The Laughing Horse’s Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival has launched it’s programme for the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe, returning to Edinburgh after last year’s cancelled festival, with shows planned in venues and online from August 6th to 30th. 

Highlights this year include solo shows from Vladimir McTavish, Leo Kearse, Eleanor Conway, Martin Mor, Tom Mayhew, Adele Cliff (pictured),  Katheryn Henson, Will Mars and Raul Kohli. Also the return of Nathan Cassidy, who was the only in-venue performer to put a show on at the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe; the return of late night show ‘Hate’n’live’ to the Free Festival; late night staple ‘Shaggers’ back for one-night only; and regular showcases events ‘Laughing Horse Pick of the Fringe’, ‘Comedy Queers’ LGBTQI showcase, ‘Joke Thieves’ - and many more. 

This year, there will be some differences in venues to keep things as safe as possible in these Covid times – the main one is introducing ‘Pay What You Want’ ticketing for shows in venues, where audiences can book tickets in advance and choose their advance donation. Audiences still have the option of turning up at the venue to get into shows for free and make donations at the end, if there is space left. 

Ticketing will help to keep things as safe as possible and control crowd numbers turning up to shows -  and so venues can safely manage social distancing and group sizes. The priority is audience, performer and staff safety. 

The programme is limited to larger rooms, with in-venue shows returning to The Three Sisters, Counting House, 32 Below and Hanover Tap. 

For audience members not yet comfortable with returning to Fringe venues, there is also an online programme of shows and will be broadcasting some of the in-venue shows online during August. See the link below.

The full Laughing Horse programme is live here: http://www.freefestival.co.uk