"Performers bend into startling shapes, lift themselves precariously high above the stage, and enact breathtaking stunts" Cirque Kalabanté: WOW (World of Words) – ★★★★ #EdFringe review by @alekiagill.bsky.social

JEEZUS! is a fun and filthy musical theatre show about growing up queer in Latin America – and there's still a chance to catch the ★★★★ #EdFringe show this weekend

"An hour of acerbic, self-deprecating and satirical jokes" ★★★★ #EdFringe comedy review: GIANMARCO SORESI – read @louiscammell.bsky.social's review and catch @gianmarcosoresi.bsky.social's last available tickets festmag.com/2025/08/19/r...

Light-hearted, citrus coloured zealotry of the non-sectarian kind ★★★★ #EdFringe comedy review: ORANGE CRUSH by @ivograham.bsky.social – read @jayirichardson.bsky.social's review now

"Pussy Riot are an antidote – demonstrating tonight what it means to call out complicity" RIOT DAYS is at Summerhall this #EdFringe – @anita-bh.bsky.social gives ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to the Russian protest art collective's show festmag.com/2025/08/17/r... @pussyriot.bsky.social

"Something about grunge [...] always felt queer. It felt like I could access something in it that I couldn’t elsewhere." #EdFringe show NO APOLOGIES by @notyetarobot.bsky.social explores discourse around Kurt Cobain’s gender identity festmag.com/2025/08/17/i... [Interview: @anita-bh.bsky.social]

"From the moment he stomped onto the world stage, he changed everything" Two #EdFringe shows – Monstering the Rocketman and Your Song – pay homage to the iconic Elton John festmag.com/2025/08/16/i... [Interview: @jayirichardson.bsky.social]

"There are ways in which the culture around you threatens you and denies certain stories that are foundational; threatens your safety if you express them" Actor/activist @khalidabdalla.bsky.social on #EdFringe show NOWHERE, festmag.com/2025/08/16/i... Interview: @anita-bh.bsky.social

"Secrets and denials, which are shared with us as if we were best friends at a sleepover, speak to a self-inflicted damage caused by running away" TELL ME WHERE HOME IS (I'M STARTING TO FORGET): ★★★★ #EdFringe theatre review by @alekiagill.bsky.social

"Places everyone in the auditorium at the heart of the show’s narrative" ★★★★ for THANKS FOR BEING HERE, an #EdFringe theatre piece by collective @ontroerendgoed.bsky.social

"Under harsh white fluorescent light, and sonically textured by ambient industrial drips, rattles, and mechanical groans, Isaiah Wilson’s Score is an eviscerating depiction of alienated labour" ★★★★ #EdFringe review: SCORE

"Barry Ferns’ all or nothing, stunt comedy has made him a quixotic, Fringe semi-legend" MY SEVEN YEARS AS LIONEL RICHIE by @barryferns.bsky.social gets ★★★★ from us – see it this #EdFringe

"You can do Faustus like the Royal Shakespeare Company, but if you put your mindset back 400 years, the play is scandalous" Two plays, one at the #EdFringe and one at the EIF, take on Marlowe’s Faustus, but in contrasting and confronting ways

"He ricochets around his transparent cage with ferocity and uses white markers on the clear wall facing the audience to lucidly sketch out the complex tax scheme" ★★★★ #EdFringe REVIEW: The Insider

"From writing erotica online since the age of 14 to altercations with medical professionals, she’s laying it all out there" HOW TO BE A BADDIE will deliver the lessons you need – check out our ★★★★ review of Urooj Ashfaq's #EdFringe hour

"She plays an entitled manchild who’s worryingly over-attached to one object – until he falls off it." ★★★★ for KATHY MANIURA: THE CYCLING MAN, at @ThePleasance this #EdFringe 🚲

"Magicians should only wear suits if they’re in court. Which they should be. For this poster design" Comedian/bookseller BEN POPE went viral for sharing the book cover tropes that need to end. We asked him to give #EdFringe posters the same treatment

A big thrill to talk music and synaesthesia and mentoring with electronic artist @kaitlynaurelia.bsky.social for the cover of @festmag.bsky.social festmag.com/2025/08/13/i... She will be performing at Edinburgh International Festival, Sat 16 Aug 10pm

"Rarely can a show scale such dizzying heights of silliness before plunging to such depths of existential despair" WILD THING! features daft antics that give way to a bitter eulogy of extinct species festmag.com/2025/08/10/r... #EdFringe

"Able to take some dark topics, and somehow make them fit into a comedy show – with only a few gasps from audience members" Seaton Smith brings ★★★★ room-reading to TRAUMA BONDING this #EdFringe

"Written to draw parallels to the Yorkshire Ripper and the ongoing onus on women to protect themselves from men 50 years on" MANAGED APPROACH is a ★★★★★ #EdFringe drama based on the UK’s first legalised red-light district

"PC Nicky McCreadie defiantly reflects on her journey, slowly coming face-to-face with a past she has tried to forget." @islacowan.bsky.social's ALRIGHT SUNSHINE gets ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from us – catch it at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe festmag.com/2025/08/10/r...

"Wanders around questions of luck, destiny, love and death" Up! the all-ages #EdFringe show by @visiblefictions.bsky.social, follows one character blessed with luck and another cursed with misfortune – read our ★★★★ review

We sent the Super Power Agency out into the festivals with a group of newly-trained teen reviewers to suss out the best shows for young people this #EdFringe

"Tuck tackles it all, fear and delight, with glorious gusto" Thom Tuck – @turlygod.bsky.social – returns his clown SCARAMOUCHE JONES to the #EdFringe – read @sihawkins.bsky.social's ★★★★ review

A rich galaxy of complicated emotions in FLOAT, the debut #EdFringe show of Indra Wilson, produced by @fbombtheatre.bsky.social – Read the ★★★★ review 🌠 festmag.com/2025/08/11/r... @gildedballoon.bsky.social

"Debut playwright Ellie Keel (@ekpshows.bsky.social) effectively paces the action to generate suspense" In SKYE (★★★★), a summer holiday turns sinister, when Annie and her siblings see their late father on the eponymous island – read our full review festmag.com/2025/08/07/r... #EdFringe

"Unique for its reverential-yet-queer lens" Read the ★★★★ review for BIG NATURALS, Chloe Petts' take on 90s/00s lad culture which she's taken to @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe

"A dynamic satire of the ever-looming, ever-changing face of colonial rule" KANPUR 1857 by Niall Moorjani gets ★★★★ – see it at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe

"I’m pleased to have contributed to the modern history of the Fringe [...] it’s a great thing, but it’s in danger." Making multiple appearances at the #EdFringe and @edbookfest.bsky.social this year, @ivograham.bsky.social talks through his busy schedule

"Hospital drama, relatable relationship angst, even some meta material for the arms-folded head-nodders." @heidiregan.bsky.social's well-crafted stand-up hour JEKYLL AND HEIDI gets ★★★★ from @sihawkins.bsky.social festmag.com/2025/08/08/r... #EdFringe

'Wry humour and a sharp eye for absurdity' A lovely ★★★★ for Shamik Chakrabarti by @festmag.bsky.social 🤩 Read all about it: festmag.com/2025/08/11/r...

"Their bodies curve and fold and twist around, holding and carrying one another" Another ★★★★ review, for the dance double bill VOYEUR / SAMBA AND LOVE festmag.com/2025/08/02/r... #EdFringe

"Captivating and challenging" A journalist must reckon with her own past when reporting on a high profile domestic abuse case – RED LIKE FRUIT gets ★★★★ from @everebecca.bsky.social festmag.com/2025/08/02/r... @traversetheatre.bsky.social #EdFringe

"What could, in other hands, be the stuff of a trauma plot instead becomes a rollicking tale of main character syndrome and neurosis" ★★★★ for CAT COHEN: BROAD STROKES at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe festmag.com/2025/08/03/r... [✍️: @everebecca.bsky.social]

"A psychiatric nurse, three double ended dildos, and the letters of Emily Dickinson feature heavily (and not disparately so) in this brilliantly entertaining solo show" ★★★★ for AMY MASON: BEHOLD! – catch it at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe

"Swooping from fascinating insights to well-timed gags, crowd-pleasing chant-alongs and a good dose of the mischievously provocative" DEATH TO THE WEST (MIDLANDS), by Hasan Al-Habib, is at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe festmag.com/2025/08/04/r... (Review: @sihawkins.bsky.social)

"Her lilting delivery and even-tempered presence can make it feel like she’s spinning a fairytale more than doing stand-up" SHE-DEVIL, the offbeat #EdfFringe hour by @jainedwards.bsky.social, gets ★★★★ from @everebecca.bsky.social

★★★★ for Saaniya Abbas' HELLARIOUS, an exploration of sinful actions and cultural taboos, at @gildedballoon.bsky.social this #EdFringe 🔥

"The on-stage singer is a force to be reckoned with, with cabaret style high notes filling the room with ease" Wannabe popstars should line up for Amelie Peters' SINK OR SING!, a singalong comedy at @gildedballoon.bsky.social this #EdFringe festmag.com/2025/08/04/r...

"He takes humdrum or kitchen sink aspects of our lives, then illuminates them" Edinburgh singer-songwriter Hamish Hawk (@hamishhawk.bsky.social) takes on the work of Scotland’s pre-eminent poet-eccentric Ivor Cutler at the Edinburgh International Book Festival festmag.com/2025/08/07/i...

"Long has been doing political comedy for 17 years now, and it’s probably an understatement to say that she isn’t thrilled with how things have turned out" LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS by @josielong.bsky.social gets ★★★★ from @sihawkins.bsky.social festmag.com/2025/08/06/r... @pleasance.co.uk

"A late night jazz bar-costumed show on the countless implications of nostalgia, sexual ruminations, and reliable cultural riffs on Scotland" ★★★★ for @macarthurboyd.bsky.social: Howling at the Moon festmag.com/2025/08/04/r... #EdFringe

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for She-Devil in Fest Mag! Tickets are going fast after a run of sold out shows in week one. 🎟🎟🎟 www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...

"It’s impossible not to be utterly drawn in and entranced by Betty Grumble and her anarchic brand of eco-sexual clowning" Betty Grumble’s Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t gets a ★★★★ review festmag.com/2025/08/04/r... #EdFringe

"A well-crafted satirical criticism of the way funding bodies control artists and capitalise on their grief and trauma" Sad Gay AIDS Play by @adohertycomedy.bsky.social shows at @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe – read the ★★★★ review

Edinburgh Art Festival has arrived, and our recs include exhibitions at @edinburghprints.bsky.social and performances by Raven Chacon (@ssskdist.bsky.social)

"A humiliating trip to a discount clothing emporium during Pride, a taxpayer-funded exploration of kink, and a mental breakdown fuelled by weed and magic" @samnicoresti.bsky.social's #EdFringe show BABY DOOMER gets ★★★★ from @jamiedunnesq.bsky.social

"No Apologies delves into the act of wishful thinking, deftly questioning the impact of what might have been." @notyetarobot.bsky.social brings a defiant show to @pleasance.co.uk this #EdFringe – read @arusa.bsky.social's review

"In Navabi’s brilliant keytar-hungry hands, the narrative is well-held" Punk musical #EdFringe comedy RELAY by Leila Navabi (@leilanavabi.bsky.social) gets ★★★★ from us festmag.com/2025/08/02/review-relay/