Dawn is a hairdresser who likes to rap.
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 is a stunning, fast paced piece of verbatim theatre about the plight of three young carers living in Salford.
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 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 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…
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…
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 Ex-soldier Zach has withdrawn into a cardboard box in a kitchen in West Wales…
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 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…
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…
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
If you’re here at the Fringe for a good time, don’t let the word ‘science’ cancel out the word ‘sesh’.
We’re told that ‘Max needs a firm hand’, as the performance launches with three actors clad in balaclavas.
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…
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…
Leyla Josephine presents us with 'Daddy', a seeming parody of Rab C Nesbitt, oozing toxic masculinity.
At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe it can often feel very hard to be alone.
A riotous romp through the history of the female body, the patriarchy and the bad science behind the titular gender myth.
This one person play, written and performed by Sarah-Jane Scott, introduces us to Sorcha who is fresh from fleeing her wedding.
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…
‘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: 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…
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…
An abandoned party; a neglected bedroom; a cluttered AV desk.
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…
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…
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…
As I write this review I find myself enveloped by a certain degree of caution.
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 …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
‘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! 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 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…
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.
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.
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…
Phosphorus Theatre works with refugees and asylum-seekers to create original collaborative autobiographical storytelling.
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…
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.
Bunk beds line the walls, a sterile cream colour melting into plastic mattresses.
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.
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, 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.
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…
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 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…
Eva O’Connor’s one-woman show about heart break and madness is crammed with life, wit and tragedy.
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.
"Poor Fellow.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 is, first and foremost, the story of two women.
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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’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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
‘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…
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 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…
In a world created by your imagination it can be difficult to work out what is fiction and what is reality.
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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 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 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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
Darkfield – creators of last years Séance – have brought their shipping container back to Summerhall for their latest aeronautically themed immersive audio performance, Flight...
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...
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? is a multimedia, autobiographical documentary-cum-social experiment all about writer-performer Samira Elagoz’s relationship with men after being raped...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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, 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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 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 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...
"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...
"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...
“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...
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...
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)...
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)...
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...
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...
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.
'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 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: 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 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.
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...
'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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
'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...
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...
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
'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...
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...
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...
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...
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) 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 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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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 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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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 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...
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.
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 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...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
"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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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?
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...
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)...
“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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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 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...
‘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)...
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...
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...
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...
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 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 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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
‘...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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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)...
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...
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)...
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...
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 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...
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...
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 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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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!
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’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)...
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...
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...
'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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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 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...
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’...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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 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 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...
***** (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...
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 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...
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 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 (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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
‘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...
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...
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...
“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)...
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...
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...
'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...
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...
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...
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’...
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. 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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
“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...
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’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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
'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 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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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 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 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, 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) 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...
'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 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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
‘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...
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).
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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’...
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...