Edinburgh Festival

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 – with Danielle Steers (SIX The Musical) and Tobias Turley (MAMMA MIA!)

Two 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.

Facility 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.

For the past 17 years, Grace Helbig has been building her online presence as a content creator. Starting out by posting daily, short, vlog-style videos, she became one of the original YouTube stars. She has now amassed over 2.6 million subscribers on her channel.

Douglas Widick’s Paperclip is a witty, genre-bending thrill ride, which imagines a world where the fate of humanity rests in the hands or rather, the wires of Microsoft Word’s long-forgotten writing assistant Clippy.

Prepare to be indoctrinated into your new favourite cult! This show is exactly as it says on the tin: a pseudo-religious service with all the elements required to make up (or make fun of) a church. Organ music and an abundance of pink fabric sets the scene, and despite it being a wildly unfamiliar environment, the actors do a wonderful job of embracing their new congregation. It is as ridiculous and depraved as you might expect, but hilariously crafted in its crassness.

The Durham Revue's latest may not be their finest hour, but it sure is a fun one.

Like Fleabag meets Normal People, this play from writer/star Ned Blackburn is one of the greatest Fringe shows you will ever see.

I would be unsurprised to learn that Dunhuang was directed by a composer. Thirteen songs is an impressive number to fit into a one-act show, especially one with such a rich historical context to explore, which may have been why the dialogue seemed to just be filling time before the next song.

The King of Whimsy is back at the Edinburgh Fringe…it’s Alasdair Beckett-King with his hour of the silly and the fantastical with King of Crumbs. 

Puppets and sparkles, sing-a-longs and a wee dance, Monski Mouse Baby Cabaret is fun for the whole family - the ultimate baby friendly event at the Edinburgh Fringe. In the gorgeous Palais du Variété at Assembly George Square Gardens both you and your little one will be dazzled by the Spiegeltent and the wide open space inside to sit and cuddle or dance and sing with glee. 

Recent 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!

This sexy, camp, pop-filled tragicomedy unpacks aspirations of becoming a singer while growing up where it is forbidden for women to sing. Already a bottle of red in, Sara reminisces about her experiences from childhood to womanhood. Tehran, the school bus parties, the wannabe prayer-caller and the secret w**ks at the all-girls' school. Did I get used to repression or is music my way of fighting? How does a woman who has experienced firsthand repression of her body and voice react as her child struggles with their own gender identity?

haos. Rebellion. A city on the brink. But Millie's focused on living life to the full – who wouldn't? Amid the 2019 Hong Kong protests, Millie searches for her sense of home whilst a city fights for its identity

Orange is the New Black’s Julie Lake and songwriter Annie Macleod join forces in Forget-Me-Not, a true story of motherhood, lost love and hauntings set to original music and heart-exploding harmonies. Two estranged childhood best friends reconnect in midlife – both mothers, stifled by traditional roles and longing for more creative freedom, adventure, sexual liberation and a deeper sense of self. Through storytelling and song, they rediscover the power of their bond, finding the healing and freedom they’ve been searching for all along. A moving, magical celebration of motherhood, creativity, resilience and the transformative power of female friendship.

Two years since they last met, six friends receive an invitation to compete in “Escape Room: The Musical”. But the puzzles in this escape room are designed to reveal secrets about the players, and soon tensions are high! What follows is a fun hour of comedy drama.

Following her sell out show last year, Susie McCabe is back at the Fringe again with her latest show Best Behaviour. 

Returning to the Edinburgh Fringe following it’s debut in 2024, Shantify is a jukebox musical following the lives of 6 men from a fishing town, who are part of a band that take pop songs and ‘shantify’ them

A Jaffa Cake Musical returns to the Edinburgh Fringe this year following a sell out run in 2024. This musical comedy centres around the 1991 court case which decided whether Jaffa Cakes should be classified as a cake or a biscuit.

Diona Doherty: Get Your Pink Back is a confident, hilarious and heartfelt Fringe debut. The show’s name is inspired by flamingo parents losing their vibrant pink colour when they have babies, but starts to come back as the babies become more independent. Diona lost her pink, but she is on a mission to get it back and she shares her journey with us in this standout set.

This debut hour from Bebe Cave has enough energy to power Murrayfield and enough whimsy to dazzle even the staunchest of stoics. Fearless and paired with the whipsmart antics of a seasoned comic, baptism by spitfire CHRISTBRIDE is simply, pardon the pun, a religious experience. 

Greeted on the door by the very enthusiastic Steph and welcomed into a cosy, intimate venue. 8 Ways To Break A Glass (With An American Opera Singer) could easily be a gathering of old friends – if one of them were prone to bursting into song.

'Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.' This is the quote that Marc Jennings spotted on Instagram that inspired the title of his stand-up show at this year's Fringe. And the name couldn't be more appropriate for this show.

Sketch Thieves provides a solid afternoon of laughs.

Rhys Darby's brings his stand-up routine back to the Edinburgh Fringe and proves, yet again, why he is a true legend of the festival.