EDINBURGH 2025: Pick of the Programme- Musicals
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe runs from 1- 25 August 2025
By: Natalie O'Donoghue Jun. 16, 2025
Click Here for More on Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 Picks
With over 3000 shows now on sale for the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, trying to narrow down what to see can be a bit of a task. BWW Scotland editor Natalie O'Donoghue has selected her top ten picks across different categories in the festival programme to highlight the shows you really don't want to miss this year!
Milk On The Side: A Barista Musical
Baristas Amy and Callum are back from a sell-out show at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival but they’re still stuck navigating the coffee-ground trenches. Serving up coffee, songs and laughs to their customers (audience), they ask: is this really low-skilled labour? And what does Harry Styles and a smashed avocado have to do with it? 'Funny, light-hearted and relatable... a bespoke and inventive performance' (Glasgow University Magazine), this interactive comedy musical will give you food for thought to discuss over coffee afterwards.
After 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? Featuring an original electropop score as infectious as the bubonic plague.
Hot 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.
A new British musical based on the iconic TV series following the fall and rise of captain's wife Tanya Turner as she schemes to save her marriage and her husband's career. Rewind to 2002 when Premier League football was the new rock'n'roll – with the money, glamour and bad behaviour to match. Spoiler alert: Contains scenes of an adult nature, drug-taking, noughties fashion, attempted murder, offensive language, outmoded attitudes, sexual impropriety, drama, heartbreak, comedy, singing, dancing – and absolutely no football!
The uproarious multi award-winning one-man musical comedy about sperm donation returns to Edinburgh. Darby James clicks on an IVF Clinic Facebook advert and must navigate a sea of existential mayhem, while considering the absurdities of procreation and pondering pathways to queer parenthood. In the midst of this hilarious and heartfelt adventure through genetic questionnaires, medical screening and psychological evaluations, Darby finds himself as a seaman stranded in moral purgatory, faced with the unanswerable question: should we be having children?
Henry 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. Bristol Old Vic and The Olivier Award-winning Producers of Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder! present the solid gold, diamante-studded hit of the Edinburgh Fringe in a new production: bigger and more sparkly than ever.
Sex, 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.
Blessed with beauty, wealth and charisma, the Flawless Four – Courtney, Julie, Marcie, and Liz – are the most popular girls in Reagan High school. Courtney, Julie, and Marcie decide to prank Liz for her birthday, but it goes horribly wrong – and ends with Liz choking to death on a jawbreaker. Based on the cult classic 1999 film, Jawbreaker: The Musical brings murder, lies, and delicious drama to the stage with a book from its original writer, Darren Stein, music by Jeff Thomson, and lyrics by Jordan Mann.
Through powerful original music and spoken word, a folk-rock band retells Mary Queen of Scots' story. The bold gig theatre show searingly questions what Mary faced at the hands of men, offering a mesmerising and riotous response. The hit show is back for 2025, following acclaimed sold-out runs at the 2024 Fringe and the Traverse Theatre in December
Nerds
This new musical comedy dives into the deeper connection (and no, not just the Bluetooth kind) between two of the most iconic inventors of the digital age. Witness the geniuses behind the tech revolution like never before, as Bill Gates, the mastermind behind Microsoft, meets Steve Jobs, the innovator of the smartphone. The show chronicles their journeys from humble garage beginnings to shaping the world as we know it. Watch as these two trailblazers clash, create and rise to greatness.
Get Broadway News on WhatsApp
Receive the latest updates, breaking news, and exclusive coverage from Broadway directly in WhatsApp.
Videos