The 10 best things to see at Edinburgh festival 2026 – from chaotic monks and teen punks to Bigfoot hysteria

There is nothing like Edinburgh during the festival, when the Scottish capital swells with punters, every nook and cranny is converted into a venue, and thousands of weird and wonderful artists arrive from all over the world hoping for stardom. Of course, the planet’s third largest ticketed event descending on a small city every August results in plenty of intractable issues (overcrowding, exploitation, eye-wateringly expensive accommodation), but the fringe remains a marvellous melting pot nonetheless.

I have spent every summer for the last 12 years reviewing shows at the festival. I have seen early iterations of work that went on to become globally famous. I have been hauled on stage and humiliated so often that the prospect no longer fazes me. I have wept with laughter, sadness, boredom and wonder. I even met my wife at the fringe eight years ago.

This year’s event promises to be as bewildering, boundary-breaking and brilliant as ever, and, when the numbers are totted up in September, looks increasingly likely to emerge as the biggest edition in the fringe’s 79-year history, with a ridiculous 4,148 shows currently registered in the official programme. Here are 10 that should be worth your time and money.

The surprisingly successful first series of SNL UK shone a light on a new generation of silly, satirical and social-media-literate comedians, several of whom are at the festival this summer. Jake Bhardwaj is hosting a late-night quiz, while Larry Dean, Ayoade Bamgboye and Paddy Young are all doing standup shows, as is former Cambridge Footlight, Taskmaster contestant and Comedy Award nominee Ania Magliano, whose expertly constructed and candidly gossipy new hour, Peach Fuzz, focuses on her own difficulties with intimacy, sex and relationships.

Edinburgh-based site-specific specialists Grid Iron have spent 30 years staging imaginative shows in unlikely locations, from swimming pools to shipping sheds to Edinburgh airport. This August, the company is taking over a warehouse in Leith with an adaptation of Mayflies, Andrew O’Hagan’s acclaimed 2020 novel about a group of punky Ayrshire teenagers on a riotous weekend in Manchester in 1986. Adapted and directed by Grid Iron boss Ben Harrison, it should be well worth the trip from the city centre, not least due to the trendy new food court next door.

New York City-based duo Xhloe and Natasha (Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland) have become one of the hottest acts at the festival in recent years with their string of award-winning, elaborately titled clown shows interrogating the insidious aspects of America’s cultural history, most recently A Letter to Lyndon B Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First. They are back this year with this new show which tackles conspiracy theories and mass misdirection.

Producer Francesca Moody has become one of the biggest names at the fringe, thanks to the extraordinary success of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, both of which she backed. This year, she is behind pop-up venue Shedinburgh (which pops up again at London’s Young Vic in September) and three productions: returning hit Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, new comedy thriller Roleplay, and The Scaring, the third hour from comedy trio Crybabies (Michael Clarke, Ed Jones and James Gault), who specialise in smart, spoofy shaggy-dog sketch shows. This one, directed by festival stalwart Jon Brittain, is about an ex-priest in a remote hotel.

Perhaps the most outlandish idea at this year’s festival is the Sauna Theatre, a purpose-built venue that will host 80 audience members at a time for literary discussions, dance parties, Aufguss sessions (an immersive experience involving essential oils and towel wafts that is popular in Germany, Austria and elsewhere), and storytelling shows. Will it work? Who knows, but it does seem like the perfect place for a 10th-anniversary revival of Bubble Schmeisis, Nick Cassenbaum’s celebrated show about growing up in the Jewish schvitzes of east London.

The Horse of Jenin was a large sculpture constructed from debris in 2003 following the second intifada, which stood as a symbol of resilience in the West Bank for two decades until it was dismantled by the Israeli military three years ago. This show from Palestine-born, Amsterdam-based performer Alaa Shehada (a huge hit at the festival last year and then at London’s Bush theatre) uses storytelling, comedy, mime and more to weave an entertaining and emotional story about growing up under Israeli occupation in the shadow of the sculpture.

Writer and director Emma Howlett has made her name as an ambitious and intelligent theatremaker with a series of slick, sparky fringe shows: 2023’s Her Green Hell, 2024’s Sisters Three and 2025’s Aether, which completely sold out a London run at Jermyn Street theatre earlier this year. Her new work, The Plot, is about Gunpowder-plotting brothers Tom and Robert Wintour, masculinity and Macbeth, and stars her regular collaborators Sophie Kean and Abby McCann. Remember, remember Howlett’s name, because she is destined for great things.

The Traverse theatre’s festival programme is always full of invigorating new writing and this year is no different: plays from Scottish dramatists Eilidh Loan, Zinnie Harris and Morna Young; a solo show from Motherland actor Paul Ready; interesting imports from Ireland and America; and a long-awaited transfer for Milly Sweeney’s award-winning debut play Water Colour. Perhaps most eyecatching, though, is The Singer, a new musical about an unlikely partnership between a deaf man and a bitter busker, co-adapted by Cora Bissett and Jamie Rea from the 2023 short film of the same name. The cast includes rising stars Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Dylan Wood, and the score has been written by Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.

Comedy at the fringe has taken a distinctly absurdist turn in recent years, which is perhaps understandable considering the distinctly absurdist turn taken by the wider world. Perhaps no production typifies this evolution better than Underground Monk Show. Created and performed by a supergroup of California-based clowns, it essentially involves a quintet of shuffling, shrouded monks experiencing various spiritual awakenings, often at the expense of the audience. It is the kind of chaotic, late-night comedy the fringe fosters so well.

The Edinburgh International Festival, the fringe’s august big brother, has tilted towards classical music under the directorship of violinist Nicola Benedetti, but there is still plenty of interesting performance in its programme, including Belgian auteur Ivo Van Hove’s take on Angels In America, Scottish company Groupwork’s new dance-theatre piece When Prophecy Fails, and A Trial, a new version of An Enemy of the People from brilliant Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy. Intriguingly, it transposes Ibsen’s 1882 classic into a modern-day courtroom and asks the audience to decide the fate of its protagonist, played by the Golden Globe-winning star of The Secret Agent, Wagner Moura.