In June 1968, feminist activist Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol at the Factory in New York, seemingly out of frustration that he would not produce her play Up Your Ass. In August 2025, the play will be staged internationally for the first time at ZOO Southside in Edinburgh. It’s one of those “only at the Fringe” moments.
This year’s theatre offerings also include shows about dating a jailbird (Do You Accept These Charges? at Pleasance Courtyard), an encounter between two Scottish icons (When Billy Met Alasdair, Scottish Storytelling Centre) and dodging the bombing of Pan Am 103 (Fuselage, Pleasance Courtyard).
Fringe mainstay Mark Thomas stars in a new Paines Plough production, Ordinary Decent Criminal, about a recovering addict in a liberal prison experiment, Emma Frankland imagines Kurt Cobain as a trans woman in No Apologies and Poland’s magnificent Song of the Goat Theatre return to the Fringe with Hamlet – Wakefulness, their polyphonic musical interrogation of the origins of Shakespeare’s ultimate anti-hero, all at Summerhall.
Lucie Barat, sister of Libertines’ co-frontman Carl Barat, gets her moment in the spotlight in the autobiographical Standing in the Shadows of Giants at the Traverse, while Fleabag/Baby Reindeer producer Francesca Moody presents Ohio, a show on loss of hearing and faith, starring indie folk duo The Bengsons, at Assembly Roxy.
Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed have staged some of the most stunning Fringe theatre over the last two decades, making their latest production Thanks For Being Here a must-experience at ZOO Southside. Audience participation likely.
Every Fringe needs a blow-off-steam party – this year’s could be Club NVRLND, an immersive nightclub musical based on Peter Pan with a soundtrack of noughties pop bangers, at Assembly Checkpoint.
Still cursing cos you missed last year’s must-see show? Worry not, as past Fringe hits are revived. Miriam Margoyles returns with Margoyles and Dickens: More Best Bits at Pleasance at EICC, as does Ben Volchok with The Ceremony (a Fringe cult if ever we saw one) at Summerhall. Playwright Gary McNair presents a tenth anniversary run of A Gambler’s Guide to Dying at the Traverse and acclaimed New York duo Xhloe and Natasha bring all three of their Fringe First-winning plays – And Then The Rodeo Burned Down. What If They Ate the Baby? and A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First – back to theSpace @ Niddry Street.
