... 

Charmolypi

Charmolypi

Alexandra Kazazou’s slim but muscular frame seems to fill the stage, such is the sheer power she exudes. She practically radiates with intensity; we as an audience are enthralled by the physical theatre and storytelling she uses in Charmolypi... 

Snoutology for Beginners

Snoutology for Beginners

Professors White Fang and Dr. Gary are two dogs-cum-scientists and in this educational seminar, they teach us about Snoutology (“the -ology of Snout”). It is a silly variety show - a natural history lesson from a dog’s point of view... 

The Waste Land Sisters

The Waste Land Sisters

The Waste Land Sisters fuses Chekhov’s The Three Sisters with T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land – two of the most beloved and meaningful pieces of literature of the twentieth century... 

Tales from the MP3

Tales from the MP3

20 Stories High Young Actors Theatre Company’s Tales from the MP3 is an original and dynamic production. Consisting of verbatim accounts of young people’s opinions and experiences on topics like religion, race and sexuality, it feels extremely personal in its construction... 

Domestic Labour: A Study in Love

Domestic Labour: A Study in Love

A domestic drama in a literal sense, 30 Bird’s abstract piece circles themes of cultural identity, sex, politics… and who does the washing up.The question of ‘women’s work’, of domestic chores and childbirth, set apart from the perceived masculinity of the revolution in Iran, is a recurring motif... 

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

“We are not going to tell you a story,” the cast disconcertingly warns the audience in the opening minutes of Wuthering Heights. Kate Bush supercedes Emily Brontë as the overarching voice of Peter McMaster’s all-male performance of the novel... 

Leaving Home Party

Leaving Home Party

A young woman who’s spent her entire life in Limerick, Ireland wishes to leave home and explore the world. Her destinations are Glasgow and then Edinburgh. This one-woman show, written and performed by Catherine Ireton with live musical accompaniment by Ignacio Agrimbau, is a musical storytelling about self-realisation and a search for identity... 

Sleight & Hand

Sleight & Hand

Sleight & Hand’s purposefully heavy-handed opening speech casts a shadow over its self-conscious remainder: this piece of new writing by Chris Bush is so knowing you’d really expect it to teach us something... 

Replaceable Things

Replaceable Things

Replaceable Things features John De Simone’s Panic Diary and Thomas Butler’s Replaceable Parts for the Irreplaceable You, performed by Scottish contemporary music company Ensemble Thing, who have performed internationally and in the UK... 

Sirens

Sirens

Out of the darkness, six women emerge wearing evening dresses. They have their backs turned to us as they hiss and utter nonsense words to warm up their voices. They turn around and begin humming, almost but not quite in unison... 

MacBheatha

MacBheatha

Summerhall’s steeply tiered Demonstration Room gives off the air of an amphitheatre, but its back wall houses very modern projections. White noise gives way to the witches, flashed in front of us as this malicious tale commences... 

Against Nothingness or 3cm Above an Empty Head

Against Nothingness or 3cm Above an Empty Head

Through a combination of monsters, demons, and his dysfunctional relationship with his father, Stasiu tries to overcome the harsh reality of his own existence, as his narcotic-abused life flashes before his eyes... 

Factor 9

Factor 9

If this show was a stick of rock, it would have “Anger” written all the way through it in blood red: specifically anger at the medical, commercial and political establishments in both the US and UK which, during the 1980s, allowed thousands of haemophiliacs to be infected with Hepatitis C and/or HIV – with horrendous consequences for themselves, their partners, and their families... 

The World Mouse Plague

The World Mouse Plague

The World Mouse Plague is a complex, experimental illusion of a play. Its scornful personality is unmistakable and consistent, but otherwise, it’s difficult to decipher. Initially, it appears to have started life as a serious commentary on social cleansing... 

Chalk About

Chalk About

Performers Christine Devaney and Hendrik Lebon polled a group of children on what they’d like to see in a show. They got lots of suggestions: “Blood!” “Dinosaurs!” “Zombies!” “No kissing!” “Beyoncé!” “Please, please, please…NO PUPPETS... 

Theatre on a Long Thin Wire

Theatre on a Long Thin Wire

There are no actors in this show. We are led into a room by a staff member of the venue. There is a chair in the room and a phone sitting on it. When the show begins, the phone rings, and one of us picks it up... 

Song Noir - The Director's Cut

Song Noir - The Director's Cut

It should be a speakeasy with small round tables and lowballs of stiff drinks on the rocks – but it ain’t. It’s an old lecture hall, downstairs, practically subterranean and it’s dark as you lean forward on the wooden desk that has seen many elbows before yours... 

Guinea Pigs on Trial

Guinea Pigs on Trial

The latest offering from the award winning Sh!t Theatre is an all singing, all dancing critique of the pharmaceutical industry which is at all points informative and entertaining.The show takes the form of a guided tour through Louise Mothersole and Becca Biscuit's attempts to be accepted onto a Stage One Medical Trial as research for this show... 

Amy Duncan: Undercurrents

Amy Duncan: Undercurrents

Edinburgh based singer/songwriter Amy Duncan showcases a new body of songs with string trio: harp, bass and percussion as part of the Made in Scotland Showcase. Undercurrents is about going below the surface to connect with the deep and hidden emotions, engaging fully with life, rather than observing from the edge... 

Simon Thacker's Ritmata

Simon Thacker's Ritmata

Led by the visionary Scottish guitar virtuoso, Simon Thacker's Ritmata play exhilaratingly direct new music combining sounds from every corner of the globe with the incredible musical experiences of all four performers: the unbridled expression of flamenco, the limitless emotions of the ragas of India, pulsating rhythms from Africa, the raw power and spirituality of Native America, the seductive eloquence of Middle Eastern maqamat and impassioned romances of the Judeo-Spanish Sephardim... 

Miann

Miann

Soiled bodies writhe across across a primordial swamp in earthbound exploration, rising from time to time in contorted gestures. Gradually these develop into recognizable, repeated motifs and group sequences... 

Step into My Parlour

Step into My Parlour

'Irish stew for the soul' ***** (ThreeWeeks). Five Fringe soirèes, five special guests, five unique album launches. Step into Michelle’s memorabilia-bedecked living room for songs, yarns and a complement of Scotland and Ireland's finest musicians led by James Ross... 

Birdwatchers’ Wives

Birdwatchers’ Wives

Birdwatchers’ Wives is effectively a one-woman show, with the climax being seven-foot Rita (the Great Crested) Grebe competing in a ‘bird-off’ – an avian version of X Factor... 

A Journey Round My Skull

A Journey Round My Skull

Science-theatre is in vogue at the moment. With the emergence of science icons like Professor Brian Cox and Dr Ben Goldacre, the average person is now far more engaged with the workings of the world around them... 

The Worm - An Underground Adventure

The Worm - An Underground Adventure

As anyone who’s ever dealt with a three-year-old can tell you, keeping their attention can be a Herculean task. It’s therefore a pleasure to see a piece like The Worm: An Underground Adventure which manages to keep its audience of tinies enthralled simply through some excellent storytelling... 

Hand Made in China: Moons, Migration and Messages

Hand Made in China: Moons, Migration and Messages

On the day that the Edinburgh weather turned from sunshine and showers to rough, autumnal wind, an ambitious project arrived at Summerhall. Hand-Made In China was more of a travelling exhibition than a show; a meeting and sharing of cultures and ideas... 

Raymondo

Raymondo

Raymondo is a piece of magical realist storytelling which combines an evocative musical accompaniment with an endlessly strange and beautiful script.It tells the story of a young boy, Raymondo, who is locked in a cellar for six years with his brother, Sparky... 

Innocence

Innocence

An exciting opportunity for 0-4 year olds (and their adults), to enter a realm of mystery, fun and adventure. Innocence is a unique performance playroom where the audience explore William Blake’s Songs of Innocence... 

Berkoff the Inimitable

Berkoff the Inimitable

Anything is possible! Or impossible! Steven Berkoff performs live while being simultaneously painted by acclaimed Scottish artist Peter Howson. Image by Peter Howson, whose exhibition at Summerhall is part of the Hibrow programme. 

Hymn to Disappearance

Hymn to Disappearance

If you’ve been flyered by Theatre Santuoui, you may have been bewitched by the intricate game that unfolds before your eyes in their ingenious paper creation. In this instance, judging a show by its cover (or rather flyer) really works; their superb publicity really does reflect the superb contents of their show, which is similarly surprising and slick... 

Sleep Sound

Sleep Sound

New genre-crossing music by Fiona Rutherford. Originally a Celtic Connections commission, Sleep Sound is inspired by the structure of a night's sleep. Lose yourself in this beautifully vivid soundtrack, featuring some of Scotland's top musicians in both the traditional and contemporary fields... 

Landscape with Skiproads

Landscape with Skiproads

What happens when the past collides with the present? If the philosophical is made tangible, does it still have the power to transform? And can myths ever hold any relevance to our lives? These are the questions that Belgian performer Pieter De Buysser sets out to answer in his quietly remarkable one-man show about objects, families, and a mysterious boy called Zoltan... 

The One Ensemble

The One Ensemble

Following their sell-out Summerhall shows at last year’s Made In Scotland showcase, this genre-defying quartet take a break from performing with Scottish Dance Theatre to perform a special one-off gig... 

The Future for Beginners

The Future for Beginners

What would life be like if you could plan every detail ahead of time and guarantee your happiness? Such certainty of outcome is surely something that everyone has wished for at some point, when life has seemed too hard, too confusing, too lacking in narrative... 

Nothing

Nothing

If your experience of Fringe plays has become stale, Nothing is likely to change your mind. I’m not being facetious: this is an absolutely captivating piece of theatre. The fact that Barrel Organ Theatre is largely made up of recent graduates makes its professionalism even more impressive... 

The Flood

The Flood

The Flood provides a haunting, tragic insight into one of the most devastating events in modern history. The Great War has just broken out, separating a man and a woman, soldier and nurse; we follow a year in their lives as they cling onto hope... 

Shakespeare, His Wife and the Dog

Shakespeare, His Wife and the Dog

After a successful career in London as a playwright and actor, William Shakespeare has returned home to his wife in Stratford. This play takes place over the course of one late night, when his wife cannot sleep and neither can Shakespeare... 

Lands of Glass

Lands of Glass

Dann Rail is an eccentric resident of a town called Quinnipak. He’s acquired a patent to make glass bigger than anyone’s ever achieved, and wishes to collaborate with an ambitious architect to create a crystal palace made entirely out of glass... 

The Man Who Almost Killed Himself

The Man Who Almost Killed Himself

The Man Who Almost Killed Himself is a funny and tragic true story inspired by the work of anthropologist Andrew Irving in Uganda and Eastern Africa. The creative talent behind this interesting show is not to be sniffed at either; they bring the community, traditions and beliefs of Africa thrillingly to life... 

Klip

Klip

Klip describes itself as “a collage of carefully chosen coincidences”. You might read that and think, 'that sounds quite pretentious,’ and it is, as is the show. Klip is the kind of questionable, over-the-top performance art normally saved for a third year Drama degree show that is monumentally mocked for years to come... 

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland, by theatre company Ridiculusmus, is about the creation of an experience. Despite the title, this is not a simple narrative about the Finnish managing to all but eliminate the condition known as ‘schizophrenia’ through a process of ‘open dialogue’... 

Biding Time (Remix)

Biding Time (Remix)

Biding Time (Remix) holds some interesting ideas and memorable visuals, but it's often hard to decipher what the aim of the company's design and concept really is.The show itself has a slightly tired narrative about a female led band, A Band Called Quinn, which is ingested through the fame machine and spurted out the other end, having been used and abused by execs and hangers on... 

Step into My Parlour

Step into My Parlour

'Irish stew for the soul' ***** (ThreeWeeks). Five Fringe soirèes, five special guests, five unique album launches. Step into Michelle’s memorabilia-bedecked living room for songs, yarns and a complement of Scotland and Ireland's finest musicians led by James Ross... 

Blood Orange

Blood Orange

Blood Orange is a modern tragedy of politics, race, religion and ethics. This show, written and directed by Graham Main, addresses the terrifying and corrosive presence of the Scottish Defence League (a far right organisation akin to the BNP) in rural Scotland... 

Where the World Is Going, That's Where We Are Going

Where the World Is Going, That's Where We Are Going

A man and a woman have come together to tell us about Diderot’s novel, Jacques the Fatalist and his Master. They open the show by saying there is a problem, but never tell us exactly what the problem is... 

Made in ILVA - The Contemporary Hermit

Made in ILVA - The Contemporary Hermit

In a fusion of intense physicality, vocalisation and performance, we open to a backlit monk-like figure chanting in Italian. A religious introduction to the story of a manual worker labouring in factory hell... 

Are You Lonesome Tonight

Are You Lonesome Tonight

This one-woman show begins with a deluge of diagnoses handed out to the audience members by the performer. We are numbers, personality types rattled off from a list she has acquired and memorised from a mystical astrological black box unknown to us... 

Now Until the Hour

Now Until the Hour

Now Until the Hour is a lyrical dramatic monologue starring Jacquie Crago. This is the story of a woman who has been marginalized throughout her life and who now finds herself in a world of unanswered phones and unanswered questions... 

Standby for Tape Back-Up

Standby for Tape Back-Up

This is a show about seeing patterns in the random; about time’s ability to change perception; about coming to terms with death and working through depression. It’s surreal and fragmented and strangely hypnotic, even if its ambitious, weighty concepts fail to culminate in anything particularly meaningful... 

The Dispute

The Dispute

Who was first unfaithful: woman or man? A scientific experiment designed to recreate the garden of Eden and answer this question “once and for all” is the premise of this heavily modernised version of Pierre de Marivaux’s 1744 original... 

Sister

Sister

This unpretentious production is as unflinchingly fearless as it is heart-warming. Rosana Cade is a lesbian, Amy Cade a sex worker, and together the two sisters take the audience on an exploration of their relationships with their sexualities and each other, whilst completely naked... 

Near Gone

Near Gone

“This is a difficult story to tell,” performer Katherina Radeva warns us in Bulgarian through her translator and fellow performer, Alister Lownie, at the start of Near Gone. She is not wrong... 

KlangHaus

KlangHaus

With over 3000 shows descending on Edinburgh this month, the city is attempting to squeeze a Fringe venue out of every possible space available. In some cases this results in a gimmicky setting that doesn’t really add to the show’s appeal, but KlangHaus benefits hugely from its unusual choice of venue: the Small Animal Hospital at Summerhall... 

Tony and Mike - The Country Owl and the City Squirrel

Tony and Mike - The Country Owl and the City Squirrel

It’s a rare show that can successfully entertain children of all ages. ‘Tony and Mike’ is one of these sought-after gems. A very pleasant afternoon can be had visiting the garden of a crooked little house on a hill... 

Asian Dub Foundation Live DJ Set Featuring Pandit G and Aktavata

Asian Dub Foundation Live DJ Set Featuring Pandit G and Aktavata

Following their gig in Edinburgh, ADF’s after-party comes to Summerhall with a DJ set mixing electronica, jungle, dub, ragga, and some very rare mash-ups. Two world class DJ’s as well as the sensational MC Soom T from Glasgow, who has a huge following and beautiful vocal style... 

I Do, Do I

I Do, Do I

How much power could you entrust in a group of children? Would you let them tell you what to wear or compose music for you to perform? Would you let them do anything they want? I Do, Do I is a series of Fluxus inspired musical scores written by children and performed by a man... 

Lady GoGo Goch

Lady GoGo Goch

Frankie Fox presents a playful and mesmeric exploration of music, voice and cultural identity. ‘You have to struggle consciously for your identity. Not because you're better than anybody else, or because your culture is greater... 

Little on the inside

Little on the inside

On a patch of green that is nowhere to be found here, two women provide a little comfort for one another. Through stories old and new they occupy an imagined space, and invent a world in which they might live together... 

How does a Snake Shed its Skin?

How does a Snake Shed its Skin?

Margaret Thatcher is on a diet. Virginia Woolf is in a bucket. Marilyn Monroe is reading the dictionary. So what is this woman doing with her head in a filing cabinet? A show about definitions and diagnoses created from the diaries, letters and to-do lists of this peculiar trio... 

The Object Lesson

The Object Lesson

Do you have what you need? Do you need what you have? With boxes stacked to the ceiling, award-winning actor-illusionist-inventor Geoff Sobelle unpacks our relationship to everyday objects - a hilarious, heartbreaking solo performance installation... 

The Scottish Enlightenment Project

The Scottish Enlightenment Project

‘Our tales are similar but the endings are different...’ In America, the underdog battles against all odds to triumph in the dying seconds of the game. In Scotland, we dwell on moments of glorious defeat snatched from the jaws of victory; the glass isn't just half empty, it's been smashed on the bar and waved in your face... 

Anatomy of the Piano

Anatomy of the Piano

Part piano recital, part fantasy lecture, Will Pickvance returns with his sell-out Edinburgh Fringe 2013 show of virtuosity, dissection and surreal humour. 'Very funny, this man is the Will Pickvance of his generation' (Dylan Moran). 

Kid Box

Kid Box

Starting with a childhood game, Kid explores the complex relationship between mother and child through simple lighting and sound design, extraordinary movement and unbelievable imagination... 

Invisible Walls

Invisible Walls

Invisible Walls is an artistic journey through experiences based on real situations of isolation - from impossibility to freely move, being threatened for physical existence to being trapped because of bureaucracy, prejudice or fear to leave invisible walls, if not created for us, created by ourselves... 

Head in the Clouds: The Peregrinations of Marie Marvingt

Head in the Clouds: The Peregrinations of Marie Marvingt

Marie was no ordinary woman … at fifteen, when her mother died, she raised her siblings, learned four different languages including Esperanto, got a degree, became a prize-winning cook, dancer, gymnast, swimmer, fencer, bob-sledder and canoed from Paris to Germany... 

Misa-Lisin

Misa-Lisin

Langasan Theatre derives its name from Cilangasan mountain, and celebrates the remarkable fables and tales of the Cilangasan clan. As an Amis senior aboriginal performer in Taiwan, the founder Adaw Palaf incorporates performance with dancing, singing and story-telling, which combines the aboriginal culture with concepts of modern action art... 

Malasombra

Malasombra

An emotionally dark, richly visual fairytale for adults and heavy-metal kids. How would you feel if your shadow took over your soul and began exploring its own desires and urges? What would you do? How could you get it back? Are self-confidence and friendship with others enough to defeat the evil of the shadowy Mister Malasombra? Internationally acclaimed Spanish company auMents combines visual theatre, dance, video art, object theatre, experimental shadow theatre and rock music to create a beautiful, exciting journey through a collective fantasy, plunging us through the human soul’s darkness and light... 

ViewMaster

ViewMaster

A personal slideshow for your eyes and ears only. Poet Ryan Van Winkle and musician Dan Gorman lead you on a playful, sometimes surreal, journey to a distant land and bring you back in under 15 minutes... 

Rosie Wilby: Nineties Woman

Rosie Wilby: Nineties Woman

The early nineties is a period that doesn’t often get a lot of attention. Lacking Margaret Thatcher, communism and the fantastic fashions, the early nineties have become a footnote to their more famous predecessor, ‘The Eighties’... 

Pre:View

Pre:View

Held at The Traverse, a theatre that prides itself on supporting new writing in all its forms, Pre:View gave its audience an exciting insight into the process of perfecting play scripts... 

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