Summerhall Arts Reveals First Shows of 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Programme

Home of boundary-pushing performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, arts charity and year-round cultural hub, Summerhall Arts has announced the first seven shows of its 2026 festival programme on sale Wednesday 11th February. Following a hugely acclaimed and multi-award-winning inaugural festival programme last year, the first batch of shows in Summerhall Arts 2026 programme spans theatre, dance, circus, music and storytelling from artists and companies hailing from Scotland, Afghanistan, Denmark, England, Italy, and the United States.

Part ceilidh, part storytelling, and an all-round good night out; acclaimed Glasgow-based theatre company Wonder Fools (Òran; Alright Sunshine; The Kelton Hill Fair) premieres Tether 인연 - a bold new collaboration with South Korea’s Theatre SAN. Spanning sixty years and three generations, Tether 인연 weaves together folk songs, love letters and war stories - tracing the invisible threads that bind two nations together in a shared experience of music and memory.

Award-winning company YESYESNONO (We Were Promised Honey!; Nation) returns to Summerhall with a brand new prophetic storytelling show. Written and performed by Sam Ward, the show is a hallucinogenic journey through a world of anomalies - about holes appearing in the ground and about prices that go up and up. Sam urges audiences to continue trying to understand what’s going wrong in a world that refuses to be understood.

Award-winning Danish queer art company HIMHERANDIT (Mass Effect; Champions) returns to Summerhall with a brand new performance celebrating imperfection, queer joy, and the courage to find your tribe. GOOD ENOUGH? is a queer, quirky and boisterous physical theatre performance about reclaiming your story and having the courage to be loud, awkward and unapologetically yourself.

Fringe legend Keith Alessi returns to Edinburgh with his much-loved comedy-musical-storytelling show, Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos Saved My Life, for a fourth festival in a row after back-to-back-to-back sell-out runs. Told with warmth, humour and banjo music, this highly awarded, internationally toured, and inspirational true story is about overcoming obstacles, pursuing passions and the healing power of the arts.

Through donations, including 100% of all artist fees, Keith has raised over $1.2m dollars as of December 2025 for various charities including cancer charities and arts organisations, and all proceeds from the 2026 run will contribute to Summerhall Arts.

Acclaimed Devon-based company Kook Ensemble brings SAND - a new non-verbal circus theatre show exploring the lives of people living with Dementia. Set against Devon’s dramatic coast line, SAND combines exceptional acrobatics with meticulously crafted storytelling to create a profoundly moving and resonant theatrical experience.

Fringe debutant Beatrice Festi and TeatroE ETS bring a bold new immersive solo performance with PUTTANA. A work that questions the things society has normalised and the boundaries between body and commodity, PUTTANA sees a single actress give voice to five characters, through a uniquely delivered combination of music and words, to tell an uncomfortable and cruel story.

Afghan theatremaker Mariann Yar brings her solo show, LANDSFRAU, a story of a life shaped by war and distance. Moving between 9/11 and 2021, Mariann dismantles images of Afghanistan and builds her own counter-archive through songs, dance and memories - exposing a feminist perspective on Afghanistan and its diaspora. LANDSFRAU is about attempting to let go of inherited guilt without taking on more, offering an intimate of diasporic life, marked by both deep fractures and undeniable privilege.

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