Fringe Reviews 2026 – Must See!

Amanda Knox: Cartwheel

A one woman show about motherhood – Combining sharp wit with deeply personal reflection, Amanda Knox’s new show explores how what happens after the worst thing imaginable is over. A woman approaching forty, she finds herself juggling motherhood alongside an existential crisis nobody prepares you for.

 

Anna Thomas: How To Juggle A Ferret @Annathommy

A debut comedy show from BBC New Comedy Award Winner about moving back in with her mother, as well as dealing with grief when a couple of her friends had died. ‘Whatever planet she’s from, they know funny.’ ★★★★ Chortle

 

Bebe Cave: Swoon  @bebecave  

A second comedy show from The List’s Best Comedy Show 2025 Winner. The show draws on the eerie world of the Pre Raphaelites, Victorian ideals of femininity and the cautionary tales girls are raised on, Cave builds a universe where women are rewarded for being still, silent and decorative, and punished the moment they show signs of life “Dementedly funny and fast-paced.” ★★★★★The Scotsman

 

Burger and a Pint: Treats for the Soul @burgerandpintcomedy

A fast-paced sketch show from the Leicester Square Sketch Off 2024 Winners about male friendship and the strange, often funny experience of getting older without quite feeling like you have. “Fast-paced humour with a bit of youthful charm” Beyond The Joke

 

Chad Goes Deep: Chill Towards Enlightenment – A Stoke Seminar with Chad @chadgoesdeep

Comedian, podcaster and professional spreader of stoke Chad Goes Deep heads to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer with Chill Towards Enlightenment, a live comedy experience that blends his perception-altering take on existence with the self-improvement worlds of TED Talks, wellness retreats and Tony Robbins-style motivational seminars. Part enlightenment quest, part parody and part genuine life coaching session, Chill Towards Enlightenment sees Chad tackle humanity’s biggest questions. How do we find purpose? What does it mean to truly surrender? Is manifestation real? And perhaps most importantly, how can we all be more chill? Chad Goes Deep is the comedy creation of Tom Allen, one half of the comedy duo behind the Netflix series Chad and JT Go Deep. Through podcasts, live shows and viral videos, Chad has built a passionate global audience by combining absurd humour with genuine curiosity about personal growth, spirituality and modern life. Alongside JT Parr, Chad has appeared on Netflix and amassed millions of views online through their unique brand of prank comedy, satirical activism and relentlessly positive outlook. Their work has been praised for balancing surreal comedy with an unexpectedly wholesome message.

Charlene Kaye: Diversity Shredder                 @Charlenekaye

A Musical Comedy Hour about her experience as an Asian American, queer female guitarist in the music industry, part musical, part stand-up with songs. she amasssed over 100 million views through musical breakdowns and parodies such as “Every Taylor Swift Song.” Her viral TED Talk on K-Pop has reached millions more!

 

Dan Rath: Help Me Please

Multi-award-winning Australian comedian – I can’t describe his show – it’s  a lot of jokes. He says “We treat A.I. with more dignity than the mentally ill. When A.I hallucinates they invest billions of dollars to train it to get smarter. But Steve gets on the bus and calls everyone a lizard and he gets tasered.” His debut special I’m Not Doing Well Folks, released by 800 Pound Gorilla in March 2024, has amassed over 120k views on YouTube

 

Making Love with David Magidoff

David Magidoff (Dexter) is turning tear drops into punchlines through improvised musical comedy. He is joined by BRIT Award-winning musician Fran Healy of Travis, comedians Mike Wozniak, Mark Watson, and BAFTA-nominee Rosie Jones, with more guests to be announced. Hot off the Netflix is a Joke Festival and midway through a three-year sold-out “tour-de-force” run at Los Angeles’ iconic Elysian Theater, the show sees Magidoff interview a celebrity guest about a real wild love story from their life. He and his cast of world-renowned improvisers including Stephanie Courtney (Mad Men), Kimberly Condict (Shrinking), alongside Grammy-nominated rapper Propaganda, Josh Cake and Karen Hall, turn the story into a fully madcap improvised musical performed live on stage.

 

Ele McKenzie: Bringing It All Back Home @ele_mckenzie

Royal Television Society Breakthrough Award winner’s show is also about moving home in your 30’s. with a show title that nods to Bob Dylan’s iconic album. The show  leans into the idea of “arrested development,” conceived in the liminal space of Ele’s childhood bedroom (now, once again, her present), where teenage paraphernalia sits uneasily alongside adult expectations and progress feels uncertain at best. It traces the slow realisation that growing up is not a clean transition, but something messier, stranger, and more circular than we’re often led to believe. She has been in Channel 4’s Finding Father Christmas, BAFTA-nominated Peaked and Everyone Else Burns, and BBC’s Funboys.

 

Elf Lyons Is The Woman on the Edge

Sky Arts Award Best Comedy winner’s show is about how she and her fiancé broke up last year, whilst she was on tour in Australia. With nods to Vertigo, Apollo 13 and the opera Pagliacci, continuing her reputation for creating work that is both multi-genre and crosses between the boundaries of comedy, theatre and live art. Expect a collision of forms. Mime, opera, stand-up, character and verbatim theatre sit side by side alongside audio recordings, bouncy castles and a fragmented mind that won’t stay in one place. “… I adored every silly-filly bit of it and I can’t think of many performers who combine such bravura comic invention with such livewire pluck.” ★★★★★ The Telegraph

 

Eric Lampaert: Zero Minus One

Comedian, Actor most recently seen staring as The Thing With Feathers alongside Benedict Cumberbatch brings his show about him having total amnesia to the fringe. He opens up about rebuilding an identity from nothing. Following a period of euphoria, confusion and profound disconnection, the amnesia and whole experience forms the basis of this striking and darkly funny hour. “Provides a constant frisson of energy with his loose, animated style”

★★★★ Chortle

 

Geoffrey Asmus: Patriautism

Brings his take on the decline of the American Empire across the pond to a country that knows a thing or two about it, offering an outsider’s perspective on both America and the UK. He was selected as a New Face at Just For Laughs Montreal and has featured on FOX’s Laughs and Kevin Hart’s LOL Network. Fresh from a sell-out US tour, he has opened for Daniel Sloss, Sam Morril, Ari Shaffir, Mark Normand, Dan Soder and Dave Attell.

 

An (Early) Evening with Gregor Fisher                               

Following a hugely successful tour, Scottish acting legend Gregor Fisher invites audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to an intimate hour of memories, laughter and the kind of behind-the-scenes tales you won’t find on IMDb.

 

Gyles Brandreth: Up Memory Lane!

In this show the audience has to play ball – literally!  Gyles and Harriet (Rosebud cohost and producer) will be throwing a ball into the audience: whoever catches it will have to share a family secret or pay a fun forfeit.  This is a show that promises a lot of LAUGHS, a few TEARS. And some SONGS. Cue the music!

 

Hasan Al-Habib: Stuck in the Middle (East) with You @ amusingarab       

A show that stems from his parents divorce, family and what happens when love and resentment sit side by side, Stuck in the Middle (East) with You takes a clear-eyed but often very funny look at growing up in a household defined by conflict, approaching difficult material with a lightness that never undercuts it. Finding humour in experiences that might otherwise feel impossible to articulate, Hasan’s latest work offers a candid and deeply personal exploration of his relationship with his mother and the domestic abuse he has experienced from her and his aunt within the past year. Most recently seen on BBC 2’s Pilgrimage. “…has cultivated an agile, reactive wit, mastery of accents and shifting persona to deflect the condescension and micro-aggressions he’s endured”  ★★★★The Scotsman

 

Jenny Gorelick: Sorry

A show about a series of painfully relatable stories gradually opens into something more revealing: an exploration of how women are conditioned to second-guess themselves, smooth things over, and apologise for simply existing, while men, from disappointing boyfriends to those in positions of real power, move through the world without the same scrutiny. She also has a book out at the moment called Red Flags which ties in to this show Jenny is a  comedian, actor, writer, two-time Emmy-Nominated producer, and former Jersey girl, based in New York. “fiercely funny,” “ever-charming,” and “crushworthy comedian” by Time Out New York.

 

Jeremy Lion: ‘My Life’

The legendary children’s entertainer promises a look back over his extraordinary life as he takes us from his childhood dreams right up to the present day, revisiting glittering triumphs, crushing disappointments and moments best left unexamined. Jeremy Lion is the creation of award-winning actor and comedian Justin Edwards, whose extensive credits across theatre, film, television and radio include Educating Rita (Barn Theatre, Cirencester), The Ferryman (West End and Broadway), The Comedy of Errors (RSC), Twitstorm (Park Theatre), 1917, Yesterday, The Death of Stalin, Wonka, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pride and Prejudice, The Franchise, Avenue 5, The Thick of It, Veep, The Outlaws, Ghosts, Black Mirror, Death in Paradise, Endeavour, W1A, Father Brown, The Trip, EastEnders, Black Books, In and Out of the Kitchen, The Unbelievable Truth, The News Quiz, Cabin Pressure and The Consultants. “Gloriously, excruciatingly funny” The Telegraph

 

Jess Fuchs: Feral

Jess Fuchs left home to avoid her problems and returned even more broken. Not all those who wander are lost. Sure… but some who wander are walking slowly because they’ve shattered their coccyx on the Cliffs of Moher. Sometimes it takes literally breaking your ass on the Cliffs of Moher to realise you were fine all along…and it was the trying to change that was the problem. “At her finest, she can unleash a flurry of withering, impudent gags worthy of Joan Rivers.” Chortle

 

Jonathan Oldfield: Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse takes its name from an old game in which participants each draw a different part of a body. Exquisite Corpse invites audiences to join the mayhem, switch off slightly and go with it, as characters appear quickly, unpredictably, and often without warning. Jonathan leans into instinct rather than over-explanation, pushing beyond the audience’s logical frontal cortex in search of the universal funny bone underneath. He plays Joydali in season 2 of Star Wars: Andor on Disney+. He is a BBC New Comedy Award Finalist 2024, Musical Comedy Awards Finalist 2025 and second place winner in the Leicester Square Theatre Sketch Off 2024. He starred in the play Kanpur: 1857 by Niall Moorjani, which won a Scotsman Fringe First Award and was winner of the Pleasance Charlie Hartill Award at Edinburgh Fringe 2025. “Brilliant… Pitch-perfect” Observer

 

Maya Ricote: Ay Am!

Telenovela star turned clown! The show sees Maya wants one thing: she wants to be seen, understood, and heard (3 things). She wants a voice and freedom to do what she pleases (fine, 5 things). And this witch disguised as a marketing genius, years ahead of her time, convinces Maya that she’s done all the research and SHE and ONLY SHE, can make her a star, (just as long as she undergoes a couple of procedures and waits for the time to be right (Witches love Caveats)). That time is Now. Co-created with Dan Lees (master clown muso), winner of The Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality 2022. He has directed shows for Julia Masli, the Duncan Brothers, Viggo Venn amongst many other contemporary clown artists.

 

Omar Badawy: Guided Detour

The show follows Omar on his way across London to a party, in Viking fancy dress, while avoiding a serious conversation about his girlfriend’s visa and the possibility of marriage.

Rory Marshall: Thank You For The Opportunity. However, he finds himself caught in the middle of a far-right march. As the day unfolds, the show broadens to take in topics like identity, family and British culture, as well as the ways people avoid difficult decisions. The march itself becomes a backdrop for exploring aggression, tribalism and ideological certainty, all things Omar instinctively resists. Badawy is a writer on Saturday Night Live UK, where his work has included Riz Ahmed’s opening monologue, Weekend Update jokes and sketches. Alongside his writing, he has built a strong reputation on the UK circuit for gag-heavy stand-up routines that combine sharp political observation with personal material. His previous credits include being a finalist in the BBC New Comedy Award, winner of So You Think You’re Funny

 

Rory Marshall

Chortle award nominated comedian – Rory has done a lot of jobs. Some he loved and is very proud of, some that were hell on earth and he wishes he never did. From hospitality roles as a bartender, chef, waiter, hotel porter and kitchen porter, to more practical work like window cleaning, labouring and gardening, to jobs that don’t really fit into any category at all, most notably, putting hose pipes inside other hose pipes. His previous job was literally just making cardboard boxes: perfect. The characters from this show all come from people he has met along the way. Rory Marshall is a comedian, actor and writer. His debut show was named one of The Times’ Top Three Debut Comedy Shows of 2025, one of The Observer’s Highlights of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe, and one of the Best-Reviewed shows of the Edinburgh Fringe (comedy.co.uk). has appeared in Riz Ahmed’s Bait on Amazon, and on BBC’s Starstruckand Ellie & Natasia. “Deliciously good… a real Fringe find” ★★★★ The Times

 

Sam Eley is Basil Crumbwick: Soul Sewage

This is a chaotic and absurdist character comedy hour centred around a deeply strange creation by Leicester Square Sketch-Off 2025 winner Sam Eley. Basil Crumbwick, a 64-year-old English weirdo navigating everyday life, influenced by Vic and Bob, Alan Partridge and Brass Eye, Soul Sewage is first and foremost, a fast-paced and absurd hour of comedy, packed with jokes, silliness and elements of clowning. “…stacked with incredible jokes, this was one of the most impressive sets I’ve seen in a long time – debut or otherwise. At one point I was in danger of throwing up from laughing,”                 Tim Harding, Chortle

 

Spencer Jones: Dogs

A chaotic, strange and unexpectedly heartfelt hour about dogs, humans and what happens when being forced to care for something else makes you rethink how you live. He created Big Babies, nominated for a BAFTA, and wrote and starred in The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk for the BBC. He appeared in three series of Upstart Crow and starred in Mr Winner, both for the BBC, and featured in five episodes of the global hit Ted Lasso. “This show is a work of art that rejoices in pointlessness, and I cared about it very much.” ★★★★ The Telegraph

The Sumo Show HIRAKUZA

The Sumo Show HIRAKUZA will make its Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut this summer, bringing audiences an introduction to one of Japan’s oldest sporting traditions through a live theatrical experience.

The Sumo Show HIRAZUKA gives audiences the chance to see Sumo demonstrated and performed by former professional sumo wrestlers, whilst offering audiences the chance to discover the history, rules, rituals and techniques behind sumo, Japan’s national sport.

 

Lorna Rose Treen: Now That’s What I Call Characters Instalorns  

Award Winnng Comedian Lorna is launching her debut tour Now That’s What I Call Characters  at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August, where doing what she does best – a silly and joyful hour of nonsense character comedy. Alongside the show, Lorna is a writer for Saturday Night Live UK, where she has written sketches for Tina Fey, Aimee Lou Wood, Jack Whitehall, and the topical Cold Opens, as well as appearing in multiple sketches. Series Two of her acclaimed parody radio programme Time of the Week, co-created with Jonathan Oldfield and starring Sian Clifford (Fleabag) aired on BBC Radio 4 in December 2025. Time of The Weekwon British Comedy Guide’s Best Radio Sketch Show 2024 and was nominated for the ARIA’s Best Comedy Award 2025. Lorna has a thriving online following with over 180,000 Instagram followers and 141,000 TikTok followers, where her viral parody street interviews and sketch content which has regularly culminated in over a 100 million views online. “Oddball character-based comedy like no other.”    ★★★★★ Evening Standard