In the latest on-sale, the Pleasance have ensured the programme is packed full of the best comedy, theatre and performance! Pleasance favourites Seann Walsh and Tall Stories will be back this year. There’s even more to enjoy online with a new digital showcase as well as the National Partnership Award shows heading to the world wide web. Keep an eye on the website and social media channels for rolling additions to the so you can snap up tickets when they become available.
Comedy
Seann Walsh will return once more to the Pleasance! He has renamed his show because after the year we’ve had Same Again? cut too close to the bone, but Back from the Bed (formerly Same Again?) will be unmissable after a difficult year in which millions of decent people tragically lost their lives to TikTok. Making his Edinburgh debut having sold out three UK tours, Aurie Styla is ready to see what all the fuss is about. In a guaranteed hour of hilarity, he’ll bring some of his best routines and road-test material for his new tour.
Maniac is the new work-in-progress from Rachel Fairburn and she’s promising dark humour, a bit of filth and probably some misplaced outrage about everything from insomniacs to slasher movies.
Sam Lake, winner of Leicester Square Theatre’s New Comedian of the Year, comes to Edinburgh with an hour of stand-up talking about his #GOALS, and how he copes with succeeding and (more often) failing at them. Join Tom Lucy, star of ITV and Comedy Central, as he tests brand-new material; or catch an hour of new stand-up material from two rising comedy stars, everyone’s favourite Mancunian Josh Jones (8 Out of 10 Cats), and Newcastle’s hilarious Louise Young (So You Think You’re Funny finalist).
Theatre
Fairies. Goblins. Donkeys… Super Soakers!? With bed sheets for togas, A Rubbish Midsummer Night’s Dream returns to stage Shakespeare’s mischievous comedy, using only a box of pound-shop props, a camel onesie, some lightsabers and a ladder.
Online
Although live shows are back with a vengeance, the online programme is still a crucial way to ensure audiences can enjoy the Fringe without being there in person. Join an adventurous young girl and her seafaring father as Tall Stories reimagine a tiny snail’s incredible trip around the world, inspired by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved book, The Snail and the Whale.
Pleasance’s new pilot programme, The Edinburgh Fringe Digital Showcase in partnership with The Academy of Music & Theatre Arts (AMATA) at Falmouth University, will present a fantastic range of shows. AMATA’s world-class broadcast and creation studios will become a hub for livestreams, on-sale with the AMATA box office. If you can’t make the stream, tickets are now available for catch-up viewing on the Fringe Player following the livestream.
This project is funded by the Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants, Falmouth University, Pleasance Theatre Trust, AMATA, Hall for Cornwall, and supported by Sennheiser. The line-up includes Jam First’s Hellish, The Sian Clarke Experience, Owdyado presenting Twisted Tales Goes to The Fringe, Arthur Smith’s SYD, Natasha’s Brown’s I am (Not) Kanye West, and Coppice Theatre’s children’s show Science Adventures – The Power Pickle.
These will be joined by three further on-demand productions. Ten years after Scott Davies drowned in the heart of Cambridge, you have been called to a remote inquest; together with eleven others, a police archivist, and a coroner, your duty is to determine the events that led up to his death in The Inquest. The Urban Playground Team combine their distinctive performance-parkour dance, speed and height with Attenborough’s smooth narrative to tell the story of a group of humans on the verge of forgetting how to move in Zoo Humans. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is reimagined through live music and shadow puppetry in RAT: the tale of a curious man who offers to help a corrupt town in crisis by driving away its vermin infestation.
Following runs at the London venue, the National Partnership Award shows, presented by Pleasance and regional theatres around the UK, will also be available online to enjoy. DESTINY, supported by Bristol Old Vic Ferment, is a semi-autobiographical monologue by Florence Espeut Nickless; it explores the life of a teenage girl growing up on a rural Wiltshire council estate that spirals out of control as she desperately tries to learn how to love and be loved. Supported by Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Look No Hands is inspired by writer Lila Clements’ own cycling collision and explores the female cycling experience and Post Traumatic Growth.
Recipient of the 2021 National Partnership Award by Theatre Royal Plymouth is Moist, Moist, Moist: part poetry, part stand-up, part gig, this spoken-word show is from one of the UK’s soggiest submerging artists, Chris White. Prison Game is supported by HOME Manchester and performed by Marcus Hercules; developed using real life accounts, it tells the story of how prison can define a man and deals with the effects of institutionalisation on individuals and the people around them. Award-winner with Curve Theatre, Leicester, It Kind of Looks Like A Doughnut is a story about sexuality and sexual health steeped in the beautiful bluntness of the rural East Midlands.
It may be a year unlike any other, but the Pleasance are striving to ensure that their Edinburgh Fringe venues are full of the most vibrant and exciting shows. With performances to enjoy in Edinburgh, London and online, make sure you check out the Pleasance’s programme this summer!
