Tuesday, August 25

Author: Ella Beckley

Dust – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Dust – Pleasance Courtyard

Dust travels through time and space, waltzing, dodging and diving through the life of a working-class man. It is the energetic, nostalgic retelling of life that many wish they could’ve had from their own grandparents. Bunker one at Pleasance Courtyard, a cavernous stage set only with a wooden trunk, a walking stick and a miner’s helmet set atop. Seats littered with flyers describing Dust as ‘A true story of northern grit, humour, heart & soul!’, covered in appraisals and five-star ratings.                                            Once the house lights dim and actor Craig...
Trainspotting Live – Pleasance @ EICC
Scotland

Trainspotting Live – Pleasance @ EICC

Trainspotting Live has a reputation to behold, with nine years of sell-out Fringe runs and Irvine Welsh himself saying it’s ‘better than either the book or film’. The show is deserving of every star it has ever received and more. The atmosphere at the EICC is buzzing with expectations, stewards replace tickets with glow sticks and usher audience members towards a darkened space with heavy dance music and flashing lights. From the moment the cast welcome their audience onto their raving set, Trainspotting Live draws you in like a moth to a flame, only to set you ablaze and turn it all to ash. The cast bring their world alive, pulling the audience into every moment of joy, love, loss and fear.     It all begins with contagiously high energy, the characters are literally...
Rosco McClelland: The Bones – Monkey Barrel Comedy
Scotland

Rosco McClelland: The Bones – Monkey Barrel Comedy

In the midst of Old Town, Cabaret Voltaire’s arched basement under Blair Street is full of a crowd eagerly watching Rosco McClelland, spotlit on stage. You could hear a pin drop with the patient wait for the punch line.                                                                McClelland is a storyteller, every joke recounts a guilty pleasure, an embarrassing story or even identifying the man who apparently wants him dead. Convoluted stories of his marriage complete with heartwarming moments and arguments both had the audience listening attentively, all for the reward of one-line laughs. McClelland’s charisma and charm keep the audience hooked on his line, reeling them in with an assortment of confessions and an open ‘this is me, bones and all’ kind of attitude with the audienc...
The Palestinian Circus: Step and a Half – Underbelly Circus Hub
Scotland

The Palestinian Circus: Step and a Half – Underbelly Circus Hub

Palestinian Circus artists are taking Edinburgh Fringe by storm with their awe-inspiring, heart wrenching show ‘Step and a Half’.                                                                                          'Joy is an act of resistance’. These words are voiced over the Lafayette in a moment of stillness and echo throughout the show, this sentiment is at the heart of the Palestinian Circus. As a non-profit organisation, they spread connection and hope across Palestine through performance art and community outreach programmes. The group have persevered through unthinkable challenges to reach the stage they are on today, and their resilience seeps into every moment of contagiously unfiltered joy.                           Before the show begins the crew skip, dance and sprin...
Vibhinna Ramdev: Why English? – Assembly George Square
Scotland

Vibhinna Ramdev: Why English? – Assembly George Square

Vibhinna Ramdev is an entrancing actor, pulling audiences into her life as she toils with questions of identity, belonging and connection to community. Having toured versions of the show at Adelaide and Stockholm Fringe, she graces the stage of Edinburgh Fringe this year. Ramdev explores her constantly evolving relationship with language. Her upper-middle class upbringing in India gave her the privilege of fluent English, but at what cost? She unpacks her persistent feeling of not belonging in her own country, and disconnection from the cultures she was born into.                                       &...
Vidrado – Central at Assembly Roxy
Scotland

Vidrado – Central at Assembly Roxy

Vidrado takes its audience on a wholesome journey across imaginative lands filled with wonder and joyous celebration, a perfect show for the family to enjoy. It’s silly and outrageous all at once, honouring the circus tradition to find fun in the simplest of things.                                                                                                                                                    Renowned for his acrobatic balancing acts, Sao Paolo artist Guilherme Torres brings Vidrado to Edinburgh Fringe 2026 for its UK Premiere. Torres plays a travelling man determined to climb a mountain, assisted by a quaint embroidered map and an imaginative array of balancing props including glass bottles and of course, unicycles. Torres plays the fool, he is clumsy and maybe...
Kanpur: 1857 – Above at Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Kanpur: 1857 – Above at Pleasance Courtyard

The Fringe First-winning production follows true events of Indian uprisings against British colonisers, told from the perspective of both the coloniser and the rebel. The siege of Kanpur, formally anglicised as Cawnpore, was a major event of the Indian rebellion of 1857 in which several hundred British were slaughtered by rebels on the banks of the River Ganges. British women and children were held captive in a house named Bibi Ghar where all 200 of them were brutally murdered. In retaliation, British troops captured and executed rebel soldiers by hanging, and on occasion would tie them to a live canon, with an audience of onlookers.                           &n...
Alice Fraser: Oh Man! – Monkey Barrel Comedy
Scotland

Alice Fraser: Oh Man! – Monkey Barrel Comedy

When she’s off the comedy stage, Alice Fraser is a politics and news podcaster, which she jokes puts her in a small demographic of women that can speak to men without interruption. Her show pulls from topical issues like AI, the manosphere, capitalism, technology, gender and sexuality. Fraser pulls these themes together succinctly, conveying her worldview with persuasive intellect, but it all feels a little too ambitious to contain within a one-hour Fringe comedy set. Fraser’s stand-up show centres around training a little AI vacuum cleaner how to be a man, with PowerPoint slides and crowd work used cleverly along the way. Fraser discusses how masculinity presents itself, moving through themes of today while exposing men in her life like gym-bro Jaden.      ...
Sara Pascoe: For One Night Only – Underbelly Bristo Square
Scotland

Sara Pascoe: For One Night Only – Underbelly Bristo Square

Award winning Actor, Comedian and Writer Sara Pascoe graced the stage of Edinburgh University’s McEwan Hall with her sell-out show for, that’s right, one night only. It’s the first night of Fringe 2026 and there’s a hum of excitement bouncing around Bristo Square, where an anticipating queue snakes around the iconic McEwan Hall, ready to have a laugh. Pints in hand, jackets clutched closely as the sharp Edinburgh breeze whizzes through them.                                                             &nbs...