The second Edinburgh Fringe announcement for the Pleasance Theatre Trust is a whopper with returning award-winning acts, amazing newcomers, European sensations, shows with fun for all the family and political chatterings. Keep your eyes peeled soon for more announcements about the Charlie Hartill Fund winners and the Edinburgh National Partnership shows demonstrating the Pleasance’s support for new artists.
Double Emmy Award winner and star of Smack The Pony, Fiona Allen is doing her first ever show – On The Run - about family, marriage, and things that truly annoy her. The BAFTA-nominated comedian, host of Late Night Mash (Dave), star of Live at the Apollo (BBC) and viral sensation Rachel Parris presents a work-in-progress hour of stand-up and songs. Ivo Graham (Taskmaster) ropes his audience into more chaos against the clock in Organised Fun. Double Edinburgh Award Nominee Darren Harriott, recently seen on Dancing on Ice, holds many accolades but his new show draws from his upbringing.
Kieran Hodgson (Two Doors Down), the three-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, commutes from his new home of Glasgow every day for a month, in Big in Scotland. I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This is a show about the worst haircut of Ania Magliano's life. Are you ready to receive Myra Dubois’s call-out – are the disadvantaged, downtrodden, and tyrannised of the world ready for her manifesto for mental health: AdMyrism!
The Pleasance is the place to see the very best of comedians make their debuts. Join Nabil Abdulrashid (Britain’s Got Talent) for The Purple Pill, an exploration of empathy, morality and political contradiction. Welsh, Brown, Gay, Gen-Z comedian Leila Navabi (BBC New Comedy Awards) presents Composition, an audacious punk musical comedy show. Fresh from SIX the Musical, join Annabel Marlow as she presents Is This Okay??. Funny Women Finalist Bronwyn Sweeney teaches audiences how to build their own personal brand in Off-Brand.
TikTok starlet Daniel Foxx delivers his stand-up hour debut Villain about childhood, Tilda Swinton, and bullying. Breakthrough Comedian of the Year Dan Jones attempts to prove that love exists. Darran Griffiths, the BBC New Comedy shortlisted and two-time British Comedian of the Year semi-finalist brings his debut hour, Inconceivable, tackling infertility and IVF. Directed by Adam Brace, join John Tothill for The Last Living Libertine, an evening of exaggeration, emancipation and dense theoretical speculation. Viral sensation Horatio Gould brings his hotly anticipated debut hour to Pleasance, as he explores if it’s no longer okay to be okay.
More newcomers joining the Pleasance family are Lindsey Santoro (2021 Finalist at the British Comedian of the Year), one of the most exciting voices to come out of Brum in recent years who brings Pink Tinge. Skin Pigeon is an hour of characters, comedy, content and costumes from Chortle's Best Newcomer 2023 Lorna Rose Treen. Geordie rising star Louise Young brings Feral, a show all about class, chaos and coming out. Comedian and failed child actor Lulu Popplewell explores the links between Love Actually, smoking crack, the Daily Mail and sunburn in Actually, Actually.
Money Princess is the hotly anticipated debut show from the blunt and disturbed perspective of Mary O'Connell. Leicester Square New Comedian and Musical Comedy Awards finalist, Matty Hutson bares his sensitive soul in Don't Hold Back. Join Northern powerhouse Paddy Young, one of comedy’s fastest rising stars for Hungry, Horny, Scared. As seen on BBC1 and Comedy Central, Tadiwa Mahlunge brings this exciting debut hour, Inhibition/Exhibition. NHS psychiatrist, award-winning comedian and Penguin-published author Benji Waterstones presents You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here.
And there’s more! Much-discussed rising star Mamoun Elagab shares his unfiltered, idiosyncratic and unorthodox world view in Why I Love White People. William Thompson (BBC New Comedy Awards Finalist 2021) grew up disabled on a Northern Irish council estate, where people aren’t known to be sympathetic; here he talks about The Hand You're Dealt. Nothing in life is black and white and Alexandra Haddow says the grey part is a LOT more fun in Not My Finest Hour. Dropped by Universal Records, Age Against Machine is the story of Josh Weller’s failed music career and a love letter to music.
Join Freya Parker (Lazy Susan) as she navigates the struggles of trying to remain cheeky when it's raining trauma in It Ain't Easy Being Cheeky. From Portugal's biggest young comedy star, What If? is André de Freitas’s show about pursuing your dreams with an unwavering spirit of optimism. Join Adrian Bliss on a wild ride through history in Inside Everyone. Award winning Ikechukwu Ufomadu is going to wow us in his new show Amusements. Queer, non- binary class-straddler Jodie Mitchell is John Travulva in Cis Male Comedian. Inspired by YouTube relaxation playlists, William Stone asks you to put your feet up in Lofi Jokes to Study/Relax to.
International comedy icons flock to Edinburgh from far away shores. Fresh off his HBO Max stand-up special Trash White produced by Conan O’Brien, Moses Storm makes his Edinburgh debut with Perfect Cult. LA clown Courtney Pauroso returns to the Fringe as sex robot Vanessa5000. The quick- witted New Yorker Janine Harouni (pictured) is back with Man’oushe exploring her Arab roots, pregnancy, and what happens when your mail order DNA test does not go to plan.
In her debut show, California native Liz Guterbock (2021 Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Nominee) explores belonging and whether it’s possible to stay in love with life as we grow old(er). Cheat comes from rising stand up star and writer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Chloe Radcliffe. Martin Urbano is stepping back into the spotlight with his Apology Comeback Tour. Zach Zucker returns with another dazzling display of comedic firepower in Spectacular Industry Showcase.
Taskmaster star and Fringe legend Mark Watson (pictured) returns to consider the search for meaning that we're all on in Search. Britain’s most viewed TikTok comedian, Simon Brodkin, is back with an outrageous new stand-up show about guns, God, Matt Hancock, Ayatollah Khamenei and a man called Xavier. Award-winning comedian and International Cheese Judge Marcus Brigstocke explains the joy of a fine whine in Cheese and Whine.
Best Newcomer nominee in 2019, Huge Davies is back and he's doing a Whodunnit. Gobsmacked is the brand-new show from Edinburgh Comedy Award newcomer nominee Josh Jones. Star of Spitting Image (Britbox) and Steph's Packed Lunch (Channel 4) impressionist Luke Kempner brings GRITTY POLICE DRAMA: A One-Man Musical to Edinburgh. Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees Max & Ivan return with their final show, Life, Choices.
Matt Forde (Spitting Image, British Scandal, The Last Leg, The Royal Variety Performance) lashes out right, left and centre and chucks in some funny voices too in Inside No. 10. Rosie Holt returns to tight-rope the thin line between politics and entertainment with THAT’S POLITAINMENT!. Pole dancing comedian Siân Docksey sees if hanging off a stick can make you stop thinking about death in Pole Yourself Together! Crying in TK Maxx is a brutally honest, but fair appraisal of the men in her life, from Tamsyn Kelly.
Aaron Simmonds brings us Baby Steps where he’s going to attempt stand- up comedy, standing up. Crizards are back with a wonky war epic, This Means War, directed by Edinburgh Comedy Award winner, Jordan Brookes. As seen on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, Live At The Apollo and Mock The Week, Andy Parsons is back at the Fringe after 17 years with Bafflingly Optimistic. Jonny Pelham told the nation his biggest secret - he's pretty sure it was a mistake, find out why in this candid and bitingly funny new show. Sharp and charmingly surreal, Huge is a hilarious modern magic show from Pete Heat.
Join The Cambridge Footlights International Tour Show for an hour of sketch comedy written by five of the finest up-and-coming comedians in Cambridge. Go on an adventure through time and space with a live radiophonic workshop and a hilarious improv cast in this loving parody of the sci-fi classic Doctor Who - Any Suggestions, Doctor? The Improvised Doctor Who Parody.
Stamptown Comedy Night is a late-night variety show featuring the best alternative performance on the international scene.
With more shows to be announced over the coming months there will be comedy, theatre, circus, magic, dance, kids’ shows and much more, alongside support for some of the most innovative newcomers through the Pleasance’s artist development strands. There’s nowhere quite like the Pleasance at Fringe!
Tickets for all shows are available at www.pleasance.co.uk and 0131 556 6550.
