Theatre is the soul of the Fringe. Experimental, moving, messy, strange, and urgent. In a festival teeming with choice, these SNACK picks spotlight the shows that promise to cut through the noise. From thrillers on Skye to mermaids in emotional crisis, from gothic horror to real-life reckonings with illness, death and revolution, here are the stage stories we think deserve your time.
SKYE: A THRILLER
Techcube 0, Summerhall 31st July–25th August (excluding 12th and 19th August)
Scottish star Dawn Steele (Monarch of the Glen, Shetland) makes her Fringe debut alongside Young William Wallace of Braveheart fame, James Robinson, now all grown up in a thriller at Summerhall. Playing brother and sister, they are on holiday in Skye when they notice something odd – their father. It’s 1995, and he was supposed to have died four years earlier. So they are off on a quest for the truth.
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/skye-a-thriller
CHICKENS
Space1, Space on the Mile 18th–23rd August
Chickens is directed by Grid Iron’s Ben Harrison and tells the tale of one couple – Jay and Weronika – trying to keep things together post-pandemic and post-Brexit. They clash over their priorities and cultural differences in a sharp comedy set in a tiny Edinburgh flat, in Monika Klisch’s first play.
http://thespaceuk.com/shows/2025/chickens
ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL
TechCube 0, Summerhall 31st July–25th August (excluding 5th, 12th, 18th)
English comedian Mark Thomas is recovering addict Frankie, who has the feel of a kind of Sassenach Jimmy Boyle. Entering a ‘liberal prison experiment’ after the Strangeways Prison Riot, we follow him on a journey of freedom and revolution. As well as Thomas’ pedigree as a stand-up of note, author Ed Edwards is a previous Fringe First winner.
BALFOUR REPARATIONS
TechCube 0, Summerhall 13th–25th of August (excluding 19th)
Always the hardest word? This is Scotland-based Palestinian artist Farah Saleh’s imagining of what, in 20 years’ time, might be our ‘sorry’, once we realise our current silence on atrocities has matched Balfour’s 1917 declaration, which denied Palestinian political rights.
Saleh is a challenging and innovative artist: the performance will combine speculative choreography with Afrofuturism, intertwining history, fiction, and fantasy and drawing inspiration from archival materials. Part of Made in Scotland.
INSIDERS
Main Church at St John’s Church, Edinburgh 13th–16th of August
Created with Scottish prisoners during COVID, Insiders examines what happens to three men, with different backgrounds, when they each have to face terrible news. It’s worthy, powerful, challenging, authentic, and has toured men’s prisons to great acclaim, but it will be a tough watch.
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/insiders
THE BACCHAE
Upstairs at Assembly Roxy 31st July–24th of August (excluding 11th and 18th August)
Following a triumphant solo show based on the story of Achilles, Ewan Downie turns his attention to the horror of an outcast god, a powerless king, and a mother who kills her only son. Downie elevates the myth of Dionysus in this solo piece. Contemporary movement and storytelling by a Company of Wolves, a Scottish outfit of great acclaim.
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-bacchae
PERFECT DEAD GIRLS
Bedlam Theatre 12th–25th of August (excluding 18th)
A familiar premise with an original thought wrapped within it – what happens when we die? Is purgatory a thing? How does B*Witched fit into all? A young company exploring girlhood, memories, and – after their deaths – how they get out of the hell they find themselves in. And who is watching them? Will they huff, and puff, and blow you away? Funny and poignant at the same time.
ELYSIUM
Gilded Balloon, Appleton Tower 30th July–24th August (excluding 11th August)
It’s the dream, right? Leave the rat race of the city behind and cosy up in suburbia with your homegrown wonky courgettes and a cat or two; maybe make a hit TikTok channel shilling the life to others for clicks and likes, so you never have to work a true day again in your life, except to pull up the veggies, of course. Except… Except it is never that beautiful, is it? Except, things are about to get pretty freaking ugly. Milly Blue and Maryon Davis are the epic duo Ghouls Aloud, and have a wicked time playing with Gothic literature, haunting live scores, and with you – the one who watches.
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/elysium
GET THEE TO A NURSERY
Space 2 at theSpace on the Mile 2nd–9th August
School kids, Shakespeare, and it’s all set in a nursery! This new play combines the classics and has soliloquies plus the difficult bits, laced with the spirit of adventure the Fringe is supposed to be all about. The young performers, from Denny High School, present a piece that asks: if four-year-olds became bewitched with the spirit of the Bard, what would happen?
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/get-thee-to-a-nursery
SHITBAG
Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre 31st July–25th August (excluding 4th, 11th and 18th August)
The Anatomy Lecture Theatre is a rather apt venue for this literal navel-gazing introspection into guts, the whole delightful digestive tract, and everything that comes with being a young genderqueer person with Crohn’s. Join Hayley Edwards for their darkly comedic, multi-award-winning debut play in which they invite you to dig through messy steaming piles of chronic illness, mental health, queer sex, and more.
AETHER
Summerhall 31st July–25th August (excluding 11th and 18th August)
The final frontier is not space, but that place our souls go, you know, after… if there is even such a thing as a soul. Or an after. From Summerhall Arts’ creative residency holder, Emma Howlett, comes their third original play at Summerhall in three years. An exploration of the great beyond, the ineffable, the last place we want to go but we really, really wanna find out what’s there. Magic and science and rich theatre combine for a goosebump-inducing event.
TALL TAILS
Theatre 2 at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall 1st–9th August
Five mermaids take a deep dive into the messy, magical reality of living as chronic peoplepleasers. Blending girlhood, gender, self-love, and a splash of fantasy, this hilariously honest show swims through a sea of Barbie-level dilemmas – problems that could’ve been solved with just a drop of mermaid magic (if only they’d just said no). With a fresh and original take on the art of over-accommodating, this whimsical exploration of emotional labour makes for a deeply relatable must-see.
LOST LEAR
Traverse 1, Traverse Theatre 1st–24th August (excluding 4th, 11th, 18th)
Joy once rehearsed King Lear. Now suffering from dementia, we see life through her and the king’s lens. When her estranged son arrives, he unfortunately is cast as Cordelia and Joy’s life unravels as the past and her present collide. Author Dan Colley has pedigree at complex drama, and this uses lots of theatrical skill to tell the tale of the effects of dementia and Alzheimer’s.
http://edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/lost-lear
Main Image Tall Tails
