Looking for shows to see at Edinburgh 2023? This is for you…
Edinburgh Fringe is back for 2023! And if you’re anything like us you’ll be looking forward to filling your August days (and nights) with the best new theatre, variety, dance and musicals that the biggest arts festival in the world has to offer. But with over 3000 shows on sale, it can be a daunting task knowing where to get started. But don’t worry, here at Theatre Weekly we’ve pulled together our Pick of The Fringe List – twenty shows to see at Edinburgh 2023.
Maybe you’re in the mood for some new theatre, like Lash by Philip Stokes or Patrick McPherson’s The Way Way Deep, who got rave reviews with their last Fringe outing. If it’s physical theatre you’re after, try The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose, or head to Circus Hub for Lucky Pigeon.
Musical Theatre you’re bag? We’re sure you’ll love Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder at Underbelly George Square which returns in a new expanded version.
Whether you’re in Edinburgh for a couple of days or the whole month, our shows to see at Edinburgh 2023, is the list of shows you won’t want to miss.
Bangers at ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall
It’s club night and the tracks are spinning. Two headliners crossfade between stories of love, sex, and losing their creative spark – set against a backdrop of precarious lives in urban London.
Featuring original tracks inspired by early noughties and present-day R&B and Garage, Bangers follows the highs and lows of two strangers struggling with their own pasts, while hurtling towards the future.
All the while, the DJ continues to play, dropping words of wisdom and banger after banger.
Lash – A Pulsating New Play About Going Out Out! at Pleasance Courtyard
The world premiere of Lash by award-winning playwright and Fringe favourite Philip Stokes, performed by Jack Stokes, winner of the Theatre Weekly Award for Best Solo Performer at last year’s Fringe.
Part gig, part theatre, Lash takes us on a booze-fuelled adrenaline rush, through bustling streets, bouncing clubs, where big tunes and mad characters collide.
Sonny finishes his mundane job. It’s the weekend and time to hit the town, to go ‘out out’ and experience everything a Friday night has to offer a young man. Dodgy dealers even dodgier workmates and the local hard nuts merge into a toxic mix that assaults the senses.
The Way Way Deep at Underbelly Cowgate
Award-winning Patrick McPherson will be making an eagerly anticipated return to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe with his brand-new show, The Way Way Deep.
Having won Best Theatre Show and the Critic’s Choice Award at Perth Fringe for Colossal, Patrick is once again preparing to take audiences on a journey through spoken word, theatre, comedy and music.
Blending bold storytelling, spoken word and original music, McPherson brings his inimitable style to a new piece that follows the ecstasy and chaos of a twenty-year friendship.
Unforgettable Girl at Pleasance Courtyard
Winner of the Pleasance’s Charlie Hartill Fund, Unforgettable Girl was written by and stars Elisabeth Gunawan.
Money can’t buy love, but £19.99/month gets you Unforgettable Girl, a mail-order bride direct from the wasteland of Asian stereotypes. As she strives to become unforgettable, she is forced to transform, destroy and rebuild herself in order to survive. This irreverent bouffon-inspired myth is about the violence our culture inflicts on bodies of colour.
Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story at Pleasance Dome
Combining drag, multimedia, audience interaction, puppetry and queer joy, Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story is a unique celebration of the People’s Princess.
Told by Diana from Heaven, the show highlights her ground-breaking stances on social and queer issues and allows her to speak her (un)truth in breaking free from the monarchy. Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story foregrounds her as the powerful, independent woman she wasn’t meant to be.
The Last Show Before We Die at ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall
Hotter Project (Mary Higgins and Ell Potter) join with their long-term producing partner and collaborator Ellie Keel, to bring their new show The Last Show Before We Die to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Ell and Mary have been dead for three years, but now the creators of HOTTER and FITTER have come back to life (and the stage) with one question on their minds: how do you know when it’s the end? Inspired by zombies, heartbreak, and the humble cockroach, The Last Show Before We Die is an existential verbatim cabaret about the big things in life. And death.
Lucky Pigeons at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows
A treat for the whole family, Brainfools’ high-flying Fringe debut conjures the unearthly world of a flock of energetic, colourful and curious pigeons.
In association with Underbelly, Lucky Pigeons uses polished contemporary circus skills and irresistible humour to tell a surreal new fable about the pecking order of urban society. Expect the unexpected, from jaw dropping juggling to dazzling aerialist tricks and lifts!
The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose at Pleasance Courtyard
The creators of smash hit The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much return with an explosive new show, The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose.
This electrifying thriller by award-winning physical theatre company, Voloz Collective, explores the universal themes of ambition, failure, revenge, and high-risk equity trading. With virtuosic acrobatics, live music, and physical theatre, this madcap tragicomedy unnerves and astounds in a genre-defying cinematic adventure.
Impact at Gilded Balloon Teviot
This a heart-warming story about a Scottish/American bond that was forged out of the Lockerbie bombing . In 1989 playwright and performer Amy Englehardt was a student at Syracuse University.
Five of her friends who had been studying in England were coming home for Christmas on Pan Am Flight 103 and were killed when it was brought down. Shortly after the thirtieth anniversary Amy took a trip to Lockerbie honour her friends.
This is the extraordinary account of that trip and how she was welcomed with exceptional kindness and compassion by the people of the town, how it gave her newfound connections and a renewed hope for humanity
Hello Kitty Must Die at Pleasance Courtyard
Based on the gripping cult novel, from the producers of SIX and The Play That Goes Wrong, the world premiere of Hello Kitty Must Die is a darkly comedic musical mashup: it’s time to kill the Hello Kitty stereotype because women can be anything they aspire to be – even murderers. It’s an outrageously irreverent mash-up of Asian feminism which gets its claws into expectations of family, dating and that cartoon cat, to then tear them to shreds.
Public The Musical at Pleasance Courtyard
Plunge into the pop-rock world of Public – The Musical, exploring identity, connection and compassion, all set to an electrifying new score.
Winner of the Pleasance’s Charlie Hartill Fund and VAULT Origins Award, this witty and sensitive new musical follows four unlikely strangers trapped in a gender-neutral public toilet. With an hour to kill until maintenance arrives, the group must stop themselves from going around the U-bend while navigating unexpected challenges, pungent opinions and some seriously sticky conversations.
Woven at Greenside @ Infirmary Street
Seven women attend a wake where they discover that their lives are mysteriously intertwined. Now, they must untangle the threads. Inspired by The Odyssey, Woven tells the story of seven women coming together as truths comes to light.
Debuting at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the original new musical explores the transformative nature of identity, and the importance of self-discovery in a world that values conformity over authenticity. The show reimagines Homer’s classic tale from a modern perspective through a rich, moving interpretation of its female characters – Penelope, Athena, Helen, Circe, Aphrodite, Hera, and Calypso.
Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder at Underbelly George Square
A new expanded version of Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, the sell-out smash-hit of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022, will return this year for a four week run at Underbelly.
BFFs Kathy and Stella host Hull’s least successful true crime podcast. When their favourite author is killed, they are thrust into a thrilling whodunnit of their own! Can they crack the case (and become global podcast superstars) before the killer strikes again…?
Tones: A Hip-Hop Opera at Pleasance Courtyard
Jerome is a black man in the midst of an identity crisis. His skin tone others him in a white world, yet his voice – his tone – is deemed not quite black enough to fit in with his peers. Produced by Wound Up Theatre and directed by Jonny Kelly, the team behind highly acclaimed Bismillah! An ISIS Tragicomedy and It’ll Be Alt-Right on the Night,
Tones – A Hip-Hop Opera fuses a subcultural soundscape with gig theatre and autobiographical references to explore Black- British identity, class and belonging. Honing the skill set of storytelling through bars has earned writer Gerel Falconer the title of “Rapaturg” and seen him become an important voice in the ever-evolving musical theatre industry.
A Mountain for Elodie at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose
Funny and heartbreaking, A Mountain For Elodie is the new 75-minute solo musical from internationally renowned songwriter Benjamin Scheuer, creator of THE LION and winner of the Drama Desk for Outstanding Solo Performance.
Premiering at the Gilded Balloon’s Patter Hoose venue at the Edinburgh Fringe, this special show is directed by Olivier Award-winner Polly Findlay (Derren Brown: Svengali, Grayson Perry’s A Show For Normal People).
Ice Hole: A Cardboard Comedy at Pleasance Courtyard
The creators of Fringe sensation Fishbowl return to Edinburgh with their latest Molière Award winning production – The Ice Hole: A Cardboard Comedy. This innovative show, in the spirit of Monty Python and with a Laurel and Hardy style twist, is told by two actors with some side-splitting and meticulous theatrical acrobatics. Told using a thousand pieces of cardboard, in a language no-one quite understands, a great actor recounts an epic journey from the fjords of Iceland to the dust of the Spanish desert.
Nobody’s Talking About Jamie at Underbelly Cowgate
It’s a boy meets girl story, with a melodic twist. Regional Finalist for the BBC New Comedy Awards and Finalist for Musical Comedy Awards, Jamie Finn blends storytelling, comedy and original music to explore this story of dizzying romance and the tragedy of friendship.
Sometimes the loss of a friend is more agonising than the loss of a romantic partner. Nobody’s Talking About Jamie celebrates the wilderness of platonic love.
Buff at Pleasance Courtyard
After a bad break-up from a six-year relationship, a plus-sized, gay, primary school teacher decides to sublet his flat to a buff Instagram model. Funny yet poignant, this solo-performed play tackles body image pressures, social media jealousy, and one man’s journey to self-acceptance whilst navigating the toxic world of online dating.
Fresh from its five-star, award-nominated run at VAULT Festival, Buff is a hilarious yet timely story about being plus-sized in the gay community.
Strategic Love Play at ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall
So they’ve both swiped right. Now they’re meeting for the first time. Facing each other. As if that’s a normal thing to do.
But she’s being uncomfortable, and he’s a total bore. The vibe is horrific and the banter is even worse. But something is keeping them in their seats. Something is making them stay. Welcome to your hot date.
With acid wit, Miriam Battye’s new play takes a scalpel to modern romance, interrogating what we really talk about when we talk about love.
An Interrogation at Summerhall
Co-director of the international sensation SIX: The Musical, Jamie Armitage writes and directs the world premiere of his tense and chilling debut play, An Interrogation.
Inspired by true events, and using live-stream cameras to manipulate the audience’s point of view, this thrilling and claustrophobic show cross-examines society’s preconceived ideas about the kinds of people who commit crimes. The production marks the first collaboration between Tony Award-nominated Armitage and Ellie Keel.
