Rhod Gilbert
As ever on the fringe, a handful of big hitters return to reconnect to their standup roots. The pick of this year’s crop – which includes Marcus Brigstocke, Nina Conti, David O’Doherty and Reg Hunter – must be Rhod Gilbert, who made his name (and narrowly missed out on a Perrier award) with his volcanically exasperated fringe shows in the mid-noughties. Now he’s back, for just a short run, performing his first live comedy in six years.
Sunshine Boy
The programme at Dance Base features work from 11 countries and includes the Grassmarket venue’s first full-scale ballet, Giselle by Ballet Ireland. But the eye-catcher on this year’s lineup is Sunshine Boy, Andy Howitt’s tribute to the extravagantly lipsticked Leigh Bowery – performance artist, designer, sitter for Lucian Freud, Clothes Show star and legend of London’s club world, whose signature act involved giving birth to his partner on stage.
Rose Matafeo
Her 2016 debut made waves, her 2017 follow-up, Sassy Best Friend, was wonderful. This time out, the high-energy, highly-strung standup Rose Matafeo tackles horniness, of all things, and – in a year when Flight of the Conchords’ return has towered over live comedy – is part of a Kiwi invasion that includes “Lorde’s favourite comedian” Paul Williams, newcomer Alice Snedden and an all-new show from the big-hitting mime act Tape Face.
Unsung
His 2012 show BigMouth was an arresting collision of speeches from the Greeks to George W Bush – told with a splash of Sondheim and Nirvana – that explored how words can lead to war. Now, in a new performance, Valentijn Dhaenens returns once more to deadly rhetoric and to what makes politicians tick.
The Greatest Play in the History of the World …
The title sounds like something you’d be promised amid the flyering blizzard on the Royal Mile. But the signs look good for this monologue, co-produced by Manchester’s Royal Exchange and performed by Julie Hesmondhalgh. It was written in secret for her by her husband, Ian Kershaw, and promises, she says, to offer “a bit of love and hope”.
Garry Starr
Two credits guaranteed to give your comedy career a head start are “Gaulier-trained” and “directed by Cal McCrystal”. The Boosh and Spymonkey guru helped ex-clown student and former Plague of Idiots frontman Damien Warren-Smith create this spoof theatre masterclass, which won awards at both the Adelaide and Brighton festivals. Expect Shakespeare, butoh and Pinter takedowns, and – you have been warned – hands-on audience participation.
Jonny Woo’s All-Star Brexit Cabaret
There has been no shortage of comedy treatments of the whole Brexit farrago, but this one might cut the self-styled “bad boys of Brexit” deepest, as Messrs Johnson, Farage and co get a queer-cabaret makeover. At its work-in-progress stage, the barfly of Thanet was played by the fabulous Le Gateau Chocolat – a casting dream! – while the show’s Edinburgh preview will feature powerhouse singer and comedian Jayde Adams as the foreign secretary. Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer – the Opera) writes the tunes.
A Fortunate Man
Styled as a disarmingly jaunty joint lecture, Michael Pinchbeck’s multimedia show revisits John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr’s account of the life of an English country GP. Grounded in Berger’s thinking about art and perspective, it asks what drives a doctor who rises at night and slips an overcoat over his pyjamas to cross fields and answer his patient’s call – and, as the NHS marks 70 years, what drives today’s overloaded medics.
Ulster American
An Oscar-winning actor, a director and a playwright are at loggerheads while preparing a production in this world premiere by David Ireland. The warning that it is “not for the faint of heart” will be acknowledged by anyone who saw Ireland’s blistering Cyprus Avenue, which starred Stephen Rea as an Ulster loyalist who sees the face of Gerry Adams in his baby granddaughter.
Sam Campbell
No pressure, Sam Campbell, but the last three winners of the Melbourne comedy festival’s Barry award have gone on to be nominated for its Edinburgh equivalent. (Two of them – Sam Simmons and Hannah Gadsby – won it.) Oddball Sydney-based comic Campbell bagged this year’s gong with his absurdist sketch show The Trough, and its Edinburgh run spearheads another strong Aussie showing (including eye-catching newcomers Ivan Aristeguieta, Laura Davis and Heidi Regan) in Edinburgh.
Void
In the opening of JG Ballard’s 1974 novel Concrete Island, the architect hero overturns his Jaguar after screeching down a high-speed exit lane. Glasgow-based performer Mele Broomes presents her full-throttle, one-woman dance version of the cult classic to a pulsating soundscape and a blizzard of projections.
Kiri Pritchard-McLean
You can’t accuse Kiri Pritchard-McLean of bandwagon-jumping. She made her show about sexism in comedy, Hysterical Woman, long before #MeToo. Its follow-up, Appropriate Adult, made remarkably lively comedy out of her experiences mentoring vulnerable kids. But this year’s show, in which the impressive Welsh comic explores gaslighting, is undoubtedly of-the-moment.
We’ve Got Each Other
A Bon Jovi musical imagined each night with the help of the audience? Writer-performer Paul O’Donnell is making his fringe debut and may well be livin’ on a prayer but he’ll make it he swears. O’Donnell turns the story of Tommy (used to work on the docks) and Gina (works the diner all day) into a zero-budget musical epic. This late-night show might just have Edinburgh hit written all over it.
Luisa Omielan
It won’t come as news to anyone who saw her first two shows (think emphatic party-comedy meets self-empowerment seminar) that Luisa Omielan didn’t see herself as a political animal. That all changed when she had to usher her dying mum through a dysfunctional NHS. Her new show, Politics for Bitches (also in development for BBC3), lays that political education bare and, as you’d expect from this most democratic of comics, invites her audience to join in.
DollyWould
A welcome return for Sh!t Theatre’s wonderfully warm 2017 fringe smash. The duo Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit recount their pilgrimage to Dolly Parton’s Tennessee theme park and their diversion to the same state’s body farm, where human decomposition is studied. En route they unravel unexpected connections between Dolly the singer and Dolly the sheep. A show about cloning, icons and individuality, it is full of the duo’s love not just for the country star, but for each other.
The Half
Sitcom regulars Anna Crilly (taciturn housekeeper Magda in Lead Balloon) and Margaret Cabourn-Smith (Miranda’s pregnant pal, Alison) team up as a double act reunited after a decade apart for one last gig. Sexism and ageism are on the agenda in a show by standup turned playwright Danielle Ward.
Four Go Wild in Wellies
With bobbling bobble hats, tempestuous tents and four pairs of wobbly wellies, this dance show for children aged three to five, staged by the inclusive company Indepen-dance 4, is directed by a hero of children’s theatre, Anna Newell. The autumnal colour design is a delight, as are the dancers who weave between showers of leaves.
Sitting
The BBC and Avalon are presenting four debut dramas at the fringe, written by former Perrier winner Frank Skinner, journalist Bim Adewunmi, Bafta-winning director Beryl Richards and the ever-excellent actor Katherine Parkinson, whose play Sitting finds three people posing for a painting in an artist’s studio years apart from each other.
Kate Berlant
If you can judge a comic by the quality of her collaborators, Kate Berlant’s Edinburgh debut would be a home banker. In the US, the LA native is celebrated for her double act with Search Party star John Early, and also popped up in Reggie Watts’s Netflix special Spatial. But her solo work is just as acclaimed: the New York Times placed her “at the forefront of experimental comedy”.
Jamali Maddix
Jamali Maddix had no sooner established himself in live comedy when TV came calling – and the success he had hosting Viceland’s documentary Hate Thy Neighbour, about racial hatred and resurgent rightwingery, propelled him directly into the big league. This year’s fringe dates spearhead a maiden world tour for the Ilford boy, with a new show promising “more personal tales of hate and moral confrontation from his travels around the world”.
Jessie Cave
Once seen, Jessie Cave’s 2015 show I Loved Her was never forgotten. A heartfelt, hyper-neurotic account of the anxieties and obsessions attendant on her life with fellow comic (and father of her child) Alfie Brown, it took oversharing to the nth degree. Now she’s back for the first time since, with another DIY solo show (“confessional comedy meets DIY performance art,” she calls it) about motherhood, Instagram and getting through a breakup.
This Is the Title
The fringe’s From Start to Finnish season includes circus, drama and a mask-theatre show about Finland’s myth of an elf that lives in the sauna. Meanwhile, the Helsinki-born choreographer Ima Iduozee performs his minimalist, shape-shifting solo This Is the Title, bringing a kind of hypnotic stillness to his B-boy stylings.
Tetra-Decathlon
Most people wouldn’t be able to name the 14 events in a tetra-decathlon, let alone compete in one. But Lauren Hendry cheerily decided to give a world championships a go despite being a self-proclaimed “serious amateur”. Her one-woman show is a 60-minute stroll through what happened, directed by Jenna Watt, who won strong reviews for Faslane in 2016.
MamaBabaMe
Toddlers can be the toughest theatre critics, but Starcatchers are a safe bet to keep young ones enchanted. The company’s co-production with Curious Seed, for the under-threes, invites the audience on to a nursery-style set for a closeup view of performers who make magic from the simplest of props, as they celebrate the bond between parent and child.
Nish Kumar
The Mash Report host has been the go-to man for sharp political comedy for the last few years, and this year he’s back, albeit with a show billed – for its entire 24-night run – as a work-in-progress. There’s acute political humour elsewhere, too, from Ahir Shah and Ayesha Hazarika on the left, Fin Taylor antagonising everyone in the middle, and Geoff Norcott’s Toryism at the other extreme.
Vertical Influences
Canadian ice-skating troupe Le Patin Libre return with their cool moves in a double bill performed in a rink that takes on epic proportions as they glide around each other, their blades cutting striking designs into the surface. Audiences watch the first part from the stands, then sit down on the ice for the second, where the gang thrillingly skate straight towards you.
Goblin Perform Suspiria and Dawn of the Dead
The Edinburgh film festival has long since shifted from August to the start of summer, but the fringe has a double dose of cult cinema courtesy of horror composer Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin. They’re playing the intoxicatingly creepy original scores for George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Dario Argento’s Suspiria alongside screenings of the films.
The Fishermen
Assembly George Square Studios
Shortlised for the Man Booker prize and the Guardian first book award, Chigozie Obioma’s debut novel drew comparisons to both Chinua Achebe and Emile Zola. Gbolahan Obisesan’s adaptation distils the novel to focus on just two of the brothers who encounter a prophet on a fishing trip in Nigeria that spirals into tragedy.
Limmy’s Vines
Scotland had its Colin “the British are coming!” Welland moment two years ago when an Edinburgh comedy award double-whammy, Richard Gadd and Scott Gibson, threatened a renaissance of Caledonian standup. Leading the pack of homegrown acts this year is cult TV and internet sicko Limmy, presenting the videos he made on the online platform Vine. There is also hotly tipped Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, Jay Lafferty, and a first fringe run in 25 years for Scot Squad and Absolutely star Jack Docherty.
Lost Voice Guy
As publicity for your Edinburgh fringe run goes, winning Britain’s Got Talent can hardly be bettered. Lee Ridley, AKA Lost Voice Guy, whose cerebral palsy affects his ability to speak, performs a new show expressing scepticism of the “inspiration porn” he identifies in media depictions of disabled people. (Fellow BGT comics Robert White and Daliso Chaponda also play the fringe.)
Angry Alan
Penelope Skinner is bringing two new plays to Edinburgh this summer. Meek, which explores state control, is at the Traverse in a Headlong production, while Angry Alan is a response to both the men’s rights movement and the rise of Donald Trump. The story follows Roger, whose personal and professional life is imploding when he thinks he finds a saviour in an online activist. Skinner’s partner, Donald Sage Mackay, stars.
Drip
After eccentric comedies about five-a-side (Jumpers for Goalposts) and indie bands (Broken Biscuits) comes Yorkshire playwright Tom Wells’s one-man musical about synchronised swimming and growing up gay, staged for Hull’s year as UK City of Culture in 2017. In his words, it’s about “having a go at stuff with your mates, and being 15, and wearing armbands”. It should make a splash at this popup in-the-round stage, which can really bring Edinburgh audiences together.
Jordan Brookes
With so many of last year’s Edinburgh award nominees not returning to compete (no Sophie Willan, no Mae Martin, no Spencer Jones), attention is bound to focus on 2017 shortlistees Mat Ewins, whose joyful DIY Indiana Jones take-off Adventureman 7 brought such uplift to Fringe 2017, and Jordan Brookes. The new show from the latter deeply destabilising presence addresses events in his personal life triggered by last year’s show.
Duckie
Cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat has done Shakespeare at the Globe, performed opera at Glyndebourne and addressed his depression in an intimate fringe show, Black. This year he brings his first family show to Edinburgh. His take on The Ugly Duckling draws on his difficulties at school. “Duckie isn’t just about standing up to your bullies,” he says, “it’s about making sure that you don’t become a bully yourself.”
Square Go
Gary McNair has already proven himself a deft observer of both macho bravado and adolescent angst, so don’t miss his new play about a fight at the school gates. His co-writer Kieran Hurley, who had a hit with Beats, creates music-fuelled shows whose soundtracks linger long in the memory. Here, the tracks come from members of the Glasgow group Frightened Rabbit. Elsewhere, McNair’s After the Cuts imagines a future without the NHS.
Underground Railroad Game
After a scorching premiere in the US in 2016, Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R Sheppard’s razor-sharp and darkly comic take on race relations arrives in the UK. Two Stetson-sporting teachers deliver a lesson at a school where they don’t teach history by reading books. For a course on the American civil war, the pair divide the audience into armies and then all hell breaks loose.
Trojan Horse
The documentary theatre company Lung have staged politically urgent shows exploring the Chilcot inquiry, the 1985 Bradford City fire and the campaign by single mothers in Newham, east London, against their eviction. This year, Matt Woodhead and Helen Monks (who played the teenage Caitlin Moran in Raised By Wolves) present a piece based on the inquiry into a fake plot to Islamise Birmingham schools.
Norris & Parker
Whither the double act? It’s not the format it once was, but there are some fine two-piece comedy acts on the fringe, with women leading the line. Beard (Matilda Wnek and Rosa Robson) and Flo & Joan will both be well worth a look, and there is a fringe return for Radio 4 favourites The Pin. Then there are the twisted pleasures of Norris and Parker, whose late-night offering in 2016 was a hoot. Sounds as if their new show Burn the Witch is cut from similarly macabre cloth.
Mr Swallow
Nobody makes shows quite like Nick Mohammed. Performed in character as his bumptious alter ego Mr Swallow, his series of almost-solo spoof musicals (the Dracula one, the Houdini one) have been fringe highlights in recent years. In the Houdini one, you got incredible feats of escapology to boot, and the derring-do looks likely to escalate this summer, when Mohammed launches his newest spectacular on an unsuspecting world: Mr Swallow and the Vanishing Elephant.
Fallen Fruit
Katherina Radeva designed the 2017 Edinburgh hit Salt, in which Selina Thompson retraced the transatlantic slave triangle. Now, Redeva – who was born in communist Bulgaria – performs her one-woman show about the end of the cold war and reflects on borders past, present and future.
Sheeps
A few years ago, they looked like the saviours of the sketch show, but Sheeps have been only an intermittent presence since. Instead, their component talents broke into TV comedy (Liam Williams’ Pls Like; Al Roberts in Channel 4’s new Stath Lets Flats), producing (Williams co-runs Fight in the Dog) and theatre (Williams’ and Daran Johnson’s Ricky Whittington and his Cat). It is all the more mouthwatering then that the threesome return at this year’s fringe, with more skilful, smart and silly team comedy.
The Bear
Pins and Needles had a West End run with Mr Popper’s Penguins, a charming slice of Americana about a wannabe Antarctic adventurer whose home life is flipped upside down when a penguin arrives in the post. The company brings another puppet-powered, tuneful treat about an unexpected houseguest, this time based on Raymond Briggs’s book The Bear, which should be lunchtime fun.
Woke
Apphia Campbell’s monologue, told with gospel and blues songs, was an awardwinner in Edinburgh in 2017 and returns for a limited run. It fuses the lives of two women: a student who fights for civil rights in the wake of Ferguson; and Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army in the 70s, who became one of the FBI’s most wanted.
What Girls Are Made of
Cora Bissett had played only a handful of gigs with her indie band Darlingheart when, straight out of school, they landed a major record deal and found themselves on the road with Blur and Radiohead. She looks back at a three-year whirlwind of music, prompted by rereading her teenage diaries, and reflects on the future she wants for her daughter.
Natalie Palamides
There was once a fine (if not exactly distinguished) tradition of men playing women for comic effect. The tables have turned now, and – after Zoe Coombs Marr’s success as her sexist alter ego Dave – here comes 2017 best newcomer Natalie Palamides in character as Nate. “For the first time in history,” runs her blurb, “it’s hard to be a man” – an argument she’ll test probably to destruction in this clowning follow-up to last year’s surpassingly strange and delightful debut, Laid. Now, as then, she is directed by cult fringe favourite Dr Brown.
Dylan Moran
Edinburgh resident and former Perrier award champ – back in the days when it was practically the plaything of budding Irish male standups – Dylan Moran now launches his new show Dr Cosmos at the fringe. Finally growing into the elder statesman role he’s long been fashioning for himself, Moran’s oddly wise and always off-beam commentaries on modern living will surely be one of the treats of the festival.
Wolfgang
Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows
Some of Mozart’s best known movements do just that in this new family show from the Australian company Circa, whose acrobats perform to the great composer’s music. A pair of circus performers are joined by a musician for a piece that – judging by their frequent past appearances at the festival – should hit the high notes.
My Left/Right Foot – the Musical
Disability-led performance company Birds of Paradise explore the issue of actors “cripping up” with an irreverent escapade about an am-dram society who decide to stage a musical inspired by the Daniel Day-Lewis film. Co-presented with the National Theatre of Scotland, it stars Dawn Sievewright, one of the triumphant “ladies of perpetual succour” from Vicky Featherstone’s 2015 fringe sensation.
WRoNGHEADED
First staged before a date had been set for Ireland’s abortion referendum, Liz Roche Company’s politically urgent dance work about Irish women’s struggle for autonomy of their bodies arrives on the heels of the landslide vote to repeal the eighth amendment. It’s performed by two dancers against an abstract film and a specially commissioned poem by Elaine Feeney.
Kieran Hodgson
His 2015 show Lance, about leaving home, losing faith and cycling, was a delight; its follow-up Maestro, about classical music, was likewise Edinburgh award-nominated. After a year’s break – and now with a sitcom role in Two Doors Down under his belt – Kieran Hodgson returns with ’75, a comic storytelling solo about the first UK-in-Europe referendum.
- Comedy picks by Brian Logan. Theatre and dance picks by Chris Wiegand.
