News

Tickets for a further 121 Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows will be available to book at edfringe.com from 12:00 noon today.

With more shows being announced weekly, tickets for over 460 registered shows have now been launched. The Fringe kicks off in just over two weeks and will run from 06 – 30 August 2021.

As restrictions continue to ease in Scotland, and as venues adapt to these changes, additional tickets for previously announced shows are being made available on edfringe.com. This week, more tickets have been released for shows at a range of venues, from Summerhall to theSpaceUK. 

A representative selection of today’s newly announced shows are listed below. For the full programme and further ticket information, visit edfringe.com.

New products available at the Fringe Shop

We've added a range of great new products to our online Fringe Shop, including hoodies, mugs, tote bags, magnets and souvenir programme-size notebooks.

Our new lines are themed around this year’s eye-catching Fringe campaign, which celebrates the thousands of amazing artists, companies and venues who gather annually to create this awe-inspiring and ever-changing festival.

The campaign takes inspiration from starling murmurations, and the idea that each individual bird creates something magnificent when they come together. It was designed by Edinburgh-based linocut artist Maria Doyle, and we also have some limited-edition original prints of her work available in our online shop.

Browse products in the online Fringe Shop

Theatre

IN PERSON: 

Jack Docherty’s Nothing But is at Gilded Balloon Teviot. The BAFTA award-winning star of Scot Squad and Absolutely returns to the festival with a tender, playful, darkly comic tale, where he grapples with lost youth, infatuation, fatherhood, sex, secrets and truth. 

Multi-award-winning site-specialists Grid Iron are bringing their show Doppler to Newhailes House and Gardens. After an accident, Doppler moves to the forest with an elk. What follows is a subversive fable about existence, consumerism and trying to live life in isolation when people just won't leave you alone.

At Summerhall, Every Wild Beast is a one-off solo performance by Fringe First-winning writer and storyteller, Casey Jay Andrews. Weaved from folklore and fable, this 2016 sell-out show is about ‘fear, fate and running away from really big scary things.’

Bard in the Yard: The Scottish Play is at Pleasance Courtyard. In this solo show made up of classic monologues and plague quarantine travails, Shakespeare has been sent to Scotland to write a masterpiece – but he’s struggling.

Fear of Roses is at Assembly Roxy. This fast-paced, darkly comedic crime story explores what happens when ruthlessly ambitious bank manager Tabby is blackmailed by the mysterious Keely into robbing her own bank.

For All The Love You Lost at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall is a contemporary piece of new writing that explores the anxieties and pressures of finding love or companionship in the modern world. This piece mixes spoken word, epic theatre and physical theatre.

ONLINE:

Ember is available via Assembly Showcatcher. Ember is a window into the mind of a young woman who, waking up one day, realises she doesn't know who she is.  A dark comedy riddled with fear, shame and loss. Nominated for a Green Room Award for Performance (2021) and Best in Theatre at the 2020 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

PUSH is at the Fringe through Pleasance Online. It tells the story of a woman staring down the barrel of motherhood, torn between her own ambivalence and an uncontrollable urge to push. 

And at Summerhall Online, iMelania is set in a landscape of social distancing, social media, WhatsApp and Zoom calls. In this piece, Varjack-Lowry use Melania Trump as an avatar of an "acceptably" foreign woman, obscuring and questioning experiences of being foreign in post-Brexit Britain.

Comedy

IN PERSON: 

Tickets for a range of comedy shows at Gilded Balloon have been released today. Shaparak Khorsandi returns to the Fringe with It Was the 90s! (WIP) – a show about how 90s kids now look to young people to learn how to take care of ourselves. Fred MacAulay will be joined by stars from the worlds of sport, entertainment, business and politics in Fred MacAulay In Conversation. Also at Gilded Balloon, Jay Lafferty switches off Zoom, changes out of her loungewear and prepares to say something more than 'cheers, Amazon man' – as she brings her show, Blether.

Jo Caulfield is bringing her unique brand of wicked one-liners and outrageous observations to the Stand this Fringe, for four nights only.

At Assembly Roxy, Jody Kamali and Friends is multi-character comedy / variety show. Expect an array of high-energy, daft, off-piste characters from Jody’s back catalogue. At the same venue, Captain Breadbeard is an absurd two-hander comedy sketch show about a sailor with a beard made of bread and his sidekick, Davy Scones. 

And at Assembly George Square, multi-award-winning troupe Police Cops return with their latest comedy blockbuster, Police Cops: Badass Be Thy Name, hot off the back of sell-out runs at Edinburgh Fringe 2019, Soho Theatre London and San Fransisco Comedy Fest. 

Margaret Thatcher Queen Of Soho is coming to Underbelly at George Square following five sell-out Fringe runs. The Iron Lady returns in her 80s drag cabaret extravaganza, as on the eve of a crucial vote, Maggie gets lost in Soho and accidentally becomes a cabaret superstar. 

And Blind Mirth presents Sex with Me! at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall. The improv comedy troupe are back at the Fringe, and promise wit, charm and, if all else fails, a startling look into what they’re like in the bedroom.

There’s a wide range of Laughing Horse comedy coming to the city this August. Some examples of venues and shows include: The Counting House (Comedy Freak Show, Comedy Queers, Martin Mor), the Hanover Tap (Ollie Horn, Phil Zimmerman), 32 Below (Best of Fringe Stand-Up, Darius Davies, Raul Kohli), and The Free Sisters (Monster Comedy shows hosted by Masai Graham, Leo Kearse, Hate ‘n’ Live).

ONLINE:

In Practice Room 99, brass players Ida, Ally and Clara have just a 30-minute rehearsal to fix the fallout from post-show drinks the night before. Available on Fringe Player.

Music

IN PERSON: 

Will Pickvance Plays Piano is at Summerhall Secret Courtyard. Audiences are invited to join Will in the moment for an intimate piano concert of improvisations and conversations.

The Sorries are at Pleasance at EICC as Douglas and Marty return to sing, play and banter their way through a Corries-inspired hour of uplifting traditional music.

Prize-winning Scots fiddler Alastair Savage is at St Cuthbert’s Church with his show, Scotland and Beyond. In these concerts, he will explore the folk melodies of Scotland's past and present alongside the music of Ireland, America and mainland Europe.

ONLINE:

Wallace & Gromit: In Concert is an award-winning orchestral show for the whole family, available on Fringe Player.

Cabaret and variety

IN PERSON:

At Gilded Balloon Teviot, audiences can catch Britain's Got Talent 2020 semi-finalist Kevin Quantum in Eyes Open | Eyes Shut. ‘Enjoy all the tricks that are and ever were in 90 minutes. You won't watch magic the same way again'.

And at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and stand-up Paul Dennis brings his music and comedy together for the first time in his show, Imashination.

Dance, physical theatre and circus

IN PERSON:

There’s a wealth of dance at MultiStory, including Celebrating Okoe: a tribute to a great drum master, mixing Ghanaian rhythms with Scottish Jazz spirit, Afrobeat vibes, singing, funky horns, jazz improvisation and incredible dancing. At the same venue is Shiva's Camino, which celebrates how culture can cross borders, told through an uplifting medley of feisty Flamenco, Scottish step, Indian Classical, Bollywood and contemporary dance. And Éowyn Emerald & Dancers – Your Tomorrow is described as ‘an entertaining and deeply intimate jazz dance for two performers, celebrating the private moments, uplifting intimacies and companionable bliss of the relationships that unite us.’

City Breakz at Summerhall is an outdoor pop-up hip-hop performance trail taking over unexpected places in city and town landscapes, where anything can become a dancefloor. Four dancers – each armed with a patch of linoleum and sound system – journey through urban environments, throwing shapes as they navigate the uneven surfaces and gradients of the city.

ONLINE:  

Egg is being performed live from Adelaide via Black Box Live. This comedic, topical and moving solo work from award-winning performer Erin Fowler combines dance, clowning, pre-Covid dreams of moving to Scotland and a cheeky life-sized egg to question all things fertility and motherhood.

Fugue in Two Colors is available to watch via Dance Base at ZOOTV. This work explores the ancient relationship between music and dance, using the strict musical form of Dmitri Šostakovitš’s preludes and fugues.

La Galerie by Machine de Cirque is on Assembly Showcatcher. In this piece, seven zany acrobats and an electrifying musician take over a monochrome exhibit. With a creative spark, they set off an explosion of colour.

Madame Modjeska's Fairytale is at Online@theSpaceUK. Winner of LA Times' Best Production and OC Weekly's Best Play awards, acclaimed director Annie Loui and CounterBalance Theater present a hybrid physical theater-animation film, which follows Victorian fantasy characters as they explore the canyons surrounding Arden, a fairytale written by renowned Polish Shakespearean actress Helena Modjeska. 

Musicals and opera

IN PERSON:

On Your Bike! at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall is a toe-tapping new musical about love, labour and leftover pizza. Outside a chicken shop, a group of delivery riders wait for orders, trying to figure out life and love while they do. Threatened by nosy landlords, angry exes and even their own employer, Eatsaroo, they realise they have to group together and take the battle to the bosses. 

ONLINE:

Corona Cutie: A Digital Quest for Love is on Fringe Player. Corona Cutie is a 45-minute musical created completely remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows Claire, a young woman who decides to venture into the world of online dating while quarantining due to coronavirus.

Also on Fringe Player is Suffragettes: Deeds Not Words. This work of epic theatre features original songs, and explores how Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragettes, after a decade of peaceful political dissent, escalated their protest into choreographed violence.

Children’s shows

IN PERSON:

Buff and Sheen – a roaming comedic dance-clown performance – is at Dance Base. In this, two joyful window cleaners tackle their ‘most massive window yet’. Will their dancer-ly skill and ingenuity be enough to get Dance Base’s window shiny shiny? The performance is non-verbal and is a blast of fun for family audiences of all ages and neuro-diversities.

Comedy Club 4 Kids is at Assembly Roxy. Since 2005, the Comedy Club 4 Kids has been getting the best stand-ups and sketch acts from the international circuit to dazzle children (aged 6+) and their families (but without the rude bits!) Featuring a different line-up every day. 

Audiences can catch The Circus Sonas Family Show at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House. Expect circus entertainment for all ages, filled with shouting, cheering, and lots of laughter. 

The Garden of Delight by Theatre Alba is at Duddingston Kirk Manse Gardens. This award-winning, interactive, environmentally focused promenade performance features music and songs for the whole family. Led by Tumshie, the jester, the children are led on a quest round the garden encountering both good and evil magical creatures. The play has a simple environmental message: we must look after the world and care for its ecology before people destroy it forever.

Exhibitions and events

IN PERSON: 

Dance Base Unwrapped is an immersive exhibition experience that will explore physical and digital performances. These works will include the award-winning Take Me to Bed conceived by Luke and Jo Verrent that explores the discomfort of audiences to bodies that are different; We Didn’t Stop Dancing, a digital reel of moments of joy and hope from lockdown that symbolise how the world continued to dance throughout the pandemic; and Living In The Space Between, a hybrid club night and immersive dance installation by Fran.K that represents the years spent dancing in clubs across Scotland.

Agent November's Major X Ploe-Shun – Outdoor Escape Game is happening at Assembly at West Princes Street Gardens. The audience is the hero in this immersive, spy-themed escape game.

Hunt for Treasure Island at The Georgian House Charlotte Square is escape room meets theatre. It’s 1881 and the manuscript for Robert Louis Stevenson’s new novel has just been stolen. His wife Frances is on the case, but she needs your help to get it back before it’s destroyed forever. 

In the exhibition Paperwork, taking place at Whitespace 76, local artists Marion Barron, Trevor Davies and Ruth Thomas present new drawings, collages and paintings on paper.

How this year’s Fringe will work: online, in-person and on-demand shows

This year’s Fringe will look a little different. In 2021, audiences will be able to access a wide range of amazing Fringe shows through socially distanced in-person events, scheduled online performances and on-demand digital shows. Tickets and information for all kinds of registered Fringe shows – live, online, paid and free – can be found at edfringe.com.

In-person shows: Registered live, in-person performances taking place at various outdoor and indoor venues must comply with City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Government covid-related regulations.

At time of writing, one metre social distancing is in place, masks should be worn indoors and regular hand washing and clear ventilation is strongly advised. Many Fringe venues are operating outdoors in 2021.

The Scottish Government has advised that regulations could lift on 09 August (though this is contingent on covid levels and the continued vaccination roll out in Scotland and is subject to review). 

The Fringe Society will be updating audiences and artists regularly on what changing restrictions mean for in-person performances at the Fringe.

Online shows: There will be two kinds of online events available this year: scheduled and on demand. 

With scheduled shows, audiences can buy tickets as they would to a traditional in-person event. Shows will have a dedicated start and end time and are treated as an ‘appointment to view’ event. 

For on-demand shows, audiences can buy tickets to watch at their leisure.

Some online shows will have a viewing window (where the content will be available to watch for a set amount of time). Detailed information about how each individual online event is viewed is clearly available at the point of booking.

Fringe Player and other online platforms: Audiences can view Fringe shows via the brand-new Fringe Player. Available via edfringe.com, this bespoke digital platform offers audiences an exciting new way to engage with Fringe content. 

The player will be accessible to audiences from 06 Aug, with captioning built in. Both on-demand and scheduled online shows are available on this platform.
Where other platforms (such as Zoom, YouTube and Vimeo) are being used to host online work, information on how to access these is clearly provided at the point of purchase.

Online shows will be available to watch from August but can be pre-booked from today.

Tickets and programme: This year and in keeping with reducing contact during in-person interactions, all events will be e-ticketed and shows will be listed online, as there won’t be a printed programme this year. Audiences will be able to attend shows without using paper tickets. More information on ticketing can be found on edfringe.com.

Access at the Fringe 

This has been a challenging year, and a lot has changed about the way live entertainment is presented. But our commitment to making the Fringe accessible will always be a priority.

The Fringe Society provides free a personal assistant ticket for anyone who needs it. You can register for this by emailing [email protected]. We will also provide a bespoke access bookings service on the phone or in-person by appointment. 

This year, we are also continuing our sensory backpack scheme for autistic people, to help make the Fringe experience as enjoyable as possible. Each bag includes a fidget spinner, earplugs, water bottle, stress reliever and a social story. These items are designed to help users relax and overcome stressful or intense situations. This year, to keep things as safe as possible, we are sending the bags out to key partner organisations who will distribute them to their users.

Show announcements still to come

The landscape for live events has been incredibly uncertain for the last few months. The Fringe is nothing if not creative and adaptive, and even when faced with massively reduced timescales, Fringe artists and operators are still getting ready to announce new and innovative work.

As we all keep working to put on the best Fringe we can, we’re excited to see more shows being announced over the next five weeks. Keep an eye on edfringe.com for more.

More tickets are also being added for shows as restrictions ease. Year-round cultural hub Summerhall today adds more tickets for in-person works in its 10th Summerhall Festival Programme running 06 – 29 August 2021 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The capacity increase comes as the Scottish Government eases restrictions and Scotland moves to level zero. Many performances that were previously sold out – including Sex Education Xplorers, Community Circle, My Car Plays Tapes as well as Nothing Ever Happens Here gigs – are once again on sale, with 80 tickets now available for most shows in Summerhall’s new, open air, covid-safe venue The Secret Courtyard. Strict covid safety measures remain in place with tickets available in bubbles of one, two and four to maintain social distancing, regular deep cleans from Summerhall’s in-house professional cleaning company Daybreak, a one-way route across the site and compulsory masks during performances and when moving about the venue.

Sponsors and supporters

As a charity, the work of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society would not be possible without the valuable support of our partners, sponsors and funders. We are delighted to be working with Johnnie Walker for the third year running as our official whisky partner. 

We are excited to be partnering with the newly opened St James Quarter, and Crowdfunder through our FringeMakers fundraising platform, supporting Fringe artists and venues with vital fundraising efforts. This will be launched in the coming weeks. We would like to thank Lothian Buses for their continued support of our Fringe Days Out programme. 

We’re thrilled to welcome Edinburgh Gin on board as a partner in 2021 and look forward to working with them. 

We are grateful for funding through the PLACE Programme, a partnership between the Scottish Government – through Creative Scotland – the City of Edinburgh Council and Festivals Edinburgh; Scottish Government for Made in Scotland through the Festivals Expo Fund – managed through Creative Scotland – and the continued support of the City of Edinburgh Council. Thanks also to Scottish Government for funds from their Get into Summer campaign.

We are grateful for funding from the Pivotal Event Business Fund, the SCVO Adapt and Thrive programme, and the UK Government to enhance our digital capabilities.

Our thanks also to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the Pump House Trust and the Turtleton Charitable Trust.

Our thanks also to our Fringe Angels, Patrons, Friends and supporters whose passion and generosity made a real difference this year.