Review: DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE, Edinburgh International Book FestivalAugust 23, 2025Podcaster, comedian, and bestselling author of The Guilty Feminist, Deborah Frances-White wants to know when we stopped talking and, more importantly, listening to each other. In Six Conversations We're Scared to Have, she considers the art of conversation and suggests it's time we agree to disagree. Join Frances-White for this funny, illuminating event that takes a deep-dive into topics such as freedom of speech, and explores ways to discuss the trickiest matters.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: HOW TO WIN AGAINST HISTORY, UnderbellyAugust 23, 2025Henry Cyril Paget was one of the world's wealthiest men, until he lost it all by being too damn fabulous. This fierce and tragi-gorgeous comedy musical is a true story about expectations, masculinity, privilege and failure on an epic scale. It's about feeling desperately weird and alone but knowing that to fit in would cost you everything.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: OHIO, AssemblyAugust 23, 2025When Shaun turned his back on the church, he found a new home in music. Confronted now with acute degenerative hearing loss, he’s making the choice to live joyfully in the face of life's many unanswerable questions. An exhilarating and celebratory true story about losing faith and finding hope in the darkest of places. The Olivier Award-winning producers of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer bring you this intimate and rousing new musical experience featuring creative captions. From Obie-winning indie-folk duo The Bengsons.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: LOVETT, Pleasance CourtyardAugust 22, 2025Newly-widowed Mrs Lovett needs to find a way to survive. Using skills learned from a whaler father, a courtesan mother and a butcher husband, Eleanor 'recalibrates' her life - and her relationship with God. An origin story set before her infamous partnership with Sweeney Todd, we discover what would later lead her to turn pie-maker. You may think you already know Mrs. Lovett, but this new play explores what made her: the brutal choices and disappointments of a life in poverty. When the difference is life or death, morality becomes a moveable feast - and Eleanor is getting hungry...
Review: ROLLERS FOREVER, Glasgow PavilionAugust 21, 2025When two old friends meet at a haunt from their youth they relive their exciting teenage years in the poptastic seventies. Clothes, boys and music all play a big part in their coming of age at a time of phone boxes, mail order catalogues and crispy pancakes. Every adventure is soundtracked by a hit from the greatest boy band of them all – The Bay City Rollers. And meeting their pop idols becomes the most important thing in their lives.
Review: CHICAGO, King's TheatreAugust 19, 2025Set amidst the razzle-dazzle decadence of the 1920s, CHICAGO is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to walk out on her.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: JESSICA FOSTEKEW: ICONIC BREATH, Monkey BarrelAugust 19, 2025A monster's guide to tolerance and temperance. The silliest of shows for the scariest of days from Edinburgh Best Show Award Nominee. You've seen Jess on BBC's QI, Live at the Apollo and Celebrity University Challenge. From Travelman on C4, World's Most Dangerous Roads on Dave and more. You know her from her two BBC R4 series of Sturdy Girl Club plus podcasts The Guilty Feminist, Hoovering and Contender Ready
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: A SMALL TOWN NORTHERN TALE, UnderbellyAugust 17, 2025A Y2K-drenched coming-of-age comedy-drama: ASTNT follows David’s move from the city to a small Northern town where being the only Black kid means fitting in isn’t an option. Against the chaos of the 2000s: lads mags, MSN and questionable fashion, he tries to find his place but fails spectacularly. For fans of The Inbetweeners, it’s nostalgic, sharp and hilarious... But beneath the laughs lies a Black British story about identity, belonging and carving your place into a world that can’t quite place you.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: ROSCO MCCLELLAND: HOW COULD HELL BE ANY WORSE, Monkey BarrelAugust 16, 2025The winner of the 2025 Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award, Rosco McClelland brings his brand new show for 2025. Twice nominated for Best Newcomer at the Scottish Comedy Awards, McClelland is rapidly becoming one of comedy's brightest stars. His previous show was hailed as one of the best-reviewed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, earning recognition as one of Rolling Stone's 12 must-see comedy shows.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: JACKIE!!! Gilded BalloonAugust 17, 2025Sex, drugs and coercive control... Jackie! is a new musical comedy that follows the young Jacqueline Bouvier as she dreams of becoming the first American Royal. After marrying into the illustrious Kennedy dynasty, Jackie discovers that power and notoriety come with the price of secrecy and silence. With Joe Kennedy pulling the strings, Jackie's sister Lee pulling away and JFK pulling anything that moves, Jackie is left alone to contemplate if life atop the American throne is really worth the familial curse that seemingly hangs over it.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: THE FIT PRINCE, Pleasance CourtyardAugust 17, 2025The King is dead and the Prince is unmarried – if he doesn't find someone soon, he must forfeit the crown! In NYC, baker Aaron Butcher is butchering his career as a family baker. Maybe a commission in the non-location-specific country of Swedonia will fix his problems...
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: SARAH BRADLEY: JUST LIKE OTHER GIRLS, Gilded BalloonAugust 17, 2025After spending her formative years trying to be 'not like other girls', Sarah Bradley is celebrating all things feminine – from rosé to romance novels, horoscopes to hot celebrities, inconvenient crushes to crying at inconvenient times. Whatever your gender, you are warmly invited to leave shame, judgement and societal expectations at the door, and come embrace the girly girl within.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: INSIDERS, St John's ChurchAugust 17, 2025With prisons rarely out of the news, Insiders gives insight into the challenges of life in jail. Danny struggles with anger and isolation. Craig thanks his newfound faith for his recovery. Middle-class Richard is a fish out of water. When tragic news upsets the rhythm of their lives, each must confront the core of what they believe about themselves, the world and what lies beyond.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: KARINE POLWART: WINDBLOWN, Queen's HallAugust 12, 2025Too old and unsteady to move, too vulnerable to survive on its own, the lofty Sabal palm of Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden reflects on two hundred years of containment, dislocation and human care, as it outgrows its 19th century glasshouse home and approaches its chainsaw demise, making way for a new conservation research facility.
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: POP OFF, MICHELANGELO, UnderbellyAugust 11, 2025After a smash hit 2024 season and fresh off a 9-week London run, best-pals-turned-bitter-rivals Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci return to Edinburgh! A bloodthirsty friar is on the hunt for homosexuals in Renaissance Italy just when childhood friends Mike and Leo realise they both like boys. Terrified, they devise a foolproof plan to gain God's forgiveness: become the greatest religious artists of all time. Can Michelangelo gaslight, gatekeep and girlboss his way to the Vatican? Will Leonardo ever shut up about his helicopter?
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: HOT MESS, Pleasance CourtyardAugust 23, 2025Hot Mess: a new musical. After a billion years of bad dates, Earth's finally found the one... Humanity. Sparks fly. Wheat is harvested. Technology flourishes. But what begins as a passionate love affair between the universe's most iconic couple quickly descends into a Hot Mess. From the creative duo behind 42 Balloons comes a new pop musical about love, hope and the ultimate break up – with Danielle Steers (SIX The Musical) and Tobias Turley (MAMMA MIA!)
EDINBURGH 2025: Review: THE UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP OF FEATHER BOY AND TENTACLE GIRL, AssemblyAugust 10, 2025Two friends perform breathtaking aerial shows. They fly, spin, hang from the rooftops and fall out of the sky... But they weren't always so glorious. How did they transform from feeling like outsiders to the fantastical creatures they always knew they had inside them? A touching story of a girl who wants to be a monster and a boy who wants to fly.
EDINBURGH 2025: FACILITY 111: A GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT Q&AAugust 9, 2025Facility 111 is a surreal new audio play, written/performed live by Inge-Vera Lipsius. Taking place in darkness, it asks audiences to visualise poetic images in two interconnected cities: one made of glass, another of sand. Are we ultimately less different from one another than we think? Developed with Soho Theatre Labs. Lipsius is an American/Dutch director, writer, performer.
EDINBURGH 2025: Rebecca Perry Guest BlogAugust 8, 2025Recent anthropology graduate and feisty redhead Joanie Little is stuck working as a barista, studying the 'creatures' (customers) as if she were Jane Goodall, bushwhacking through the jungle to study chimpanzees! In her 'coffeeshop jungle,' hilarity ensues, with jazzy tunes, co-worker showdowns and maybe even romance!