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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018 programme: The theatre, comedy and dance you need to see this year

Ben Arons
Ben Arons

Head to this year’s International Festival and Fringe with our critics’ guides to all the best theatre, dance and comedy.

Theatre

Nina’s Got News

Frank Skinner’s playwriting debut, about a woman in need of a friend, is part of Debut, an initiative in which the BBC commissions four people who have never written for the stage before — Skinner, actress Katherine Parkinson, TV writer Beryl Richards and journalist Bim Adewunmi.

Pleasance Dome, until Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Underground Railroad Game

European premiere of this Obie award-winning two-hander in which Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R Sheppard are teachers — one black, one white. They discuss politics, race, sex and slavery but this is a debate with a discomfiting difference; the pupils (ie, the audience) are divided into North and South.

Traverse, until Aug 26 (0131 228 1404; traverse.co.uk)

Aye, Elvis

Morna Young’s one-woman comedy (performed by Joyce Falconer) about a downtrodden woman who becomes an Elvis impersonator and finds strength as The King, despite her husband’s best efforts — “Yer a wifie. Dressed as Elvis. In Aberdeen!”

Gilded Balloon@Rose Theatre, until August 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

My Left/Right Foot

National Theatre of Scotland’s co-production with Birds of Paradise theatre company (which works with disabled performers) is a jokey musical with some songs by Jerry Springer’s Richard Thomas about an am-dram society’s attempt at a musical version of the Daniel Day-Lewis film My Left Foot.

Assembly Roxy, until Aug 27 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

The Greatest Play in the History of the World

Julie Hesmondhalgh (Coronation Street) stars in a play written for her by her husband, Ian Kershaw. A man awakes in the middle of the night to find the world has stopped. But he can see a light in the house opposite, where a woman is looking back at him ...

Traverse, until Aug 26 (0131 228 1404; traverse.co.uk)

The Half

Danielle Ward’s two-hander, performed by her and comedy actor Anna Crilly (Lead Balloon). Thirty minutes before curtain-up, a double act meet for the first time in more than a decade, but what happened to cause the rift? A tragicomedy about ambition, friendship, motherhood and ageing.

Pleasance Courtyard, until Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Meek

(Helen Murray)
(Helen Murray)

Penelope Skinner’s new play is a Headlong/Birmingham Repertory Theatre co-production about a woman who becomes a worldwide celebrity after she is imprisoned by a brutal regime. Skinner, who wrote the Royal Court hit Linda and The Village Bike, examines state control and the limits of friendship.

Traverse, until Aug 26 (0131 228 1404; traverse.co.uk)

La Maladie de la mort

Created for Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris by Katie Mitchell, presented at the International Festival. She gives Marguerite Duras’s 1982 psychological thriller — about a man who hires a woman to spend time with him in a hotel by the sea — a radical reworking, with live theatre and a film generated in real time.

Lyceum, Aug 16-19 (0131 473 2000; eif.co.uk)

Hamilton (Lewis)

Musical parody with a big nod to the West End show; it follows the Formula 1 ace as he tells us his life story from his birth in Stevenage to now living the high life in Monaco through the medium of song.

Assembly George Square, until Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Sticks and Stones

Bafta-nominated Vinay Patel’s satire is about living in the technological age, where a tiny mistake on social media can have big consequences.

Summerhall, until Aug 25 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Comedy

Rose Matafeo: Horndog

Kiwi livewire nerd explores female desire and passion in her idiosyncratic high-energy way.

Pleasance Courtyard, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Adele Cliff

Men dominate the world of wordplay but Adele Cliff broke into that male bastion, reaching the semi-final of the UK Pun Championships this year.

Just The Tonic at the Caves, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Kieran Hodgson: ’75

There’s plenty of politics on the Fringe in 2018. Best of the bunch could be this Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee’s show, which dissects the UK’s relationship with the EU, going back to the Seventies.

Pleasance Courtyard, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Natalie Palamides

Last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer returns with a set tackling #metoo by mixing clowning and dressing as a man.

Pleasance Courtyard, today-August 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Jessie Cave: Sunrise

Honest, whimsical comic/cartoonist reveals how she tried to turn her life around by getting up at the crack of dawn.

The Stand, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Daniel Kitson: Good for Glue

Comedian’s comedian and sometime playwright is back for selected dates to workshop his next stand-up epic.

The Stand, Aug 5-9, 12-16, 19-23, 26 (0131 226 0000; edfringe.com)

Alfie Brown: Lunatic

Identity politics is just one of the many topics in Brown’s ambitious new monologue. Brown has always been on the cusp of breaking big — could 2018 be his year?

Monkey Barrel, today-August 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Dylan Moran

The shambling Irish superstar has stopped drinking and tried to get healthy since he last toured. That’s the only change, though — he is still as hilariously at odds with the modern world as ever.

The Stand, Aug 15-19 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Paul Sinha

The former GP is best known to TV audiences as The Sinnerman on ITV1’s The Chase. But he has been an excellent, insightful stand-up much longer than he has been a quiz expert. Just what the doctor ordered.

The Stand, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Ivo Graham

Unashamedly polite Ivo Graham finds the funny side of being angst-ridden and gets more personal than ever in Motion Sickness.

Pleasance Courtyard, today-Aug 26 (0131 226 0000; tickets.edfringe.com)

Dance

Wrongheaded, Liz Roche Company

Created before Ireland’s vote to repeal the eighth amendment, this duet brings together poetry, film and music to examine women’s freedom of choice in Ireland today.

Dance Base, tomorrow-Aug 19 (0131 225 5525, dancebase.co.uk)

Love Chapter 2, L-E-V

(Andre Le Corre)
(Andre Le Corre)

The latest techno-fuelled work by female choreographer Sharon Eyal focuses on the pain of life after love.

King’s Theatre, Aug 10-12 (0131 529 6000, eif.co.uk)

Void, V/DA and MHz, in association with Feral

Based on JG Ballard’s cult novel Concrete Island, Void — performed by soloist Mele Broomes — promises to be a risk-taking experimental dance spectacle complete with glitch-video projections.

Summerhall, Aug 14-19, 21-26 (0131 560 1580, summerhall.co.uk)

Xenos/Akram Khan

Marking the final solo performances of the great dancer/choreographer, Xenos is a moving, witty tribute to the Indian First World War dead.

Festival Theatre, Aug 16-18 (0131 529 6000, eif.co.uk)

Sunshine Boy

Dancer Andy Howitt’s bound-to-be-bonkers homage to Leigh Bowery, the London club legend, artist and Lucian Freud muse. Expect a lot of lipstick.

Dance Base, Aug 21-26 (0131 225 5525, dancebase.co.uk)