Gilded Balloon has revealed its full Fringe offering of over 160 shows, as the rest of its programme goes on sale.
Having spent a quarter of a century away, iconic Scottish comic Jack Docherty (pictured) returns to the Fringe for a full run in August. His return to the Gilded Balloon will see him unite two of his best-loved comedy creations, Scot Squad’s stoic Chief Commissioner, Cameron Miekelson, and the fiercely patriotic McGlashan from the critically-acclaimed, award-winning Channel 4 shows, Absolutely and Scotland in a Day.
Flying in straight from Las Vegas comes the anarchic, unparalleled and wholly unique The Miss Behave Gameshow (pictured). Part wild Friday night, part political upheaval, and ALL glorious chaos, Miss Behave and her glamorous assistant Tiffany promise new games, new acts and new prizes in the age of Trump and disinformation. Judah Friedlander (pictured), self-professed World Champion and star of 30 Rock, follows on from his critically-acclaimed Netflix stand-up film, America Is the Greatest Country in the United States, with an all-new hour promising to eviscerate American exceptionalism and the USA’s volatile standing in the world.
A digitally-enhanced, millennial cabaret, Anya Anastasia: The Executioners attacks the very fabric of modern Western culture and the algorithms dictating it. Gamarjobat, the shut-up comedy from Japan, are back with the very best of their world-conquering, fast-paced humour. Infusing the rural with rap comes Alex Cofield: Supernova, a hip-hopera detailing his attempts to escape his hamlet hometown. It’sHot Fuzz meets Hamilton – a lyrical League of Gentlemen performed entirely in rap and spoken word.
This year, Gilded Balloon is proud to feature the very best of Scottish theatre and new writing. Morna Young’s Aye, Elvis comes straight from the Òran Mór’s A Play, A Pie & A Pint, a story about downtrodden escapism, identity and a Doric Elvis; Ruaraidh Murray writes and stars in The Junkies alongside Edinburgh institutions Grant Stott and Andy Gray, a Steptoe and Son-esque love letter to a forgotten trade;David Belcher & Bryan Gray bring The Pieman Cometh to Edinburgh, a cautionary, comical tale journeying through the murky, monetary mayhem lurking behind the scenes of Scottish football; Kier McAllister premieres The Bench, directed by Jojo Sutherland and starringVladimir McTavish and McAllister as two isolated, lonely men battling it out to establish the true purpose of the eponymous bench; whilstDavid Cosgrove’s In For a Penny is based upon the real life of star Libby McArthur, who went to prison over unpaid parking tickets, and the various women she met on the inside who had been exploited by a judgemental system.
Gilded Balloon’s stellar theatre programme continues with NZ’s Not in Our Neighbourhood, a rumination on domestic violence and the ramifications it has upon three women; Niall Ransome’s FCUK’D, the brutal and heartfelt story – performed entirely in verse – of a working class teenager who kidnaps his brother in pursuit of a better life; and Limerence Productions’ Marmite, a study of the difficulty that monogamy presents gay male relationships in a sexually-saturated world. Katherine Parkinson, the BAFTA award-winning star of Humansand The It Crowd, premieres her debut play, Sitting, a production from BBC Arts that finds three people sitting for a painting, each yearning for connection. Parkinson is joined by husband-and-wife Rob Rouse and Helen Rutter, who perform in Rutter’s autobiographical play about a tumultuous point during their own marriage, The Ladder.
Ayesha Hazarika is back with a brand new hour, an interrogation of where feminism finds itself in the wake of Weinstein and #MeToo; the Fringe’s oldest double act, Barry Cryer & Ronnie Golden, take to the Museum for some pre-hysterical comedy; Australian musical comic Grant Busé puts the lessons he learnt from teaching Sex Ed to special needs kids to good use, as his award-winning The Birds and The Beats dares to give adults the Sex Ed they need – all set to an original looping score; and Gary Meikle makes his Fringe comedy debut, laying bare his remarkable, true story of surviving children’s homes and the care system to raise his daughter as a teenage dad.
These shows join the likes of Luisa Omielan, Rhod Gilbert, Hot Brown Honey, Esther Rantzen, Janeane Garofalo, Stuart Mitchell,Maisie Adam, David Baddiel’s AniMalcolm, Jon Culshaw & Bill Dare, Jay Lafferty, Games by Henry Naylor, Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, Edd Hedges, Chris Forbes, Ben Hart, Murray Hill, Gareth Waugh, South Bend, Late Night Lip Service andLate’n’Live that are already on sale.
Katy and Karen Koren, Directors of Gilded Balloon, said: “It’s been hard work, but we could not be happier with Gilded Balloon’s Fringe programme, and we cannot wait for you all to experience it! The return of Jack Docherty – and of course, Judah Friedlander and The Miss Behave Gameshow – is quite the coup!”
Tickets are on sale here from noon - though some may be on sale now.
