Plus comedy fundraisers Stand Up For Your Planet (22 Aug), Comic Relief Live! (15 Aug), and Max and Ivan’s The Wrestling where fringe comedians grapple with ripped pro wrestlers (23 Aug) go on sale. Along with the inaugural David Johnson Emerging Talent Award show (28 Aug) celebrating the life of this maverick producer whose ‘fringe finds’ included Graham Norton and Puppetry of the Penis; and Best of the Fest: The New Class a brand-new, late-night showcase of new talent appearing at this year’s Fringe.
Assembly’s stellar comedy line-up for 2022 just keeps on growing. Onsale today are Australian stand-up Dan Rath; Japan’s comedy sketch group JalJal with their hilarious new show of improvised skits ARIGATO; 5-star comedy from the Aboriginal Comedy Allstars; brilliant improv from Baby Wants Candy supergroup’s hip-hop homage Shamilton; sketch comedy from Rosie Nicholls (NewsRevue) and Sullivan Brown (No Rolls Barred) in Grubby Little Mitts; and a fantastic line-up of newcomers including Pinder award-winner Danielle Walker.
Cabaret debuts this year include Mark Borkowski, the Doyen of the Publicity Stunt who will be speaking about his extraordinary career; and Queen of Fake Alison Jackson with her show about diva doppelgangers and celebrity fake takes.
Also joining the cabaret line-up (that includes Jinkx Monsoon and Reuben Kaye) is chanteuse Tina del Twist - winner of this year’s Comics’ Choice Award in Melbourne.
And joining Diane Chorley at Assembly’s late-night 80s Underground venue The Flick is Bristol’s best trans/non-binary/female comedy night Party: All-Stars; Wacky Racists hosted by Taskmaster star Sophie Duker; Dan Wye creator of Séayoncé with a brand-new show Dan Wye Am I Sam Smith; and Mark Watson (Taskmaster) and Michael Chakraverty (Bake Off) bring their hugely popular podcast menkind to Edinburgh for the first time.
In theatre, audiences can look forward to Love Loss and Chianti with Robert Bathurst (Cold Feet, Downton Abbey) featuring glorious animations from cartoonist Charles Peattie; Bloke and His American Bantu about the transatlantic camaraderie of Bloke Modisane a South African writer/journalist exiled in the UK and his letter correspondence with Langston Hughes an African American Writer/Poet.
William Burdett-Coutts, Artistic Director of Assembly Festival said: “After two years of not running a full programme, this year’s line-up is back with a bang packed with incredible shows. I’m delighted that we have artists coming from Canada, USA, Japan, South Africa and all over the world, as well as some fantastic new work from artists based right here in Edinburgh. 2022 is a crucial year to get the festival back up and running as the greatest arts and entertainment festival in the world and it’s also when we will be celebrating our delayed 40th anniversary on the Fringe. We hope, to see thousands and thousands of people coming out. The best support the Festival can get is people buying tickets and enjoying the wealth of shows available.”
Festival Dates: 3-29 August 2022. Bookings can be made at www.assemblyfestival.com or by calling 0131 623 3030.
Click here to see full list of Assembly comedy shows
