With so many shows to choose from at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, it can be challenging to navigate the extensive programme. Well, fear not, our Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Guide (Volume Two) is now live.
An Ode to a Casting Director
Assembly George Square Studios (August 5 to 29)
She’s auditioning by day, questioning everything by night… An Ode to the Casting Director is a sharp, funny and deeply honest solo show from Sophie Fisher (Project Rabbit, Netflix), following a critically acclaimed Fringe 2026 run. When a young actor enters the relentless world of auditions and industry expectation, she begins to realise the real performance isn’t on stage but in how she is seen, judged and valued. Inspired by Fisher’s own experience in the industry, this breakout solo work explores identity, ambition, and self-worth with vulnerability in the face of the absurdities of casting culture.
Mayflies
Rear Warehouse (Tower Street Entrance) at Brown’s of Leith (August 7 to 30)
Award-winning Fringe favourites Grid Iron present the world premiere of Mayflies, a site-specific adaptation of Andrew O’Hagan’s best-selling novel. Everyone has a Tully Dawson: the friend that defines your life. This tale of ’80s youth and facing mortality in middle age is a joyous and heartbreaking elegy to the young people we still carry within us. With an epic soundtrack forged straight from the heart of the 80s, a former metalworks in Leith echoes the iconic venues of Manchester’s music scene, providing an ideal setting for this love letter to friendship, and a pledge: go at life differently.
Mr Bergmann of Deadman’s Point
The Vault at Paradise in The Vault (August 8 to 30)
A new play based on the extraordinary true story of Ireland’s most famous unidentified man, the so-called Peter Bergmann. He spent three days in Sligo mysteriously erasing his identity and was later found on a lonely shoreline. Told through the eyes of an embalmer racing against time to cement his own legacy, it is a spellbinding and comic tale exploring legacy, reputation, and what it is to live close to death. One of the great modern mysteries, brought to you by the multi-award-winning Nth Degree Productions.
Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Guide (Volume Two)
Broke & Fabulous in the 21st Century
Gilded Balloon Patter House (August 5 to 31)
Created by and starring Dale Robertson, Broke & Fabulous in the 21st Century is a sharp, funny new comedy about friendship, ambition and surviving London as a young artist. Best friends Alex and Petunia are determined to make creative lives for themselves while juggling precarious work, visa pressures, complicated love lives and the relentless pressure to “make it”. When they unknowingly become involved with the same man, loyalty, ego and romance collide in unexpected ways.
Forget About Me
Pleasance Courtyard (August 5 – 31)
Performed, designed and co-written by Dylan Howells, Forget About Me is a funny, frightening and inventive new collaboration between Despite the Monkey and Worklight Theatre. Set in a remote village where something unsettling lurks in the bathroom, the show blends mind-bending mentalism, ghost stories, and theatrical illusions to explore memory, childhood, and the things we try to leave behind. Co-written and directed by Harry Machray, this hauntingly playful solo show asks what happens when the past refuses to stay buried.
Heart Beats Strong
Pleasance Courtyard (August 5 to 31)
Three birthdays. Three boys. One night that changes everything. Based on the performers’ own teenage diaries, Heart Beats Strong is a funny, fast-paced and deeply personal new show from Kickdrum. Blending physical theatre, dance and storytelling, it follows three young men on the cusp of adulthood as they navigate friendship, identity and the moments that shape who they become. Created by Alfie Wickham, Kai Porter and Noah Manzoor, this joyful and energetic exploration of modern masculinity celebrates vulnerability, connection and growing up.
Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Guide (Volume Two)
Georgina Thomas: Hysterical Soprano
Underbelly Bristo Square (August 5 to 31)
She’s chasing operatic greatness by day, spiralling into delusion by night… Georgina Thomas: Hysterical Soprano is a gloriously unhinged musical comedy from critically acclaimed comic and classically trained soprano Georgina Thomas. Determined to become the world’s greatest soprano, Georgina embarks on a chaotic quest involving an old witch, a bitter rival and more than a few existential crises. Blending virtuosic singing with razor-sharp comedy, this bold solo debut explores ambition, ego and the terror of being perceived.
Angels in America
King’s Theatre (August 15 – 20)
Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is an epoch-defining work of American theatre. Set at the height of the AIDS crisis, yet enduringly relevant, we follow the story of two very different people grappling with their diagnoses – former drag queen Prior and vindictive lawyer Roy Cohn.
Kushner has credited this radical reworking from director Ivo van Hove and Internationaal Theatre Amsterdam (ITA) as his favourite version of the play. Set on a minimal stage and accompanied by a David Bowie soundtrack, the two parts of the play are combined into one epic performance.
Returning to the Festival following their innovative works, A Little Life (2022) and Penthesilea (2024), ITA presents another pioneering production showcasing their signature wit, stagecraft, and incisive storytelling. Angels in America is a gripping and hilarious work reminding us that while change and death are inevitable, the choice to love can be transformative.
I Brought a Flip Phone
ZOO Playground 2 (August 7 – 30)
He’s deleting social media by day, questioning every life choice by night… I Bought A Flip Phone is a candid, nostalgic and hilarious Fringe debut from Panos Kandunias. Fed up with endless scrolling and watching everyone else’s lives look better than his own, Charlie swaps his iPhone for a 2002 flip phone, convinced it will solve all his problems. What follows is a sharp, funny exploration of loneliness, queer desire and the search for connection in an ultra-connected world.
Edinburgh Fringe 2026 Guide (Volume Two)
Racists, Recessions & Revolutions
ZOO Playground 3 (August 7 to 30)
Girl, I’m bored, let’s go spread fake news… Racists, Recessions & Revolutions is a darkly funny and unsettling new play about the global rise of misinformation. When a group of teens in a small Macedonian town stumble into the early internet fake-news boom, one young woman is pulled into a lucrative world of political manipulation, viral lies, and digital chaos. As the hustle spreads from a kitchen table to an international crisis, the line between truth and profit begins to collapse.
In a Bad Way
Gilded Balloon Patter House (August 5 to 31)
She’s back at the doctor’s office for the fifth time this month… In A Bad Way is a fast-paced, darkly funny solo show from Irish playwright Isolde Fenton. Convinced something is seriously wrong, Grá spirals through symptoms, self-diagnoses and worst-case scenarios in a frantic search for certainty. Drawing on Fenton’s own experiences of anxiety, this sharp comedy explores overthinking, hypochondria and the chaos of a mind that never switches off.
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