From avant-garde theatre to late-night cabaret, these are the New Statesman critic’s roundup of the best, strangest and most memorable things at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe festival.
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel – Tim Crouch (Shedinburgh)
Visionary theatre-maker Tim Crouch brought back his 2022 show Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel for a limited run at Francesca Moody’s popup venue Shedinburgh – a moving and mind-bending deep dive into King Lear and the existential threats facing theatre. Crouch took particular aim at the alienating use of screens in modern performances.
The show also contained one of the most complex and offensive jokes I have ever heard told on stage. Crouch briefly transformed himself into an unholy cross between Bernard Manning and Stewart Lee as he riffed on the royal family, testing the audience’s limits while simultaneously dissecting the mechanics of the joke. It was jaw-dropping, extremely funny and entirely consistent with a show preoccupied with what live theatre can do that other artforms can’t.
Buggers – Alistair Hall (Pleasance Theatre)
A searing portrait of the complex and troubled relationship between Francis Bacon and George Dyer. Erotic, energised and dangerous, this new play about sadomasochism and art kept audiences utterly gripped. Running well under an hour, Alice Wordsworth’s taut production is well worth seeing (if you can get a ticket).
Slugs – Creepy Boys (Summerhall)
This fabulously absurd late-night performance is back for the second year, again at Summerhall. Initially, it feels totally silly as the two Canadian performers lurch about in sleeping bags to dance music. Gradually, however, the show opens up gaping existential questions as the duo try to conceive of a show which avoids any trending issues or even serious topics. When earnestness does creep in, it is totally, wonderfully earnt, and immediately undercut with witty nihilism.
Coyotes – Christopher Brett Bailey (Shedinburgh)
Christopher Brett Bailey presented a reading, produced by Soho Theatre, of his eerie new show Coyotes. What began with the atmosphere of a Sam Shepard play – lonely roads, uneasy Americana and people who seemed to have wandered in from the wrong end of the desert – became progressively stranger. An odd-couple crime thriller slowly twisted itself into a dark story of twincest, as Bailey pushed its characters and language into new and unsettling territory. Even in this pared-back form, Coyotes had the quality of a dream whose internal logic only becomes apparent once it has turned into a nightmare.
The Entertainer – Alfie Brown (Underbelly Cowgate)
Brown references his cancellation early in this set: in 2023 he was pilloried online for using the N-word in a 2015 routine, and he lost his agent and most of his work. But rather than tell a sob story or defend his younger self, Brown’s new hour of material is a profoundly sardonic meditation on comedy and his own life, including his kids and relationship with fellow comedian Jessie Cave. Cynical and witty, Brown engages smartly with audience discomfort in a way that feels refreshing and confronting. Less effective are the indulgent anti-Trump rants – but Brown is a masterful writer and performer who interrogates the form of comedy in rich and surprising ways.
Josh Sharp: An Hour of Crowd Work in the Round (Shedinburgh)
NYC comic Josh Sharp filled an enjoyable hour riffing on the audience’s jobs in Josh Sharp: An Hour of Crowd Work in the Round. Social media has made crowd work a requirement for any enterprising young comedian, often trading on creating a viral moment to clip later. Sharp pulled that requirement apart, urging his audience to turn their phones off while destroying his own. What followed was an hour of pure magic.
The Plot – Emma Howlett (Summerhall)
Emma Howlett’s The Plot, in Summerhall’s Main Hall, was an intellectual and visually striking interrogation of the under-explored links between Macbeth and the Gunpowder Plot. As the play developed, it became a razor-sharp examination of Britain’s paranoia towards the enemy within. Tightly packed while maintaining a dizzying pace, Howlett has secured her place as a Fringe darling.
Remember, Remember! (Pleasance Dome)
Guy Fawkes was also all the rage over at the Pleasance Dome, where Remember, Remember! offered a camp and hilarious alternate history of the Gunpowder Plot, gleefully abandoning the solemnity with which the story is usually treated. It must also earn this year’s award for best use of a prosthetic. One practical warning though: if you are sitting in the front row, wear a raincoat.
Good With Faces – Oisín Kearney (Summerhall)
Good With Faces, a gripping thriller about social care from writer-director Oisín Kearney, played in Summerhall’s Tech Cube. The small space was poorly attended at the preview I caught, but this sinewy, brilliantly acted story deserves a full house.
Its dark reflection on postpartum depression has acquired a new salience in the wake of the Lindsay Clancy trial, but Kearney resists turning mental illness into a plot device or a morality tale, instead taking the play in an altogether more Freudian direction.
Swoon – Bebe Cave (Pleasance Dome)
Comedy highlights included Bebe Cave’s Swoon at the Pleasance Dome, a delightfully witty and madcap race through the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite muses. Cave has charm in buckets and a comic’s instinct for ad-libbing a punchline, sending up the grand passions and ludicrous men who gave us some of Britain’s most famous paintings, while letting the muses finally tell their side of the story.
Cave is one of the most exciting young voices in British comedy at the moment. Swoon feels like another indication that she is destined for stardom.
Stamptown – Zack Zucker (Assembly George Square Gardens)
Stamptown, hosted by American comedian Zack Zucker, brought its customary late-night raucous energy to Assembly George Square. It felt less edgy than in previous years – the dangers of receiving a stamp of approval from Netflix – but as a showcase for performers operating at the festival’s more eccentric fringes, it remained a fun way to end a night.
The Last Mad Man – Steven Phillips-Horst (Assembly Roxy)
Americans were indeed everywhere. Writer-performer Steven Phillips-Horst brought The Last Mad Man to Assembly Roxy, a whip-smart satire about the apocalypse, deftly directed by Amitai Landau-Pope. Its weaponisation of PowerPoint and puns had the audience in stitches, turning the cold corporate language of presentations, branding and comms on its head.
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