The Edinburgh Fringe shows everyone is talking about in the first week
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is only days old, but some of the shows attracting the strongest reviews and biggest conversations are already beginning to emerge.
More than 4,000 shows are appearing across Edinburgh this August, ranging from tiny experimental productions to established comedians, international circus and major new Scottish theatre.
As audiences begin swapping recommendations and the first wave of reviews arrives, these are among the productions making an early impression.
Mayflies
One of the most distinctly Scottish hits of the festival is Mayflies, Grid Iron’s site-specific adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s bestselling novel.
The production takes over a former metalworks in Leith to tell the story of Tully Dawson and the friendships that shape a lifetime, moving between the excitement of a group of young Ayrshire friends travelling to Manchester in 1986 and the much more difficult realities they face decades later.
Music is central to the production, with the industrial setting used to evoke the atmosphere of Manchester venues such as the Haçienda.
Early reviews have been strong. The Financial Times awarded it four stars and reported that performances were already close to selling out, while The Guardian praised the way the Leith warehouse brings the story’s 1980s music scene back to life.
Mayflies runs at the Rear Warehouse at Brown’s of Leith until 30 August.
Cathy
Elaine C Smith has one of the roles of the Fringe in Cathy, the new comedy from Scottish playwright Eilidh Loan.
Loan based the character on her own grandmother, who had apparently made her feelings about the casting very clear – she wanted Smith to play her.
The story follows Cathy after the death of her husband and explores grief, family relationships and working-class life with a cast that also includes Michele Gallagher, Chloe Hodgson, Alan Orr and Sally Reid.
It follows Loan’s acclaimed first play Moorcroft, inspired by her father’s amateur football team.
Reviews have singled out Smith’s performance, with The Guardian describing the part as ideally suited to her combination of sharp comedy and vulnerability. The production runs at the Traverse until 30 August.
An Echo in the Void
One of the most topical new plays at this year’s Fringe asks what happens when artificial intelligence stops simply helping us remember the people we have lost and begins recreating them.
An Echo in the Void is receiving its world premiere at Assembly Roxy, where four strangers find themselves inside an experimental AI platform capable of recreating voices, memories and personalities.
The technology was designed to offer comfort to people dealing with loss. As the system develops, however, it begins to offer something much more unsettling – the possibility of replacing painful reality with a convincing artificial version of the people and relationships its users have lost.
The darkly comic chamber thriller is written and directed by Jason Weiss and stars Scottish actor Adam Sinclair alongside Grace Serrano, Lee Rodriguez and Sunkrish Bala.
An Echo in the Void runs at Assembly Roxy Upstairs at 4.40pm until 29 August, excluding 19 August.
Blackbox
One of the more inventive productions to emerge from the opening days combines theatre, music and stage magic to tell the extraordinary story of Henry “Box” Brown.
Brown escaped slavery in Virginia in 1849 by having himself shipped hundreds of miles in a wooden crate to freedom.
In Blackbox, his story is retold through illusion, gospel-influenced music and theatre, with boxes appearing and disappearing as the production moves through episodes from his life.
The show arrived from the US and is running at Underbelly Cowgate until 30 August.
It has also emerged among the early critical highlights of the festival, with The Times selecting it among the best theatre productions seen so far.
The Palestinian Circus: Step and a Half
One of the festival’s most visually striking shows is coming from the Palestinian Circus.
Step and a Half combines contemporary circus with Dabkeh – the traditional Palestinian folk dance – using movement and acrobatics to explore heritage, identity and collective freedom.
The Palestinian Circus is a non-profit organisation that works with communities across Palestine, and the Fringe production is being presented with Underbelly and Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The Times has highlighted it among the early festival successes, while The Guardian included it in its selection of shows to seek out this year.
Performances continue at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows until 29 August.
Amanda Knox: Cartwheel
No Fringe production arrived surrounded by more controversy than Amanda Knox’s debut solo show.
Cartwheel sees Knox discuss motherhood, wrongful imprisonment and the experience of living for years under intense international scrutiny.
Knox was convicted in Italy over the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher before ultimately being acquitted by Italy’s highest court in 2015. Her decision to bring a show categorised as comedy to Edinburgh prompted criticism from Kercher’s sister and a petition calling for its cancellation. Knox has argued that the production does not make light of Kercher’s death and instead explores violence, injustice and the impact of her own experience.
The Fringe Society rejected calls for the production to be removed, citing the festival’s open-access principles.
Now audiences can judge the show itself. Early critical reaction has been divided, but The Guardian found Knox’s attempt to reclaim her story defiant and carefully judged.
Cartwheel runs at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 17 August.
Sophie Duker: Hot Beef Injection
Sophie Duker is emerging as one of the strongest established comedy names of the opening week.
Her new show, Hot Beef Injection, looks at relationships, uncomfortable encounters with men and the different ways women learn to navigate threatening or simply baffling situations.
It incorporates the viral question of whether a woman would rather encounter a man or a bear alone in a forest, alongside more personal stories from Duker’s own life.
The Guardian praised it as a smart and tightly constructed hour, with Duker in particularly strong form.
She is at Pleasance Courtyard until 30 August.
Frankie McNair: Huge Ass Mindset
Australian comic Frankie McNair arrived in Edinburgh with substantial expectations after being nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival earlier this year.
Huge Ass Mindset moves into significantly darker territory than its deliberately ridiculous title suggests, drawing on McNair’s experiences of anxiety, complex PTSD, abuse and low self-esteem.
The result has attracted some of the strongest comedy reviews of the festival so far.
Both The Guardian and The Times have highlighted McNair as one of this year’s standouts, with the show combining difficult autobiographical material with character comedy and an intentionally absurd philosophy of approaching life with exaggerated confidence.
The show runs until 30 August.
Olga Koch: Fat Tom Cruise
Olga Koch has also returned with a show that initially appears to be heading in one direction before deliberately changing course.
Fat Tom Cruise draws on Koch’s experiences of school, American fraternity culture and gender politics, incorporating real legal cases involving claims of discrimination against men.
The Guardian praised Koch’s assured performance and the density of the jokes, describing the show as another substantial Fringe outing from an increasingly reliable comic.
She performs at Pleasance Courtyard until 30 August.
Harriet Dyer: Easily Distra…
Harriet Dyer’s latest Fringe show is rather less interested in providing audiences with a tidy narrative.
The former winner of Channel 4’s Sean Lock Comedy Award moves rapidly through stories from her life, including house moves, strange jobs, family anecdotes, an accidental sale of a single shoe on eBay and an encounter involving a seagull and a bratwurst.
Dyer has become an increasingly familiar television performer, but her eccentric live style remains the main attraction.
The Guardian suggested she could now be approaching a much larger breakthrough, praising the strength and sheer oddity of the material.
Easily Distra… runs at Monkey Barrel until 30 August.
With more than two weeks of the Fringe still to come, the hierarchy will inevitably change.
Some heavily promoted shows will disappear from the conversation while tiny productions in rooms holding a few dozen people can suddenly become impossible tickets to find.
But after the opening run of performances, Mayflies, Cathy, Blackbox and Step and a Half are emerging among the strongest theatre and performance recommendations, while Frankie McNair, Sophie Duker, Olga Koch and Harriet Dyer are among the comedy names attracting early critical attention.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is only days old, but some of the shows attracting the strongest reviews and biggest conversations are already beginning to emerge.
More than 4,000 shows are appearing across Edinburgh this August, ranging from tiny experimental productions to established comedians, international circus and major new Scottish theatre.
As audiences begin swapping recommendations and the first wave of reviews arrives, these are among the productions making an early impression.
Mayflies
One of the most distinctly Scottish hits of the festival is Mayflies, Grid Iron’s site-specific adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s bestselling novel.
The production takes over a former metalworks in Leith to tell the story of Tully Dawson and the friendships that shape a lifetime, moving between the excitement of a group of young Ayrshire friends travelling to Manchester in 1986 and the much more difficult realities they face decades later.
Music is central to the production, with the industrial setting used to evoke the atmosphere of Manchester venues such as the Haçienda.
Early reviews have been strong. The Financial Times awarded it four stars and reported that performances were already close to selling out, while The Guardian praised the way the Leith warehouse brings the story’s 1980s music scene back to life.
Mayflies runs at the Rear Warehouse at Brown’s of Leith until 30 August.
Cathy
Elaine C Smith has one of the roles of the Fringe in Cathy, the new comedy from Scottish playwright Eilidh Loan.
Loan based the character on her own grandmother, who had apparently made her feelings about the casting very clear – she wanted Smith to play her.
The story follows Cathy after the death of her husband and explores grief, family relationships and working-class life with a cast that also includes Michele Gallagher, Chloe Hodgson, Alan Orr and Sally Reid.
It follows Loan’s acclaimed first play Moorcroft, inspired by her father’s amateur football team.
Reviews have singled out Smith’s performance, with The Guardian describing the part as ideally suited to her combination of sharp comedy and vulnerability. The production runs at the Traverse until 30 August.
An Echo in the Void
One of the most topical new plays at this year’s Fringe asks what happens when artificial intelligence stops simply helping us remember the people we have lost and begins recreating them.
An Echo in the Void is receiving its world premiere at Assembly Roxy, where four strangers find themselves inside an experimental AI platform capable of recreating voices, memories and personalities.
The technology was designed to offer comfort to people dealing with loss. As the system develops, however, it begins to offer something much more unsettling – the possibility of replacing painful reality with a convincing artificial version of the people and relationships its users have lost.
The darkly comic chamber thriller is written and directed by Jason Weiss and stars Scottish actor Adam Sinclair alongside Grace Serrano, Lee Rodriguez and Sunkrish Bala.
An Echo in the Void runs at Assembly Roxy Upstairs at 4.40pm until 29 August, excluding 19 August.
Blackbox
One of the more inventive productions to emerge from the opening days combines theatre, music and stage magic to tell the extraordinary story of Henry “Box” Brown.
Brown escaped slavery in Virginia in 1849 by having himself shipped hundreds of miles in a wooden crate to freedom.
In Blackbox, his story is retold through illusion, gospel-influenced music and theatre, with boxes appearing and disappearing as the production moves through episodes from his life.
The show arrived from the US and is running at Underbelly Cowgate until 30 August.
It has also emerged among the early critical highlights of the festival, with The Times selecting it among the best theatre productions seen so far.
The Palestinian Circus: Step and a Half
One of the festival’s most visually striking shows is coming from the Palestinian Circus.
Step and a Half combines contemporary circus with Dabkeh – the traditional Palestinian folk dance – using movement and acrobatics to explore heritage, identity and collective freedom.
The Palestinian Circus is a non-profit organisation that works with communities across Palestine, and the Fringe production is being presented with Underbelly and Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The Times has highlighted it among the early festival successes, while The Guardian included it in its selection of shows to seek out this year.
Performances continue at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows until 29 August.
Amanda Knox: Cartwheel
No Fringe production arrived surrounded by more controversy than Amanda Knox’s debut solo show.
Cartwheel sees Knox discuss motherhood, wrongful imprisonment and the experience of living for years under intense international scrutiny.
Knox was convicted in Italy over the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher before ultimately being acquitted by Italy’s highest court in 2015. Her decision to bring a show categorised as comedy to Edinburgh prompted criticism from Kercher’s sister and a petition calling for its cancellation. Knox has argued that the production does not make light of Kercher’s death and instead explores violence, injustice and the impact of her own experience.
The Fringe Society rejected calls for the production to be removed, citing the festival’s open-access principles.
Now audiences can judge the show itself. Early critical reaction has been divided, but The Guardian found Knox’s attempt to reclaim her story defiant and carefully judged.
Cartwheel runs at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 17 August.
Sophie Duker: Hot Beef Injection
Sophie Duker is emerging as one of the strongest established comedy names of the opening week.
Her new show, Hot Beef Injection, looks at relationships, uncomfortable encounters with men and the different ways women learn to navigate threatening or simply baffling situations.
It incorporates the viral question of whether a woman would rather encounter a man or a bear alone in a forest, alongside more personal stories from Duker’s own life.
The Guardian praised it as a smart and tightly constructed hour, with Duker in particularly strong form.
She is at Pleasance Courtyard until 30 August.
Frankie McNair: Huge Ass Mindset
Australian comic Frankie McNair arrived in Edinburgh with substantial expectations after being nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival earlier this year.
Huge Ass Mindset moves into significantly darker territory than its deliberately ridiculous title suggests, drawing on McNair’s experiences of anxiety, complex PTSD, abuse and low self-esteem.
The result has attracted some of the strongest comedy reviews of the festival so far.
Both The Guardian and The Times have highlighted McNair as one of this year’s standouts, with the show combining difficult autobiographical material with character comedy and an intentionally absurd philosophy of approaching life with exaggerated confidence.
The show runs until 30 August.
Olga Koch: Fat Tom Cruise
Olga Koch has also returned with a show that initially appears to be heading in one direction before deliberately changing course.
Fat Tom Cruise draws on Koch’s experiences of school, American fraternity culture and gender politics, incorporating real legal cases involving claims of discrimination against men.
The Guardian praised Koch’s assured performance and the density of the jokes, describing the show as another substantial Fringe outing from an increasingly reliable comic.
She performs at Pleasance Courtyard until 30 August.
Harriet Dyer: Easily Distra…
Harriet Dyer’s latest Fringe show is rather less interested in providing audiences with a tidy narrative.
The former winner of Channel 4’s Sean Lock Comedy Award moves rapidly through stories from her life, including house moves, strange jobs, family anecdotes, an accidental sale of a single shoe on eBay and an encounter involving a seagull and a bratwurst.
Dyer has become an increasingly familiar television performer, but her eccentric live style remains the main attraction.
The Guardian suggested she could now be approaching a much larger breakthrough, praising the strength and sheer oddity of the material.
Easily Distra… runs at Monkey Barrel until 30 August.
With more than two weeks of the Fringe still to come, the hierarchy will inevitably change.
Some heavily promoted shows will disappear from the conversation while tiny productions in rooms holding a few dozen people can suddenly become impossible tickets to find.
But after the opening run of performances, Mayflies, Cathy, Blackbox and Step and a Half are emerging among the strongest theatre and performance recommendations, while Frankie McNair, Sophie Duker, Olga Koch and Harriet Dyer are among the comedy names attracting early critical attention.