The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is on throughout the entire month of August, showcasing some of the brightest performing talent from across the globe
Here are just four of our favourite shows from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe so far, including comedy, thrillers, silliness and more.
1. Abrasion at Gilded Balloon Patter House
Where: 3 Chambers St, Edinburgh EH1 1HT
When: 13th – 26th August
Meg-Rose Dixon’s 50-minute, one-woman show follows the comedian’s journey through her endometriosis diagnosis, set on the anniversary of her major operation for the condition.
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This dark comedy is filled with turbulent embarrassing moments – flipped in a comical way, of course. Don’t be alarmed! The show is far from doom and gloom. Using an impressive catalogue of accents and impressions, Meg quotes verbatim anecdotes of some of her most outrageous appointments and conversations, both with medical professionals and the people closest to her – each as entertaining (and somewhat unsettling) as the last.
Ultimately, through endless laughs, this show highlights the importance of patient care, terrible doctors and a few genuine heroes. This is a darkly funny show that laughs in the face of pain while shedding light on a condition that affects 1.5 million people, but has an average diagnosis wait time of 7.5 years.
I left the Gilded Balloon Patter House (venue 26) with a sore stomach from laughing and a heart burning with a desire for change.
Follow Meg Rose-Dixon on Instagram | Buy your tickets for Abrasion
2. Oh, Calm Down at Cairns Lecture Theatre, Summerhall
Where: 1, Summerhall, Newington, Edinburgh EH9 1PL
When: 13th – 18th & 20th – 26th August
On a sunny and blistery Saturday afternoon in August, I took my seat in Cairns Lecture Theatre in Summerhall, totally unprepared for the emotional rollercoaster I was about to experience.
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As the show synopsis reads: It’s 1999. Lucy is in labour. She’s just been handed a document to sign and her sense of self is beginning to deteriorate. It’s 2024. Claire is an art student. Her latest panic attack means her art course could be over. Oh, and she can’t stop contemplating her own mortality. Misdiagnosis, mistreatment and misinformation were rife back then. And still are now… Claire and Lucy have OCD. But they don’t know that yet.
Oh, Calm Down brings as many tears as it does giggles. Comedian and writer Charlotte Anne-Tilley has the audience wrapped around her finger, beautifully flipping between the light-hearted and the harrowing – in one second, she tells knowing jokes about loving Paul Mescal; the next, she switches to scarily accurate portrayals of the fear and panic one feels when they’re about to lose a loved one.
I was not expecting to get emotional at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, but the beautiful representation of motherhood, generational trauma and ‘the plight of a woman’ captured the female experience at its roughest yet most beautiful – and brought me to tears.
Buy your tickets for Oh, Calm Down
3. Things Between Heaven and Earth at the Underbelly Bristo Square
Where: Teviot Place, EH8 9AG
When: 14th – 26th August
This psychological thriller has echoes of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Rosemary’s Baby, playing with topics of female “hysteria” and male sexual identity.
On the 10th anniversary of her husband’s death, May adds the finishing touches to the table settings just as the doorbell rings. Beside her lies a hardcover book titled Things Between Heaven and Earth by Eric Lee. This is it. The moment of truth. But as May welcomes Eric with a warm embrace, their conversation takes an unexpected and unsettling turn.
This show was my first viewing of the day – and a lot more intense than I was expecting. The one-hour show leads you through various scenes in the author’s life, with flashbacks to some of the moments that made his career. Right next to him, is the petite and unassuming best friend, May, who harshly drags him back to reality with cutting words that pierce Eric’s air of superiority.
This is an interesting watch – one you must see for yourself and let us know what you think.
Buy your tickets for Things Between Heaven and Earth
4. Improvabunga at theSpace @ Niddry Street
Where: Niddry St, Edinburgh EH1 1TH
When: 2nd – 3rd; 5 – 10; 12 – 17; 19 – 24 August
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This is complete and utter fun. Step through theSpace doors for silliness in abundance as improv troop ‘Watch This’ lead the audience through twisted storylines that are ever-changing and ever-hilarious.
The premise of the show is built on audience participation – we choose the genre, the topic and the location, and the troop will do the rest. Slightly chaotic in their delivery but witty and quick all the same, the harmless shows was a welcome hit of easy relief after a day of emotionally heavier perfromances.
Recommended for families, too!
Buy your tickets for Improvabunga
