The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with nearly 3,500 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh for the entire month in August for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!
Edinburgh Festival Fringe can be a little overwhelming. The month-long theatre arts festival boasts close to 3,500 shows performed nearly 300 different performance spaces. So, how in the world are you supposed to decide what to see? You could always sort through the mass of listings on the Fringe website. Or you can check out some of the lists of recommended shows from particular venues. OR…you do what Jeffrey Vizcaino, Playbill’s director of social media, and I (Playbill's features editor) did on one of the first days of the festival.
We used the Fringe App’s randomizer search function to select a day’s full of shows for us! Watch the video below to see how that function works, then give it a try yourself! And read more below about what shows the app recommended for us, and if the app itself has good taste.
Knowing that there are several 10 AM shows on the schedule (and some even that serve scones!), Jeffrey and I met in the kitchen area of our hotel at 8:45 to shake the app and see what our first show would be. We set the parameters for a start time between 10 AM and 10:45 AM to narrow the search, but we left everything else set for “Any,” meaning any venue or any type of show.
Shake, shake, shake, and our first selection was made for us! Oat Milk and Honey. I’d actually already read about this one earlier on the Fringe site when I was looking at morning shows, so I was excited. However, though the title mentions oat milk and honey, there was no mention of any snacks being served, so Jeffrey and I had toast and fruit at the flat before heading out on our journey.
Show 1: Oat Milk & Honey
Venue: Summerhall, Demonstration Room
Right away, I was knocked out by the performance space. Now a year-round arts and cultural hub, Summerhall was once a veterinary college, so it uses a lot of its old lecture spaces and operating theatres for performances and galleries. We entered floor level of the room, passing the stage, and walked up into the audience area. The room held no more than 100 viewers, arranged in four rows of semi-circle seats. Each space had an antique wooden seat that folded down and a wooden desk ran the length of each row.
Presented by the Australian company Mo-Ko Piano & Circus, Oat Milk & Honey features dance and acrobatics accompanied by the duo’s original music, played live on two keyboards. A calming voice-over guided the audience through stress-reducing meditations, and at one point encouraged us to picture the running legs of a llama. An acrobat in a llama costume may or may not have even run across stage. (She did.) An Adelaide Fringe Festival award winner for Best Circus, the show proved to be an excellent and serene start to the festival. Click here for tickets.
Upon leaving the theatre, we ducked into a covered bar and picnic area in the Summerhall courtyard to escape the rain while we did our next shake. Again, we set the parameters for a time period within the hour. We also set the show type parameters to exclude exhibitions and experiences. We wanted to be sure we saw theatre. I don’t know if the app read our current location or if it was just a 1/600 chance that we ended up with a show at the Summerhall space right outside of the Demonstration Hall. We just had to wait about 30 minutes until showtime, so we had a coffee at the café indoors.
Show 2: Polko
Venue: Summerhall, Roundabout
And we are two-for-two for interesting venues right out of the gate! Roundabout is a giant circular yellow tent that seats about 150 in the round.
Polko is a new play by English playwright Angus Harrison. All of the scenes take place in a car, represented by two bucket seats, adjoined but facing different directions, in the center of the circular stage. Once we understand that the action takes place in the car, clever direction allows the three actors to move around a bit more in the space so that the physical action is never stagnant.
By contrast, in Polko, the lives of the three characters have grown stagnant. Centering on elder 20-somethings Joe (who has been living in his hometown with his mother), Emma (who has recently returned after losing her job), and Peter (who has recently been spurned by Joe’s mother), the play examines if it’s possible to be ok with an unextraordinary life. The show is well-acted and the playwright weaves a compelling plot.
Another two thumbs up for our second show of Fringe. Click here for tickets.
OK, Jeffrey and I actually got rained on a lot and spent an hour shivering. So we ran back to our flat for a sandwich and another layer of clothing. We’re thinking we have time for 3 PM show, though, so we head out to the sidewalk and shake the app. I have to admit, I was a little concerned by the title of our third random selection. However, this one is on a Playbill recommendation list, so let’s go!
Show 3: Let the Bodies Pile
Venue: Gilded Balloon Teviot, Dining Hall
Gilded Balloon is one of Fringe’s “big four” venues, and one of its spaces, Teviot, is housed in a University of Edinburgh building on Bristo Square. Our show was in the dining hall, which puts the stage flat on the floor at one end of the room and has temporary stadium seating constructed for the audience. It seats about 150.
This new play from writer and performer (and Fringe regular) Henry Naylor cleverly tells the story of a man and a woman whose lives intertwine by circumstance, but whose kinship is formed by their similar inaction in the face of death. The show takes its title from headlines that claimed U.K. former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands” during the COVID pandemic.
The latter half of the play is set in an elder-care facility at the beginning of the pandemic. The beginning of the play focuses on one family affected by the serial killer Dr. Harold Shipman. Naylor stars as Steve, whose mother and sister were killed by Shipman. Award-winning actor Emily Carding plays every other role, but mainly a caretaker in the nursing home during the pandemic. The plot is chilling. The performances thrilling. Click here for tickets.
After that one, Jeffrey and I needed a breather. And we had to go to a press showcase at Underbelly, another one of the festival’s larger presenters (where various acts put on five-minute snippets of the show for the media outlets present).
An hour, a couple of drinks, and some networking later, we decide to have dinner in the large Underbelly courtyard just outside of their McEwan Hall space. There are several food stands and bars, so everyone is happy. And due to its central location near so many large venues, this place stays crowded throughout the festival.
Since we haven’t yet been to Pleasance today, we decide to change our venue parameter to select our night show there. (Cheating? Nah.) Pleasance has lots of great late-night comedy and we wanted to end the day on a laugh. And, boy, did we hit the jackpot!!
Show 4: Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard, Grand
Pleasance is another of the “big four” presenters with several venues, with each venue containing multiple performance spaces. Just on the other side of the cobblestone courtyard, lined with food and drink stalls, sits one of Fringe’s largest venues: the Grand. With 700 seats, anything slotted into this space is expecting to sell a lot of tickets.
Now in its 14th year at Fringe, Showstopper! is a crowd-pleasing favorite. The Olivier-winning musical comedy is completely improvised using audience suggestions for song styles, setting, and title, so it’s different every single night. It features a live band and a cast of musical comedy geniuses. The night we were there, the setting was Hell and four song styles, shouted from the audience, were chosen by the onstage leader to be included: Sondheim, Operation Mincemeat (a 40s-set musical currently popular in the West End), Cats, and The Singing Kettle (a Scottish children’s folk group).
What followed was a ridiculously entertaining, 70-minute musical. All of the performers are gifted singers and comedians, but they fact that they are making up this entire show on the spot is hugely impressive. We had a great time—the entire, nearly sold-out audience did. (And their parody Sondheim number was top notch.) Click here for tickets. If you want to learn more about Showstopper! read our Playbill Pick writeup of the show.
As Jeffrey and I exited the theatre, we checked the time and were fairly certain we could squeeze in one more show. We looked at the app, then at each other, and it was clear that the best decision would be to call a car. We were tired! If planned well, it is entirely possible to do six to seven Fringe shows in a day, easily. And I’m sure there’s someone out there who’s tallied 10 to 12 in a day. But this was the first day of our first Fringe. Four shows (and that showcase) made for a terrific start.
