Sunday 2nd August, 6:00pm

Complex, raw, and quietly burdened by years of unspoken grief, we meet Dawn at a pivotal moment: crafting a funeral wreath for someone she’d rather not talk about. The task seems to soften her… and suddenly—she opens up, perhaps for the first time in her life.

What she shares is a story stitched with sequins and steeped in legacy—of freestyle disco, ferocious dance mums, and the resilience it takes to keep picking yourself up and dancing when you fall. She taught a generation of working-class girls in the ’90s not just how to thrive, but how to lose—and not cry.

It’s a mantra she’s lived by. But as her story unfolds, we begin to wonder: has that philosophy served her—or has it slowly worn her down?

Jayde Adams is a multi award-winning comedian, actor, and writer. She has starred in the triple BAFTA award-winning Alma’s Not Normal, ITV’s Ruby Speaking, and the feature film Greatest Days. Now, in an exciting transition from stand-up back to her roots in theatre, Jayde returns to the fringe with the same bold voice and magnetic presence that made her a standout in comedy.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Saturday 2 August, 8:00pm

A city. Just like this. Right now. A teenage girl boils up in rage in a toilet cubicle. A finance worker preaches doom in a busy train station. An absurd coke-addled celebrity races through town on a mission. A paranoid stoner stares blankly at the endless disasters on the TV news. In just one moment, all their worlds will end.

Multi-award-winner Kieran Hurley (VL, Mouthpiece, Beats) weaves a picture of a familiar city at its moment of destruction, asking what would we do if we found ourselves at the end of our world as we know it. A stripped back version presented especially for Shedinburgh.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 3 August, 6:00pm

In the moments after her last child leaves home, the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe finally sits down to write a rebuttal to the person who penned the poem that made her famous.

Multi-award winning British duo and sisters, Nicola and Rosie Dempsey, are best known for their musical comedy as Flo & Joan (One Man Musical). This script-in-hand reading will be a little different, as the pair put aside their instruments to try out their new one person play.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 3 August, 8:00pm

A psychologist and an actor meet in the sea. Or did they? They can’t agree.

Dara and Gig have been happily married for decades. But one of them has done something unforgivable.

Facts are slippery. Feelings are filthy. And memories are unreliable.

This is a love story. A crime scene. Seasickness on solid ground.

The Briar Patch is a dissection of a relationship under pressure — a play about what we remember, what we misremember, and the devastating possibility that we were never really paying attention.

Monday 4 August, 4:00pm

Ever wondered what it really takes to make a show stand out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe? Join award-winning producer Francesca Moody (Fleabag, Baby Reindeer) as she hosts How to Produce a Fringe Hit — a Q&A panel event with industry insiders, sharing the secrets, challenges and must-knows behind creating a smash-hit Fringe show.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Monday 4 August, 6:00pm

A rich and beautiful story from Shetland, performed by comedian, storyteller and filmmaker Marjolein Robertson. The story of the Hillsook Weddeen (Hillswick Wedding) is one of Shetland's best folktales. It takes the listener back to life in Shetland in the late 1800s, exploring the crofting, fishing and other traditions, yet there is more to this story than meets the eye as through it we meet the trows, a creature of Shetland folklore, and with them we go into their world.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Tuesday 5 August, 8:00pm

The Olivier Award–winning West End hit returns to the Fringe for a 16th year! For one night only The Showstoppers get back to their roots with this intimate version of the show just for Shedinburgh. It’s opening night for the hottest new musical in town. There's just one problem - the writer hasn't written a note and needs your help... See your suggestions turned into a brand-new comedy musical in ‘the funniest improv on the Fringe’ (Broadway Baby).

★★★★★
'So polished, it defies belief'
The Telegraph

★★★★★
'Achingly funny... worth seeing again and again'
Time Out

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Wednesday 6 August, 4:00pm

What makes a five-star review — and who decides? In this Q&A panel event, theatre critic and journalist, Tim Bano, along with guests, lift the curtain on the world of arts criticism, exploring how reviews are written, how the landscape is changing, and what performers need to know about the critics in the room.

Wednesday 6 August, 6:00pm

China Plate and Staatstheater Mainz present
Talking About The Fire
Created by Chris Thorpe and Claire O’Reilly
Written and performed by Chris Thorpe
Developed with Rachel Chavkin

Nuclear weapons could destroy us all, right now - so why aren't we talking about them?

Sometimes the threat slides into view - Russia invades Ukraine - but that doesn’t make the weapons more dangerous. They’re always dangerous. And one day, deliberately or accidentally, they’ll be used again.

On the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima comes a one-off performance of a show and a conversation about a new nuclear weapons treaty - one that’s trying to give the power to eliminate nuclear weapons to the states, and people, who don’t possess them.

Created by seven-time Fringe First winner Chris Thorpe and Claire O’Reilly (Abbey Theatre) and developed with Tony Award-winning Rachel Chavkin.
★★★★★ ‘It’s all masterfully put together… this show culminates in an encounter that really puts the ‘alive’ into ‘live theatre’. – Time Out
★★★★★ “It’s precisely the feeling of community and comfort in the room that makes the horror of what Thorpe is describing so powerful.” – Broadway World
★★★★ “Informative and deeply affecting… Thorpe is an assured and tremendously engaging performer.” – The Stage
★★★★ “Chris Thorpe does what he does with a performative skill that is off-thecharts brilliant. It is an extraordinary evening of theatre.” – Theatre Reviews Hub

Supported by Battersea Arts Centre, the Albany, Véronique Christory and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Creative Team
Writer & Performer | Chris Thorpe
Director | Claire O’Reilly
Designer | Eleanor Field
Lighting Designer | Arnim Friess

Re-lighter | Rob Athorn
Production Manager | Rob Athorn
Deputy Production Manager | Adam Steed

Script developed with | Rachel Chavkin and Staatstheater Mainz

Collaborator/Advisor | Véronique Christory

Youth Advisor | Zainab Rauf Tramboo

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Thursday 7 August, 5:30pm

Twenty years after his first solo show, inexplicably much curlier of hair, and with many more hangovers behind him, one of the festival’s most storied comedians rashly attempts a ‘best of’ compendium of what he can remember from his many, many Edinburgh offerings. Although probably not the one where he turned a building into an immerse-theatre hotel for the whole month. But then, you never know. A one-off experiment.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Thursday 7 August, 8:00pm

For one night only: come see Christopher Brett Bailey (This Is How We Die) perform I Saw Satan At The 7-Eleven. Fear and Loathing meets South Park in a screwball monologue that's part romance, part buddy comedy, part body horror. Two miles north of Hell, a nameless deadbeat narrator spots Satan buying soy milk at the 7-Eleven. Satan's a washed-up has-been, who’s totally lost his edge. That is until he falls in love with our narrator, and the two embark on a debauched misadventure, by turns slapstick, violent, whimsical, dreamlike and tender. "what a f*cking genius" - Smiths Magazine

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Saturday 9 August, 8:00pm

Multi-award-winning ‘magnificent Fringe legends’ (Time Out) are back. And we're totally fine! Actually all things considered, we're OK. Feeling alright. Thriving, even? That’s a bit far, but we have learnt some folk songs. We’ve got into folk recently and it’s been really helpful. Come and sing some songs with us! A swift 60 minutes of classic folk followed by a trip to the bar and then a singaround. Because we need a drink, don’t we? But we’re doing OK.

★★★★★
'Spine-tingling from the first number’
The Telegraph
★★★★★
The Times
★★★★★
The Stage
★★★★★
Time Out

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 10 August, 4:00pm

In the past 5 years the industry has faced rapid changes, and casting remains a process which can still feel like it’s central to making a theatre show, yet shrouded in mystery. At this panel we will aim to discuss how to cast a show well, how to work with casting directors if you are making a show, how to become a casting assistant/associate/director and how to “be noticed” by them if you are a performer, plus a live Q&A.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 10 August, 8:00pm

Summer is a time for fun. A time for romance. A time for possibility. A time when dreams become reality.

Return to ten special days in July 2007, as a group of Jewish teenagers experience a host of new things: being away from their parents for more than 12 hours for the first time, snogging for the first time, and reenacting the Raid of Entebbe…for the first time.

Acclaimed playwright Nick Cassenbaum and director/dramaturg Emma Jude Harris–the creative team behind Fringe First winning, smash hit REVENGE: After the Levoyah –bring you part two in a series that explores British Jewish experience through genre and comedy.

REBELLION: After the B’nei Mitzvahs explores the struggle between building a national identity and getting laid.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 10 August, 9:00pm

Join Chloe Petts (Have I Got News For You, Live at the Apollo, Sky Sports News) as they do something a little different. It's a scratch night for all the ideas they have that aren't quite comedy: a spooky short story about a woman with vagina dentata, a short film about a couple of idiots who man a Clown Museum and the opening of a play about football (because Petts always has to bring up football).

Tuesday 12 August, 6:00pm

Ben Target is a critically-acclaimed performance artist and multi-award-winning comedian (yawn), but in 2020 he gave this up to become the live-in carer for an irascible octogenarian prankster. A life-affirming story about death, conveyed through the popular mediums of storytelling, servitude to the audience and live carpentry, a combination not seen on the world stage since Nazareth (circa 30AD).

Directed by Adam Brace and Lee Griffiths. Scotsman Fringe First Winner 2023, followed by acclaimed runs in London (Soho Theatre), New York, and Vancouver.

★★★★★ 'A knockout piece of theatre… spellbinding’
The List
★★★★★
Fest
★★★★
Guardian
★★★★
Scotsman

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Tuesday 12 August, 8:00pm

Dickie is having a day of it. He’s pretty certain Chanelle is having an affair and he thinks his golf pals don’t really like him. A bad shot on the 11th hole takes him into new realms, a strange encounter, and a challenge. But does Dickie have the cojones to see this through? And will he have the courage to face the consequences of his actions?

Annie Siddons reads from her first new play for adults since Dennis of Penge: “Dickie Dimplethorpe has a Day”. A work in progress reading.

Annie Siddons is a writer, dramaturg and performer from South London. She was last in Edinburgh in 2016 (!) with How (not) to Live in Suburbia.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Wednesday 13 August, 6:00pm

This is a work-in-progress of Shôn’s next show. Stories From An Invisible Town invites you to roam around the town where Shôn spent his entire childhood. Blending memory, fantasy and reality, the stories emerge in a dream like recollection making us wonder where stories come from and how much truth they hold... "You will probably see the best and worst material. That’s not a guarantee but at least you’ll be sitting down out of the rain..."

Shôn has won several awards, made over thirty shows and been on stage at the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Court and the Barbican.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Wednesday 13 August, 8:00pm

The Duke is a solo show from the multi-award-winning writer/performer and “legend of the Edinburgh Festival” (The Stage), exploring kindness, generosity, and the value of what we do.

Funny, poignant, and playful, The Duke weaves together the tragicomic fate of a family heirloom—a porcelain figure of the Duke of Wellington—the quandary of a scriptwriter stretching his integrity, and an unfolding disaster as thousands of children flee their homes. Blending fantasy and reality, this playful show gently challenges our priorities in a world full of crisis.

This performance will be captioned.

★★★★
“You won't find a show with a bigger, better heart.”
What'sOnStage

★★★★
"A fantastic and likeable storyteller"
Edinburgh Festivals Magazine

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Thursday 14 August, 6:00pm

Fringe royalty Sophie Duker (Taskmaster, Deep Cover, your dad's DMs) is doing only ONE SINGLE SHOW at this year's festival. And guess what - it's this one. For one night only, Sophie Duker presents... Sophie Duker. Sixty minutes. Strap in.

Friday 15 August, 6:00pm

The Olivier-nominated, Fringe First-winning show returns to Edinburgh.

Inspired by hospices, mystics and trips to the cemetery, Age is a Feeling wrestles with our endless chances to change course while we’re alive. A covert rallying cry against cynicism and regret. A call to seize our time.

Charting the seminal moments, rites of passage and turning points in an adult life – your life – from the day you turn 25 through to your death, this never-the-same-twice show celebrates the glorious and melancholy unknowability of living.

★★★★★
‘As breathtaking as it is moving’
The Guardian

★★★★★
The Telegraph

★★★★★
Financial Times

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here

Friday 15 August, 8:00pm

Spend an evening (well, part of an evening) with Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. These two are best known for their musicals ‘SIX’ and ‘Why Am I So Single?’ and will be sharing some insights into their journey from fringe to… well, back to fringe.

Saturday 16 August, 6:00pm

“I’m 36, I’m a comedian, and I’m about to kill my boyfriend…”

A permanently single, professionally neurotic stand-up finally meets Mr Right and then does everything wrong. But is Mr Right quite what he seems? And how far will the comedian go to get a laugh?

Feeling Afraid… is a dark comedy drama starring two-time Tony Award nominee Samuel Barnett.

This performance will be captioned.

★★★★★
‘The gag-count is ridiculously high … Catch it, then, before everyone else does.’
The Telegraph

★★★★
'Fast, filthy and surprisingly revealing.'
The Evening Standard

★★★★★
‘Faultless execution is matched only by this audience’s thunderous, cathartic, cry-laughing response.’
Fest

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Saturday 16 August, 8:00pm

Love, lust and late nights collide in a musical rollercoaster, taking the audience through the euphoria and distress of two people dealing with their own and each other’s mental health.

Ria is working with her band to complete a new album, charting the rise and fall of a recent relationship. But the more Ria progresses, the more she’s drawn back into her troubled past, until we aren't sure where memory ends and reality begins.

Olivier award winning Maimuna Memon brings her critically acclaimed show back to Edinburgh, stripped back and for one night only.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 17 August, 8:00pm

Luke is a young Scottish queer man living in London whose messy, chaotic life is about to implode. We meet him through a series of obscene, revealing, funny, profound, lost, chaotic questions. Questions of himself, co-workers, bar staff, therapists, cab drivers, dealers, dates, and a tourist he meets while waiting for his date in a Minecraft version of the National Theatre.

This is a staged reading of a brand new play by James Ley (Wilf, Ode to Joy), directed by Tessa Walker.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 17 August, 8:00pm

“People are entitled to their sexual proclivities, I mean, let there be a thousand blossoms bloom as far as I’m concerned. But I ain't spending any time on it because, in the meantime, every three months a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland”
(Bob Katter, Australian MP)

Cocaine. Crocodiles. Colin Farrell.

This script in hand reading of Mercurial is a twisted dark comedy that pays homage to our most memorable one night stands. It asks the question:
How far will we go for love?

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Monday 18 August, 6:00pm

For the first time ever, award winning, sell out shows: Learning to Fly (★★★★★ The Guardian), Piece of Work (★★★★★ The Morning Star), and James Rowland Dies at the End of the Show (★★★★★ Three Weeks) will be performed together, as a trilogy. A gentle, warm, hurtle through the breadth of a human life juxtaposed with some of humanities greatest Art (James wants to be clear that's like Shakespeare, Beethoven or Beyonce, not him). Expect laughter, tears and a one of a kind event that can only happen at the Fringe.

This performance will comprise of three shows, with a short interval between each.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Tuesday 19 August, 6:00pm

This is a rare chance to see the first play in a unique body of work that has changed the theatre landscape.

My Arm tells the story of a boy who puts one arm about his head and never takes it down. It combines live performance with sequences of film commissioned from British artist, Chris Dorley-Brown. The play is performed with the help of everyday objects supplied by the audience. It’s a study of bloody-mindedness, modern art and family. It’s mesmerising, teasing and profound.

‘Colossally powerful...’
The Scotsman

Wednesay 20 August, 4:00pm

Thinking about taking your show on the road? In this panel, Q&A event, producer Harriet Bolwell and guests break down the essentials of touring theatre across the country — from building relationships with venues to booking, budgeting, and everything in between.

Wednesday 20 August, 6:00pm

Don't miss this Work In Progress of a brand new show from Ivo Graham, delving back into the world of theatre following a critically-acclaimed sell-out run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024 of Carousel.

Ivo has spent his entire adult life on the stand-up circuit, winning So You Think You’re Funny? aged 18 in 2009. His sell-out solo show The Game of Life received nominations for Best Show and Best Joke at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe. He’s appeared on TV comedies including Have I Got News for You, QI, The Last Leg, Mock the Week, and Live at the Apollo, quizzed with varying degrees of success on Pointless, House of Games and University Challenge, and toured the country with Fern Brady and Darren Harriott for Dave’s six-part travelogue British as Folk in 2021. He’s earned his parents’ respect with appearances on Radio 4’s The Now Show, The News Quiz, Just a Minute, and the drama Unite, and shoehorned Swindon Town references into many an episode of 5 Live’s Fighting Talk and BT Sport’s The Football’s On.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Friday 22 August, 8:00

From the amazing mind of Deborah Frances-White (The Guilty Feminist) comes this extraordinary improvised comedy show. We’re going to take the Festival’s best comics, most beloved performers, and finest actors and the Voice of God will mess with their head to get them improvising like you’ve never seen them before – uncensored, hilarious and barely in control.

This event is currently available for Priority Booking for Supporters, Friends and Artist Card holders. To find out more about becoming a supporter, click here.

Sunday 24 August, 6:00pm

Come away in and join Gary as he sorts through some old stories and new ideas. There may be laughs, there will be sweets*

Gary is a writer performer from Glasgow and one of the cofounders of the Shedinburgh festival. He has been a stalwart of the Fringe in recent years with shows like VL and Locker Room Talk and has won the coveted Scotsman Fringe First award four times. He is currently performing a 10 year anniversary run of his show A Gamblers Guide to Dying at the Traverse.

*please bring sweets.