Tag: Edinburgh 2025
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Review: IV – Here & Now Showcase
Fourth piece in dance series struggles to land
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Review: Delusional – I Killed a Man
Diana Salles breathes new life into the trans rebirth metaphor
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Madeleine Brettingham Wins So You Think You’re Funny? 2025
Writer-turned-performer wins 38th edition of the prestigious newcomer competition
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Review: Athens of the North
Interlinked tales of Scots’ inner lives recall Greek tragedies
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Review: JEEZUS!
Fun and filthy musical theatre from Latin America
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Review: Gianmarco Soresi: The Drama King Tour
Joke-a-minute stand-up expertly skirts the line
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Review: Is There Work on Mars?
Imperfect but delightfully absurd sci-fi storytelling
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Review: I Feel Sick
Matt Jenner’s one-man sketch show falls short
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Review: Tell Me Where Home Is (I’m Starting to Forget)
Slick, self exposing one person show
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Review: The Ego
A well-pitched exploration of the cut-throat world of screen entertainment
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Review: Sam Jay: We the People
Drily delivered subversive takes from the US comedian
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Review: The Insider
Sonically and visually stunning theatre
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Review: Urooj Ashfaq: How to Be a Baddie
A riotously funny and upbeat insight into deviancy, fuelled by pettiness
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Review: Tiff Stevenson: Post-Coital
Funny and moving show yearns for a stronger build-up to its climax
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Review: Jonah Non Grata
Simon Kane revives his 20-year-old clown show for its Fringe debut
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Review: Simple Town
Acclaimed New York sketch troupe bring their smart, absurdist act to the Fringe
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Review: Kathy Maniura: The Cycling Man
Ingenious send-up of bike obsessives is a cracking ride
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Review: Jena Friedman: Motherf*cker
Tale of motherhood and grief bristles with righteous anger
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Review: Managed Approach
Moving and original drama based on the UK’s first legalised red-light district
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Review: Giselle: Remix
Fresh update of classic ballet explores importance of queer visibility
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Review: Little Squirt
Darby James’ sperm donation musical has it all
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Interview: Basil Jones and Caden Scott on Faustus
Two plays, one at the Fringe and one at the EIF, take on Marlowe’s tragic Faustus, but in contrasting and confronting ways
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Review: Chloe Petts: Big Naturals
Big laughs come naturally in loving look back at lad culture’s problematic zenith
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Review: Killian Sundermann: This Boy is Cracking Up
Much-loved internet comic dives deeper into his Irish-German upbringing in Fringe debut
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Review: Alright Sunshine
Isla Cowan tackles big topics with a light touch and realistic characters for a hauntingly powerful piece of writing
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Review: Susie McCabe: Best Behaviour
Self-deprecating hour is light on ambition but full of charisma and warmth
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Review: The Burns Project
Warts-and-all telling of Robert Burns’ life makes great use of its unique setting
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Review: Adele Cliff: Adele, Adele, Adele… Cliff It Isn’t the Consequences of My Own Actions
Deftly delivered trove of reliable, if unspectacular, anecdotes from self-professed comedy nerd
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Review: Strangewife
Frazier Bailey’s play intrigues with its unpacking of artifice and modern love
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Review: In the Land of Eagles
Alex Reynolds parses her Albanian ancestry in debut play
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Review: Refuse
Lucy McIlgorm’s tale of a Ukrainian refuse worker is a mixed bag
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Review: Wild Thing!
Wonderfully daft antics give way to bitter eulogy of extinct species
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Review: Zoë Coombs Marr: The Splash Zone
Charming autobiographical tale deliberately avoids the fast track
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Review: Lily Blumkin: Nice Try
Journey through performer’s past starts strong but fizzles out
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Review: Cecilia Gentili’s Red Ink
New take on Red Ink honours its author’s revolutionary legacy
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Review: Ohio
Haunting harmonies give way to moving exploration of hearing loss
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Review: Paul Sinha: 2 Sinha Lifetime
Savvy and self-aware stand-up from acclaimed brainbox
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Review: Kieran Hodgson: Voice of America
Talented impersonator swipes light-heartedly at US news
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Review: Dream Space
Escapist four-part fantasy for all ages
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Review: Jo Caulfield: Bad Mood Rising
Acid-tongued hour feels a bit like punching down
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Review: Down to Chance
Makeshift tale of earthquake rescue is surprisingly feel-good
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Review: MARIUPOL
Katia Haddad’s play emphasises the human impact of war
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Review: Seaton Smith: Trauma Bonding
Expert room-reading gets huge laughs from tough topics
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Review: Pedro Leandro: Soft Animal
Natural starpower carries gentle hour of comedy
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Review: K Mak at the Planetarium
Dreamlike soundscapes meet underwhelming visuals
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Review: LOLA: A Flamenco Love Story
Impassioned tale of resilience spans Franco’s Spain and 60s London
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Review: When Billy Met Alasdair
Speculative tribute to two Glasgow icons
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Review: Club NVRLND
A queer-pop fuelled restaging of Peter Pan, full of nostalgic club bangers
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Review: Heidi Regan: Jekyll and Heidi
Beautifully crafted, naturally delivered hour of low-key stand-up
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Review: Lucy Pearman: Lunartic
Surprisingly polite hijinks from the frequently brilliant absurdist comic
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Review: Up! by Visible Fictions
All-ages show does a lot with a little
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Review: Another Sight
An immersive piece of theatre in the dark
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Review: Scaramouche Jones
Fringe veteran Thom Tuck revives clown in Justin Butcher’s 20-year-old play
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Review: Anthem for Dissatisfaction
An electrifying reminder of the power of music in trying times
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Review: Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: DEAD!!! (Good Fun Time)
‘Yorkshire’s biggest bastard’ returns from the dead for more dishonest fun
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Review: Sinead Walsh: Bye Bye Baby
Warmly delivered tales of navigating growing pains
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Burt Williamson: 104kg of Pure Banter
Cantankerous third hour from off-beat contrarian comic
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Review: SKYE: A Thriller
Sophisticated suspense story from debut playwright Ellie Keel
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Review: James Trickey: Don’t Count On Me
Impressive debut from chartered accountant turned stand up
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Review: She’s Behind You
Scottish panto royalty Johnny McKnight dissects and celebrates the artform
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Review: David’s One-Man Band (F*ck You, Steven)
Musical character comedy that is an ode to mid-noughties emo
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Interview: Hamish Hawk on Ivor Cutler
As he prepares to take on the work of Scotland’s pre-eminent poet-eccentric Ivor Cutler, Edinburgh singer-songwriter Hamish Hawk discusses influences, tributes and new avenues
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Review: Ali Brice Presents Eric Meat Gets the Chop
Ali Brice dusts off the suit and tie and returns to his absurdist alter-ego
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Review: Liam Withnail: Big Strong Boy
Tale of leaving home makes for delicately balanced stand-up with huge laughs
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Review: Alana Jackson: Last Orders
Confident hour of observational stand-up
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Review: Mind How You Go
Warm, whimsical but frustratingly scattered musical hour
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Liam Withnail’s Dagenham to Edinburgh Mixtape
Featuring Blood Orange, Billy Bragg, The Proclaimers and more
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Review: Liz Guterbock: Nice
Self-reflective tale of being American in the UK
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Review: Stuart Laws Is Stuck
A brain scrambling kinda-whodunnit from the Fringe veteran
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Review: Ozzy Algar: Speed Queen
An ode to Britain’s faded camp glamour set in the Isle of Wight’s last surviving launderette
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Review: Josie Long: Now is the Time of Monsters
Long is on terrific form with a deceptively rousing prehistory show
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Review: Pigs Fly Easy Ryan
Anarchic side-swipe at climate offenders is an energetic oddity
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Review: Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence
Contemporary spin on Shakespeare’s Macbeth trades in the battlefield for the netball court
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Review: Scatter: A Horror Play
A florid script with a mixture of sinister folklore and contemporary male anxiety
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Review: Chat Sh*t, Get Hit
Warmly rousing interrogation of female rage
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Review: Caitriona Dowden: Dance Like Everyone’s Dancing
A comic with a charmingly idiosyncratic worldview
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Review: Sibet Partee: Behind
Tale of Tudor obsession is lightly plotted but delivered with gusto
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Review: Douglas Widick: Paperclip
Charming and bizarre nostalgia ride through early internet culture
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Review: A Drag is Born
Edu Díaz’s show is a fun, if underpowered, drag origin story
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Review: BITCH
One of the most committed and acerbic performers at this year’s festival
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Review: The Queen is Mad
An impeccably polished musical theatre three-hander
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Review: Standing in the Shadows of Giants
An intriguing autobiographical portrait of having a superstar sibling
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Review: Jain Edwards: She-Devil
The Welsh-born, Manchester-based comedian combines reality and fiction in an offbeat hour of stand-up
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Review: Laura Davis: Despair is Beneath Us
The Edinburgh-based Australian’s latest is a densely crafted stand-up hour
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Review: How to Kill a Mouse
A witty and moving debut hour from American stand-up Alex Berr
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Review: Phil Green: A Broken Man’s Guide to Fixing Others
A stand-up hour full of class, heart and laughs, but which could do with paring back
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Review: PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD
A brilliantly bonkers, metatextual and high-octane take on outsider artists The Shaggs
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Review: Hypnotist Matt Hale – Funbelievable! 90s Rewind
With the charismatic Matt at the helm, this enjoyable all-ages throwback will appeal to the cynics and believers alike
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Review: The Dan Daw Show
In this enervating declaration of sexuality as selfhood, disabled bodies are not only desirable but agential through desire
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Review: Space Hippo
A striking feat of artistry, Space Hippo’s lack of structure nevertheless leaves it feeling a little dull
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Review: Bella Hull: Doctors Hate Her
Hull returns to the Fringe, signature sarcasm and mischievous misdirection in tow
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Review: Helen Bauer: Bless Her
A commanding, hilarious stand-up hour with pathos to boot
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Review: Sam Nicoresti: Baby Doomer
A blistering, cathartic and vivid exploration of the trans experience
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Review: Nick Hornedo: Watch This When You Get Home
This tale of teenage crushes has lots of potential, but blows it by burying the lead
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Review: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME.
This compelling love-story is brought to life by a pair of magnetic performances
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Review: Jonny Woo: Suburbia
Suburbia is a rip-roaring hour of cabaret, memoir and drag from the London stalwart
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Review: I Dream in Colour
A semi-autobiographical, solo snapshot raising questions of bodily autonomy
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Review: Jodie Sloan: Is She Hot?
A unique social media experience is the catalyst for Jodie Sloan’s creative debut
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Review: Mary O’Connell: Dilly Dally
With easy charisma, Mary O’Connell delivers a tightly woven hour about late-twenties growing pains
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Review: Sharon Wanjohi: In The House
The comedy writer brings her TV writing chops to the stage, with a debut that takes aim at the wellness industry
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Review: Her Raving Mind
A gritty three-hander that is at times unfocused, but leaves a lasting impression
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Review: Pickled Republic
Sentient vegetables face the existential horror of their fast approaching sell-by date
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Review: Amy Mason: Behold!
Deadpan and intimate, Amy Mason’s unapologetic show recounts the comic’s absurd experience of being hacked
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Review: Lucky Tonight!
Afreena Islam-Wright looks back on her British-Bangladeshi upbringing via an interactive pub quiz-cum-theatre show
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Review: Kit Loyd: Frenzy
Kit Loyd puts in a committed performance, but strong execution fails to lift his derivative mime show
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Review: Lorna Rose Treen: 24 Hour Diner People
The character comedian outdoes her previous show with another slick hour that blends cringe humour with surrealism
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Review: Andrew Doherty: Sad Gay AIDS Play
Andrew Doherty’s satirical play-within-a-play sends up the nature of arts council funding in the UK
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Review: PALESTINE: PEACE DE RESISTANCE
Irish-Palestinian comic Sami Abu Wardeh’s densely layered Fringe comeback roars with defiance
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Review: Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares
A cathartic, confessional and self-deprecating hour from the Tony Award winner
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Sound of São Paulo Mixtape
The choreographer and dancers behind Voyeur / Samba and Love – part of the São Paulo Showcase – each pick a song from Brazil that inspires them
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Farah Saleh
Farah Saleh’s Balfour Reparations examines the UK’s colonial legacy in Palestine, using a mix of speculative choreography and Afrofuturism
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Review: Chokeslam
A detailed, unfiltered one-woman dive into pro-wrestling interwoven with personal insights
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Sutara Gayle (Hackney Showroom)
Powered by high-octane musical numbers, The Legends of Them chronicles Sutara Gayle’s singular, extraordinary life. She answers a few of our questions
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Review: Lou Wall: Breaking the Fifth Wall
The Aussie comic takes on the very nature of stand-up with more meme-heavy musical comedy
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Natasha Gilmore (Barrowland Ballet)
Natasha Gilmore, Artistic Director of Barrowland Ballet, presents two shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year – Chunky Jewellery and Wee Man
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Sam Kissajukian
In 2021, Sam Kissajukian quit stand-up to become a painter. Four years later, he tells us about his new show 300 Paintings
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: SERAFINE1369
IV (4) by SERAFINE1369 – part of the Here and Now showcase – considers cycles, time, divination and decomposition through dance and choreographed performance
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Frazier Bailey
The Strangewife director answers our questions on the debut production of the play, with its Yorgos Lanthimos-style blend of gallows humour and drama
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Ad Infinitum
George Mann and Ramesh Meyyappan, co-creators of Ad Infinitum’s Last Rites, answer our questions about the show, which is part of the Here & Now Showcase
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Opinion: We Need to Talk About Pelvic Floor Health
Amy Veltman, the NYC comedian and performer behind PSA: Pelvic Service Announcement, is on a mission to destigmatise pelvic floor health
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Your Passport to Arts and Culture
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Alex Reynolds
In the Land of Eagles sees playwright Alex Reynolds take inspiration from her relationship with her grandfather, whose native Albania backdrops her Edinburgh debut
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David Elms Describes a Mixtape
Featuring Brian Eno, Jonathan Richman and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Eleanor Higgins
Two girls from opposite worlds are fated to meet in Eleanor Higgins’ powerful theatre piece set in the Noughties queer scene. She answers a few of our questions
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Space Hippo’s Interstellar Mixtape
Featuring David Bowie, The Byrds, Leonard Nimoy and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: World’s Greatest Lover
The creative team behind the musical World’s Greatest Lover come together to answer our burning questions
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Rose Coogan
Ros + Bud is the heartfelt and heartbreaking tale of transitioning in Northern Ireland. We put some questions to its creator Rose Coogan
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Opinion: In LA, We Talk About the Fringe Like It’s Narnia
Ahead of her debut, US comedian Laurie Magers gives us the Los Angeles perspective on the festival as a fabled, fairytale place
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Hayley Edwards
Hayley Edwards describes their debut Edinburgh show as ‘Fleabag but about Crohn’s Disease’. We speak to them about their path from hapless drama graduate to critical acclaim in their home country of Australia
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Opinion: Disability isn’t a Genre
Aaron Pang on his own experiences confronting the sensationalism around disabled narratives and rehabilitation stories
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Jammz’s Blaze FM Mixtape
Featuring Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, JME and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Lewis Ian Bray (Cartoonopolis)
Cartoonopolis, the hit one-man show from Lewis Ian Bray, is back after a decade. He talks to us about the new-and-improved production
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Jessie Nixon
The self-professed ‘mentally ill, lapsed Catholic’ comedian is putting it all out there in her confessional stand-up hour
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Michael Elsener
The award-winning Swiss comic brings his off-beat stand-up to the Fringe for the first time. He answers a few of our burning questions
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Laurie Stevens’ Teen Angst Mixtape
Featuring Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Patrick McPherson
One half of sketch duo Pear, Patrick McPherson returns to the Fringe with a solo horror play about a man travelling to a Welsh village to scatter his father’s ashes
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Laura Benanti
The Tony Award-winner tells us all about her comedy show which contends with her people-pleasing personality
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Tom Bailey (Mechanimal)
Tom Bailey, one half of Mechanimal, answers questions about their new show Wild Thing!, a sequel to 2019’s Vigil
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Dylan Adler’s Queer Villain Mixtape
Featuring Andrew Lloyd Webber, Taylor Swift, Kim Petras and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Jules Chan
Jules Chan tells us about his work of autobiographical diaspora fiction: a solo show about a Filipino boy growing up in Britain
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Jay Eddy’s Road Trip Mixtape
Featuring Garbage, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Donna Summer and more
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Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Alison Spittle
The Irish comedian and podcaster tells us her top tips for the festival season, and why the male loneliness epidemic is her muse





