Bigfoot, ‘slutfluencers’ and a David Bowie-powered gay fantasia: Edinburgh festival 2026’s must-see theatre
Plays about political extremes, religious sects, swimming the Channel and an 80th birthday party are among the highlights at this summer’s arts spectacular
Roleplay
Producer Francesca Moody has shown a sure touch for spotting fringe hits (Fleabag and Baby Reindeer among them). Her new offering, by Australia’s Hannah Reilly, is about a feminist podcaster who becomes an online “slutfluencer” to earn some easy money, but has a price to pay.
Summerhall, 6-31 August
Mayflies
Andrew O’Hagan’s coming-of-age novel about 1980s youth is given the site-specific treatment by Edinburgh’s Grid Iron in a former metalworks that doubles as a Manchester gig venue. Ben Harrison adapts and directs.
Brown’s of Leith, 7-30 August
After Party
Paines Plough’s Katie Posner directs an epic drama by Morna Young in which family secrets erupt on the night of an actor’s 80th birthday celebrations. Billed as a darkly comic exploration of personal freedoms and life-defining choices, it has a post-festival run at the Belgrade, Coventry.
Traverse, 6-30 August
116 Grams: A Play to Lose Weight
Letícia Rodrigues sets herself the task of losing 116 grams per performance as part of a wry commentary on the beauty industry. Part of this year’s São Paulo Showcase, it is about the pressure to conform to idealised body shapes and the psychological damage inflicted by fatphobia.
Zoo Southside, 7-30 August
Angels in America
Complementing the Edinburgh international festival’s US theme, Tony Kushner’s epic “gay fantasia on national themes” – all five hours of it – is revived by Ivo van Hove for Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. The director first staged this production in 2008 and delivers a stripped-back staging, complete with David Bowie songs.
King’s theatre, 15-20 August
Cathy
Elaine C Smith of Two Doors Down and Rab C Nesbitt fame stars as a sharp-tongued widow facing Christmas without her husband. Written and directed by Eilidh Loan, whose debut play, the footballing comedy Moorcoft, was a popular hit.
Traverse, 31 July-30 August
The Jolly Fisherman
Taking its name from a pub, John Dinneen’s play is about two east London teenagers being pulled towards the political extremes. It stars Alex Hill, who scored a fringe hit with Why I Stuck a Flare Up My Arse for England, and Jonny Khan, from The Shitheads at London’s Royal Court.
Underbelly, 5-31 August
Prophets
The most politically ambitious of young Scottish playwrights, Jack MacGregor sets their new play in a tiny British overseas territory in the south Pacific where a religious sect is growing in popularity. A researcher arrives to find faith and power going head to head in a psychological thriller.
Assembly Roxy, 5-31 August
Blackbox
In 1849, Henry “Box” Brown escaped slavery by getting in a wooden crate and mailing himself to the sanctuary of abolitionists in Philadelphia. Rickerby Hinds tells his story like a magic act, infused with hip-hop and poetry.
Underbelly, 5-30 August
Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It
Xhloe and Natasha have a classic fringe story: two performers on a shoestring budget, landing from New York in 2022 with an idiosyncratic piece of performance art, only to end up with a cult following and a Fringe First award. One trilogy later, they are back with a show about conspiracy theories and misdirection.
Summerhall, 6-30 August
The Singer
KT Tunstall provides music and lyrics for a piece of gig theatre with a difference: it is about a deaf artist who “sings” with his hands and experiences music physically through his body. Cora Bissett’s show takes its cue from her short film of the same name.
Traverse, 4-30 August
Concerts of the Future
For 10 minutes only, you can believe you are part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, thanks to virtual reality goggles, spatial audio and 3D imaging. Ciaran Frame’s show invites you to play Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 on a fictional instrument – regardless of musical ability.
Summerhall, 6-31 August
Hang Time
Zora Howard writes and directs this broadside against racialised violence in America. Performed by three Black men as they hang in space as if lynched, it is about the country’s history of dehumanisation and a legacy that takes a toll to this day.
Royal Lyceum, 20-23 August
A Trial – After An Enemy of the People
Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in Narcos) stars in a sequel to Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, relocated to modern-day Brazil where a jury must decide the fate of an environmental whistleblower. Director Christiane Jatahy makes a welcome return.
Royal Lyceum, 7-10 August
The Captain
Last year, Adam Riches switched from standup to full-on physical theatre with a smash-by-smash portrayal of tennis champ Jimmy Connors. Now, he is marking the achievement of Matthew Webb who, in 1875, was the first person to swim the English Channel. Riches is also sending up reviewers in The Critic’s Way.
Summerhall, 6-31 August
Supposing:
Greek myth is the foundation of Zinnie Harris’s new play in which, like the house of Atreus, a woman wrestles with a curse. When nobody will take it seriously, her sense of what is true and false begins to blur in a production directed by the playwright.
Traverse, 31 July-30 August
Foriegner
Born and raised in Iran and now an asylum seeker in the US, Sohrab Haghverdi stakes his future on a performance in which he drinks his own urine. Success could mean getting a visa; failure risks disgusting the audience and getting a criminal record. Foriegner (typo intentional) is clowning about immigration, identity and politics.
Summerhall, 6-31 August
Clown Show
Geoff Sobelle constructed a two-storey house before our eyes in Home (2018) and turned a theatre into a banqueting hall in Food (2023). This time, he finds a metaphor for modern-day America in a clown troupe trying to hold together a crumbling circus empire.
King’s theatre, 27-30 August
How Strange It Is (The Neutral Milk Hotel Show)
In the Living Record Collection, American cabaret artist Salty Brine mashes-up classic albums and literary texts to wayward effect. Having done Annie Lennox, the Smiths and Pink Floyd, he sets out on a collision course between the low-fi pleasures of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.
Summerhall, 6-30 August
Fuccbois: Live in Concert
It’s the end! The world’s biggest boyband are splitting up. Here is your chance to see their final gig and, in Bridie Connell’s drag comedy, you also get a send-up of modern dating culture. If drag boybands are your thing, see also Man!fest.
Assembly George Square, 5-31 August
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