🌈 PrideNomad’s 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Rundown

40+ shows. Seven-show days. One 92-year-old on a scooter. A few glorious discoveries and some things we’re still trying to understand.

We’re back at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

For the uninitiated, the Fringe is what happens when thousands of performers descend on Edinburgh for August and seemingly every theatre, university classroom, pub basement, tent, church and available broom closet becomes a performance venue.

This is my fifth year.

This year I’ve brought reinforcements: my 92-year-old mother, Harriet — better known around here as Pepper, PrideNomad Mom, Scooter Girl, Miss Daisy, or whatever name I’ve assigned her that particular hour.

Our original plan was perfectly reasonable.

Then we started seeing six or seven shows a day.

One day we did seven performances over 12 hours.

This was after arriving in Edinburgh on an overnight flight.

That was stupid.

We have photographic evidence of both of us sleeping in theatres.

But we’ve also found some extraordinary shows.

So here’s our completely subjective, occasionally contradictory and definitely not paid-for rundown of what we saw.

Our standard isn’t whether somebody hit the correct note in measure 37.

It’s simpler:

Did we have a good time? Was it worth an hour of our lives? And should you spend your money to see it?

Let’s go.

🔥 THE “DROP EVERYTHING AND SEE IT” SHOWS

If you’re at the Fringe and can get tickets, these are the ones we’d fight for.

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Oh. My. God.

If you’re gay and you’re at the Fringe, I’m going to make a potentially controversial declaration:

You may lose your gay card if you don’t see this.

Yes, it’s an unauthorized musical parody of Heated Rivalry.

Yes, it’s filthy.

Yes, it’s completely ridiculous.

And the big surprise?

These people can SING.

The two leads certainly meet the physical requirements — believe me — but they’ve also got terrific voices and comic timing.

Pepper had absolutely no idea what she was walking into.

I did.

Watching her figure it out was almost worth the price of admission by itself.

Graphic, queer, musical and completely unapologetic.

Five stars. Must-see.

Crocodile Rock ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — according to Pepper

No, it isn’t about Elton John.

Crocodile Rock is actually a rock in a small Scottish community, and the show becomes a beautiful coming-of-age story about a young man discovering who he is — including his love of dressing in women’s clothing — and dealing with a father who isn’t exactly thrilled about it.

This one grabbed us.

It was funny, moving, beautifully performed and deeply human without trying too hard to announce its importance.

Afterward I asked Pepper for her rating.

Remember: our scale goes from one to five.

She said:

“I’d give him a six.”

Fine.

Pepper has spoken.

Six stars.

Right Before I Go ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I almost don’t know how to sell this one to you.

It’s about suicide.

And suicide notes.

Come see it!

Not exactly the easiest Fringe pitch.

Go anyway.

Right Before I Go was created after writer Stan Zimmerman lost a friend to suicide and uses the words people left behind to explore why someone reaches the point where they decide they can no longer stay.

The cast includes some extraordinary performers, including Wendie Malick, whom I had the pleasure of meeting afterward and promptly fell in love with.

What surprised us most was that the show wasn’t depressing.

Heavy? Absolutely.

But not hopeless.

Pepper noticed something I hadn’t articulated: the stories weren’t built around blaming parents or finding villains. They tried to understand the person.

There were people who died.

People who tried and survived.

Children destroyed by bullying.

People who simply decided their life was complete.

And underneath all of it was a conversation about shame, pain and what makes life worth continuing.

It gives you your life back before you leave.

For your soul, this is a must-see.

Five stars from both of us.

Max Olesker: Making the Cut ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Jewish guy falls in love with a Jewish woman.

So naturally, before he can marry her…

he has to become Jewish.

He’s already Jewish.

There’s the problem.

Max is a liberal Jew. The woman he falls hopelessly in love with comes from a deeply Orthodox world.

What follows is a true, one-man story about the extraordinary lengths he goes through to be accepted into her world so they can build a life together.

I’m Jewish.

I’m also about as liberal a Jew as you can get.

I had a bar mitzvah, got circumcised, did the paperwork. I’m good.

So there was something fascinating — and occasionally infuriating — about watching one minority community create its own tests for deciding whether someone is the right kind of minority.

We gay people certainly know nothing about doing THAT to each other.

Ahem.

But that’s not really what the show is about.

It’s about love.

What would you do to be with the person you love?

Apparently Max’s answer was: practically anything.

Funny, beautifully written, incredibly tight and deeply moving.

I found myself comparing other autobiographical shows to this afterward because the construction is that good.

Five stars.

Wiesenthal ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This one stopped us cold.

Christopher C. Gibbs portrays Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, telling not only Wiesenthal’s story but those of people whose lives might otherwise disappear into history.

One story involved a child whose words essentially asked:

Who’s going to remember me?

I cried.

Pepper and I are Jewish, so obviously this lands particularly close to home.

But that isn’t why you should see it.

You should see it because memory matters.

Especially now.

The Fringe can be gloriously stupid — and you’ll find plenty of gloriously stupid farther down this page — but this is the other reason the festival matters.

History lives here, too.

Pepper: five stars.

Ken: five stars.

No question.

By a Thread ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Seven Australian circus performers.

One enormous rope.

No dialogue.

That’s basically the entire setup.

And it is mesmerizing.

Instead of traditional silks or aerial apparatus, they use a giant rope suspended between pulleys — climbing it, hanging from it, balancing on it, manipulating it and manipulating each other.

At times the bodies almost become part of the rope.

It’s seamless.

Beautiful.

And physically insane.

They also began with an Acknowledgement of Country, which always gets me emotionally after living in Australia.

This show sold out last year.

We couldn’t get in.

It’s selling out again this year.

Now we understand why.

If you like circus or physical performance, don’t miss it.

Ben Hart: The Labyrinth ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I love Ben Hart.

I’ve seen him at several Fringes now, and I’ve reached the point where if I see his name on the programme, I book the ticket.

He’s technically a magician.

But calling Ben a magician is a bit like calling the Fringe “some shows in Scotland.”

He creates an atmosphere.

And then he does something approximately six feet in front of you that your brain insists cannot possibly have happened.

At one point during The Labyrinth, my internal critical analysis consisted primarily of:

Holy shit. How did he do that?

And that is exactly what I want from magic.

Pepper loved him.

I loved him.

Five stars.

Again.

Reuben Kaye: Hard to Swallow ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you’ve followed PrideNomad for any length of time, you probably already know how much I love Reuben Kaye.

Australian. Singer. Comedian. Drag creature. Political provocateur. Human hand grenade.

Pick a category. He’ll probably blow it up anyway.

We missed him at the Fringe last year because he was off doing Jesus Christ Superstar, so I was particularly happy to have him back.

And this year?

He’s angrier.

Good.

The political material is sharper and more pointed than I remember, but importantly, it isn’t simply an American political rant. Reuben is Australian, and the problems he’s attacking are much bigger than one country.

Pepper nailed that immediately.

It’s universal.

There were also some surprisingly personal revelations woven into the madness this time.

He’s clever. He’s confrontational. He’s musical. He’s filthy. He pushes buttons because that’s his job.

And apparently he loves Pepper.

I ran into him before the show and one of the first things he asked was:

“How’s your mom?”

Then he spotted her during the performance and gave her a wink.

Pepper waved back.

Of course she did.

If Reuben Kaye is performing anywhere near you, see him.

Five stars.

Always.

Sammy J: Hero Complex ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I’ve wanted to see Sammy J live for years.

He’s from Melbourne, he’s adorable, he does wonderfully smart musical comedy and…

Fine.

I have a little crush on him.

Apparently Edinburgh has become quite dangerous for me.

What surprised me was that this particular show wasn’t the collection of musical comedy pieces I expected.

Instead, Sammy essentially told one long story for the entire hour.

And he held us.

Funny, clean, warm, beautifully constructed and with a terrific payoff at the end.

Pepper knew nothing about him beforehand and loved him too.

There’s no shock comedy here. No desperate button-pushing. Just a genuinely gifted storyteller making a room want to stay with him.

Then afterward, when I was retrieving Pepper’s scooter backstage, Sammy was there and immediately engaged:

What’s your name? Where are you from?

Lovely guy.

Lovely show.

Five stars. Must-see.

And yes, Sammy, if you’re reading this, the crush remains.

Swamplesque ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Shrek.

Burlesque.

That’s it.

That’s the review.

I’ve now seen it three times.

Pepper has seen it twice.

We would both go again.

Tash York is the force at the center of this thing — phenomenal, outrageous and completely in command — and the entire cast throws themselves into the insanity.

And a quick shoutout to Charlie Love, one of the world’s best pole dancers, an absolute sweetheart — and, okay, I confess, I have a bit of a crush on him.

Moving right along.

The whole show is camp, sexy, ridiculous joy.

This isn’t important theatre.

Thank God.

Not everything needs to teach you something.

Sometimes you just need a bunch of extremely talented people doing filthy things to Shrek.

Five stars.

💥 THE “HELL YES, BOOK IT” TIER

These may not rearrange your understanding of the universe, but they’re absolutely worth an hour of your Fringe.

A Queer Little Murder ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We stumbled into this one during previews.

Normally that’s dangerous territory for a reviewer because the performer is still working things out.

And yes — she forgot things.

Know what?

We loved her more because of it.

It’s a one-woman queer murder mystery set around an island, with the audience participating in deciding who committed the crime.

Campy.

Interactive.

Delightfully queer.

And when something went wrong, she owned it so completely that the mistake became part of the fun.

I’ve spent a lot of my life on stages.

That’s what a performer does.

You don’t pretend nothing happened.

You bring the audience with you.

She did.

Five stars.

Lizzy Sunshine ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This began before we ever reached the theatre.

Pepper saw a woman on the street whose clothes she loved.

They started talking.

The woman offered us free tickets to her show.

We said:

“We already have tickets. We’re seeing you in an hour.”

That’s the Fringe.

The woman was Liz Coin, and Lizzy Sunshine begins with Lizzy apologizing because her co-star hasn’t shown up.

For a moment, we thought this was actually happening.

It wasn’t.

It’s the show.

What starts as playful clown comedy and audience participation gradually reveals a much sharper story underneath involving her brother, addiction and family.

Funny, vulnerable and beautifully handled.

And it’s in a tiny room.

Five stars.

Doktor Kaboom and the Wheel of Science! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — Pepper has broken the system again

Yes.

It’s a children’s show.

No.

We don’t care.

Doktor Kaboom combines science experiments, comedy and a room full of children absolutely losing their minds.

He electrified pickles.

As one does.

But the thing I remember wasn’t an experiment.

A little boy near Pepper desperately wanted to participate. His mother kept trying to quiet him down.

Doktor Kaboom didn’t shame him.

He made space for him.

Later, he brought a child onstage and asked him whether he was smart.

The kid said yes.

And Doktor Kaboom reinforced it.

Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise.

That’s the kind of thing a child remembers.

I give him five.

Pepper gave him five and a half.

Apparently our five-star system is merely a suggestion.

Circus: The Show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Another show technically designed for children.

Again:

Who cares?

Traditional circus skills, wonderful performers, a terrific clown and a room full of kids completely enchanted by what they were watching.

Seeing children lose themselves in live performance is half the fun.

My recommendation:

If you’re under 150, you’re young enough.

Five stars.

The Greatest Magic Show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Apparently I’m spending an alarming percentage of this Fringe at children’s shows.

I’m fine with it.

I raced out for this one while Pepper was still getting ready and discovered some familiar faces from the Adults Only Magic Show.

Same guys.

Very different audience.

And they were terrific.

Great magic, enormous energy, funny without talking down to the kids — and the children absolutely adored them.

That matters.

Making adults laugh is one thing.

Holding a room full of children is an entirely different skill.

If you’ve got kids, know kids, used to be a kid or have simply refused to stop being one:

Five stars.

YUCK Circus: Naughties ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We’ve seen these Australian women before.

Five stars then.

Five stars now.

They’re strong, irreverent, funny and enormously talented — and they don’t bury the fun underneath the athleticism.

That’s important.

You can be extraordinarily good at something without demanding that the audience admire how extraordinarily good you are.

We just had a hell of a time.

Five stars. Again.

The Black Blues Brothers: Let’s Twist Again ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Five guys.

No dialogue.

An hour of nonstop acrobatics.

And enough energy to power most of Edinburgh.

These guys are a total joy.

I’d actually seen The Black Blues Brothers performing on the street during last year’s Fringe as they tried to fill their room.

I stopped and watched them then and thought:

I need to see these guys.

I couldn’t fit them into the schedule.

This year, finally, I did.

And I’m glad I did.

They’re five extraordinarily talented acrobats who manage to completely engage an audience without saying a single word.

Their smiles are infectious.

Their energy is infectious.

And unlike some physical performances where the athleticism is extraordinary but the show itself starts to drag, these guys never let up.

That was particularly noticeable after seeing Vidrato the day before.

I thought that performer had five-star ability but the show needed to move faster.

The Black Blues Brothers showed exactly what I meant.

Nonstop.

One stunt into another.

One laugh into another.

One burst of energy into another.

And the audience went nuts.

Standing ovation.

Completely deserved.

Would I see them again?

Yep.

Would I bring Pepper?

Yep.

Would I bring friends?

Absolutely.

It’s an hour of super-talented people giving an audience exactly what they came for:

Fun.

Five stars.

Stamptown ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have no idea what happened.

I don’t think they do either.

Apparently that’s the point.

Stamptown is late-night comedy/variety mayhem that changes constantly and appears to operate under the production philosophy:

“What if we just did whatever the hell we wanted?”

There were terrific performers.

There was Leo Reich — cute, gay and Jewish, so obviously my kind of guy.

There was nearly an exposed ass.

There was very little that resembled a conventional script.

And we could not stop laughing.

At the Fringe, that’s enough.

Five stars for complete lunacy.

Puck Bunnies: A Heated Rivalry Drag Musical Parody ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Because apparently seeing one Heated Rivalry musical parody in a day would have been insufficiently gay.

So we saw two.

This one takes the idea in a completely different direction with an all-female, drag-king-ish musical treatment.

Very funny.

Very clever.

Huge energy.

I was hovering around four-and-a-half.

Pepper said five.

She wins.

Again.

Linus Karp Was Hit by an Umbrella ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We’ve been seeing Linus Karp at the Fringe for years.

And first, we’ve finally learned something important:

It’s pronounced Lee-nus.

He’s Swedish.

Mystery solved.

If you’ve seen Linus before, you know his shows are wonderfully weird, very queer and very interactive.

Audience members get cards with lines on them, things appear on the screen, you suddenly become part of the performance — and somehow the whole ridiculous machine works.

We’ve seen his Princess Diana show. We saw his Gwyneth Paltrow skiing show. Last year I somehow ended up in a casket during one of his performances.

And Linus and his now-husband even made Fringe history by getting married onstage here.

So naturally we went back.

This one’s different.

Linus Karp Was Hit by an Umbrella is based on something that actually happened to him.

Linus was walking through Soho with the man who is now his husband when a stranger attacked them with an umbrella in a homophobic hate crime.

The attacker apparently said he wanted to kill him.

Not exactly obvious material for a comedy.

Linus makes it work.

He tells an ugly, frightening story using the same audience participation, absurdity and playfulness that make his other shows so much fun — without trivializing what happened.

There’s another layer to it, too: the man with Linus that night — now his husband, then his fiancé — is a police officer who had himself been attacked years earlier.

So underneath the laughs is something considerably bigger about being queer, being visible and what can happen simply because you’re walking down the street with the person you love.

And yet you don’t leave feeling beaten up by it.

You leave having had a hell of a good time.

That’s quite an accomplishment.

We’ve loved Linus’s shows for years.

Five stars.

And if his Diana show is playing while you’re here, see that too. It’s hysterical.

A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

And with this one, Pepper and I came to our final Fringe show together this year.

She was heading back to Miami.

I was heading to London.

So naturally, we finished with a show about a gay masseur who becomes a sex worker.

Thanks, Edinburgh.

A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings is a semi-autobiographical solo show about a performer who needs money to pay the rent and starts a massage business for gay men.

Except “massage business” doesn’t quite cover where things go.

There are funny stories.

Creepy stories.

Hopeful stories.

Sex work.

And yes, nudity.

Quite a bit of nudity.

The performer has a gorgeous body — and seeing it did make me think I should probably get myself back to the gym — but truthfully, I didn’t think the nudity was necessary.

Pepper had a slightly different interpretation of the plot.

She explained that he had to take an Uber to Boca Raton to get a massage.

It was Connecticut.

Close enough, Mother.

Underneath all of this, though, was a very human story about money, survival and the things people sometimes find themselves doing simply because the rent needs to be paid.

The performance was compelling and extremely well acted.

And he had another challenge the day we saw it: Edinburgh was having unusually warm weather, the tiny theatre was boiling, and several fans were running just to make the room tolerable.

He handled it beautifully — adjusting his performance and projecting over the fans without allowing any of it to derail the show.

Pepper wouldn’t necessarily say she “enjoyed” the subject matter because it isn’t remotely her world.

But she appreciated being taken into somebody else’s.

Or, as she put it:

“To learn about how the other half lives.”

I was waiting for that one.

My only reservation was the very end. I thought the final page or so of the script could use a little tightening.

And yes…

there is a happy ending.

Take that however you’d like.

But especially if you’re a gay man, this is absolutely worth putting on your Fringe list.

Ken: five stars.

Pepper: five stars.

A very sweaty five stars — and a wonderfully appropriate ending to our Fringe together.

Juliet Burton: Villain Era ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is where we discovered an unexpected Fringe reviewing problem:

jet lag.

I was sitting in the back row trying desperately to remain conscious.

Pepper was worse.

Juliet noticed.

And rather than being annoyed, she started playing with me.

Beautifully.

She’d already worked out that I was safe because I’d engaged with her when we walked in, so suddenly Sleep-Deprived Ken became part of the show.

That’s skill.

Pepper initially wasn’t sure she’d even describe Juliet as a comedian because the show wasn’t simply a set routine.

It was a relationship with the audience.

Exactly.

Creative, responsive and extremely funny.

And anybody who can make something entertaining out of a reviewer nearly falling asleep gets bonus points.

Five stars.

Rob Preston: Amazing Global Solutions ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was another one of those:

“We have a hole in the schedule. What the hell — let’s see this.”

And it turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Rob Preston takes an offbeat, stand-up-ish approach to offering “amazing global solutions” to the issues of the day.

Sort of.

It’s comedy. It’s audience participation. It’s deliberately a little weird.

And then he started pulling people from the audience onto the stage.

Guess who ended up being one of them?

Me.

That may have influenced the scoring.

If I were being a terribly serious theatre critic, I’d probably give the show four stars.

But I’m not.

We come to the Fringe to have fun.

And we had fun.

So I announced on the spot:

“I’d give it a four, but because he put me in it, I’m giving him five.”

Pepper gave him five too.

There you go.

Five stars from both of us.

Sometimes that’s all a Fringe review needs to tell you: will you have a good time?

With Rob Preston?

We did.

Adults Only Magic Show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The title is not misleading.

Leave the children somewhere else.

I’d seen these Australian guys previously at the Sydney Fringe and loved them there.

Edinburgh didn’t change my mind.

It’s great magic combined with adult comedy, irreverence and a hell of a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, we had committed the classic Fringe scheduling sin and booked another show before this one finished, so we had to leave early.

I wasn’t happy about it.

Partly because the show was terrific.

And partly because one of the guys was extremely hot.

I contain multitudes.

From what we saw?

Five stars.

If you can stay for the whole thing, please do a better job scheduling than we did.

The Underground Monk Show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Monks.

Robes.

Heads being submerged in water.

Journeys beneath the surface.

And Pepper apparently spending part of the show trying to work out what was underneath the robes.

Welcome to travelling with my mother.

This thing was bizarre.

Completely irreverent.

Very silly.

And a hoot.

The central conceit involves each monk plunging his head underwater and embarking on some sort of underwater journey.

That description doesn’t make it substantially less strange.

But it works.

We had a genuine scheduling problem because this overlapped with Adults Only Magic Show, and we’d have happily seen both in full.

If you have the slot open:

Go.

The Bob Ross Effect ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Neither Pepper nor I knew who Bob Ross was before this show.

Yes, apparently we’ve been living under rocks.

For decades.

The show introduced us not only to the extraordinary cultural phenomenon of Bob Ross — the television painter who convinced millions of people they could pick up a brush and make something — but to another remarkable older female performer whose story became part of the piece.

And then we got involved.

Crayons.

Clipboards.

Paper.

Three drawings.

Audience participation.

Songs.

And cookies.

They gave us cookies.

This was intimate rather than spectacular, and that’s exactly why it worked.

The whole thing became a celebration of making something, trying something and refusing to accept that creativity belongs to somebody else.

Pepper initially described it as being about “trying something new,” which I accused her of reducing to the most insulting understatement possible.

Then she gave it five stars.

All was forgiven.

Five stars for what it sets out to do.

The Mr Thing Show ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I don’t quite know what category to put this in.

So let’s call it:

An experience.

Puppets.

Cameras everywhere.

Audience participation.

Someone wandering out into the Edinburgh crowds wearing a camera and finding real people who resembled cartoon characters.

Music.

Slapstick.

Technical insanity.

And essentially no plot that either of us could identify.

Didn’t matter.

It was goofy and inventive and kept us smiling.

Which brings us back to our basic Fringe rating system:

Should you see it or shouldn’t you?

This one?

Yes.

Five stars for fun.

Muse: The Shakespeare Mayhem Musical ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Now this was adorable.

The premise is terrific:

Imagine Shakespeare having to choose just one of his plays to publish.

One.

So naturally, characters from his various plays start fighting to make sure their play is the one he chooses.

All of this unfolds as a wonderfully bonkers musical dream sequence.

The voices were terrific.

The costumes were great.

The performances were strong.

And the whole thing was simply joyful.

I should also point out that by this stage of the Fringe I was operating on approximately seventeen minutes of sleep and stubbornness.

I was struggling to stay awake.

That was me, not them.

Because Muse absolutely deserved my attention.

It’s exactly the kind of Fringe show I love discovering: clever premise, talented performers, good music and an hour that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Five stars.

If you can fit it into the schedule, go.

👍 VERY GOOD — AND WE’RE GLAD WE SAW THEM

These are strong recommendations, with a caveat or two.

Camelton ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We booked this thinking it might be some sort of Hamilton parody involving camels.

Obviously.

We were completely wrong.

Instead, we got a wonderfully bizarre true story involving the Middle East, an extraordinarily wealthy client, theatrical production and actual camels.

The performer barely stopped moving for the entire show.

Funny as hell.

Later we ran into him at a press event, and he made a point of coming over to talk to Pepper about the old Borscht Belt in the Catskills, where he’d worked years ago.

That sealed it.

Five from me.

Five from Pepper.

And not a founding father in sight.

Acid's Reign ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

Climate change.

Drag queens.

A drag king.

Musical theatre.

Sure.

Why not?

That’s the Fringe.

Terrific performers, an inventive concept and a lot to like.

Our only problem:

It needed an editor.

Cut about 15 minutes and I think the whole thing becomes considerably stronger.

The performances were five-star.

The pacing wasn’t.

Call it four-and-a-half.

SLUGS ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ Ken / ⭐⭐⭐½ Pepper

Well.

This one divided the room.

Or at least our two seats.

SLUGS is a story involving a gay man, relationships, himself and…

slugs.

Realistically, I spent a fair amount of the performance trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be taking from it.

It’s very well acted.

It’s raw.

It’s graphic.

It has surprises.

And there are images from the ending that you are unlikely to forget anytime soon.

Pepper had a more concise critical assessment:

“Disgusting.”

She later softened that to three-and-a-half stars.

I spoke to someone else who’d seen it — less than half my age — and he absolutely loved it and considered the work groundbreaking.

And that’s worth saying.

Sometimes a show isn’t bad.

You’re just not its audience.

I may simply not be sophisticated enough for this one.

Pepper definitely wasn’t buying it.

For execution and performance, I’d give it four-and-a-half.

Pepper: three-and-a-half and perhaps a shower afterward.

Proceed according to your tolerance for raw.

Joseph Morpurgo: Highlander 70 ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

This may win the award for “show we booked to fill a hole and were damn glad we did.”

Joseph Morpurgo found an old American high-school yearbook — Highlander 70 — and somehow turned it into an hour of characters, stories, comedy and audience participation.

That’s a great Fringe premise.

It’s inventive as hell.

Our only problem was that a few ideas got introduced and then seemed to disappear. At one point audience members were brought into something that never quite paid off.

A little tightening and this would have been five.

Four-and-a-half.

Russell Kane: HyperActive ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ken / ⭐⭐⭐½ Pepper

Finally.

A fight.

Pepper wasn’t terribly impressed.

I was.

It took me a little while to get into Russell Kane’s rhythm — and the sound system wasn’t helping — but once I did, I loved where he went.

Underneath the comedy was a surprising amount about responsibility, parenting, accountability and allowing people to fail enough to discover what they’re capable of.

That hit me.

Pepper?

Meh.

So there you have it.

Ken: five. Pepper: three-and-a-half-ish.

We remain on speaking terms.

1954: Ella, Etta, Eartha ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A gorgeous musical hour celebrating Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Eartha Kitt.

Wonderful singer.

Terrific three-piece combo.

Pepper initially called it a three-piece condo.

I suggested a three-piece condom.

We eventually arrived at combo.

This is what happens after approximately 30 Fringe shows.

The music was lush, warm and beautifully performed.

Is it an absolute drop-everything Fringe essential?

No.

But if you love this music and want to spend an hour feeling good?

Absolutely.

Five stars for what it is.

Searching for Robert Hennessy ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ken / ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pepper

This is a fascinating true story about a man who spent decades trying to discover the identity of the father he’d never known.

Pepper adored it.

The story itself is extraordinary.

The performer is enormously likable.

And meeting him afterward only reinforced that.

But I kept thinking about Making the Cut.

Both are autobiographical solo pieces.

Max Olesker’s show felt meticulously constructed.

Searching for Robert Hennessy sometimes felt to me more like an extraordinary man telling you his extraordinary story at a bar.

That’s not necessarily bad.

I just wanted the writing tighter.

Pepper: five.

Ken: strong four.

Apparently other people are interested in bringing it to New York, so perhaps my taste sucks.

Go decide for yourself.

The Tom Brace Magic Hour ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I like Tom Brace.

We’ve seen him before, and this year he even greeted me with:

“Hi, Ken.”

How the hell does Tom Brace know me?

Apparently we’ve reached that stage of the Fringe.

He’s terrific with an audience. He’s fun. And he’s a very good magician.

Unfortunately for Tom, we’d seen Ben Hart the night before.

That’s an unfair comparison.

Ben’s show has a sophistication, theatricality and sheer presence that operates on another level.

Tom absolutely has the talent.

What I want to see now is more panache.

More command.

More of the sense that the minute he enters the room, it’s his.

The magic is already there.

Get the presentation to that same level and I think he can become exceptional.

For now:

Four stars.

Fast Fringe ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is one of the smartest things you can see early in your Fringe visit.

The premise is simple:

A whole bunch of Fringe performers get roughly three minutes apiece to show you what they do.

Think of it as speed dating for shows.

Some comedy.

Some theatre.

Some music.

Some WTF.

And if something grabs you, you now know what to book.

We were also exhausted when we saw it, so having something completely different arrive every three minutes was precisely what our brains required.

Is it a great theatrical event?

Not really.

Is it a terrific Fringe filtering system?

Absolutely.

Four stars — and particularly useful near the beginning of your trip.

Vidrado ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This guy is talented.

Really talented.

Bicycle work.

Unicycle.

Acrobatics.

Balancing the unicycle on bottles.

Plenty of moments when you understand exactly how much skill you’re watching.

The problem?

It needed to move.

We’re doing the Fringe at Fringe speed: early mornings, late nights, show after show after show.

If you give us too much dead air, our bodies interpret it as permission to sleep.

And we started fading.

Pepper thought it became repetitive.

I thought it was simply too slow.

Same result.

This is a performer with five-star ability giving, for us, a four-star show.

Tighten it.

Keep it moving.

There’s a five-star performance hiding in there.

The next day I saw The Black Blues Brothers. That’s when I realized exactly what had been missing here: relentless energy and showmanship.

Doughboys ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A deliberately broad wartime farce involving Americans arriving to help a rather clueless British officer.

Big performances.

Big comedy.

And considerably more going on underneath than you might initially expect.

I enjoyed it.

Pepper was considerably less enthusiastic.

I say four.

Pepper basically says:

“There are other shows.”

You begin to understand why travelling with your mother makes reviewing considerably more entertaining.

Diva Las Vegas ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ken / “I could pass” Pepper

Three women.

Classic Vegas songs.

Good voices.

An enjoyable hour.

And Pepper asleep.

I have photographs.

They’re magnificent.

To be fair, by this point we’d been doing days of Fringe insanity and sleep had become less a biological function than a competitive event.

I thought the show was a solid four.

Pepper said there were other things she’d rather see.

The women absolutely were singing — despite Pepper accusing them afterward of lip-syncing.

They were singing, Mother.

Four stars from me.

Pepper reserves the right to use that hour for a nap.

🤔 YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY

These weren’t necessarily bad.

They just weren’t really for us.

Cruising ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Well, I’m a gay man.

I saw a show called Cruising.

Obviously I knew what this was going to be about.

I did not.

Wrong kind of cruising.

This one involves an actual cruise ship.

Two people meet on a Mediterranean cruise. One works aboard the ship, the other is a passenger. They’re both climate activists.

And then we discover they’re both dating the same person.

They’re apparently all part of an open relationship, although these two know of each other without actually knowing each other.

Got it?

Neither did I.

The production itself is an intimate two-person piece, well acted and well constructed, dealing with relationships, identity and climate change.

My problem was following who was who.

The characters had gender-neutral names, and the pronouns added another layer that my admittedly older brain had trouble tracking in the dialogue.

That’s not a criticism of how anybody chooses to identify themselves.

I simply got confused.

So confused, in fact, that after the show I went back and read the official description to figure out what I’d just watched.

That’s probably not the ideal outcome.

And it leaves me in the slightly strange position of giving Cruising four stars for the quality of the production while telling you I wouldn’t personally recommend it.

Would I see it again?

No.

Was it bad?

Absolutely not.

It simply wasn’t for me.

And sometimes that’s the most useful thing a review can tell you.

MAJENIN: A Palestinian Love Story ⭐⭐⭐

This was literally our first show after flying overnight to Scotland.

In retrospect, perhaps we should have chosen something requiring less cognitive function.

Three performers.

Changing relationships.

Narration.

And somewhere along the way both of us lost the plot.

Literally.

The acting was good.

The performers were committed.

But we were sitting there trying to work out who was whose girlfriend and what exactly was happening.

Maybe it was us.

Maybe it was the writing.

Probably some of both.

Solid three.

Top Gun: Chained ⭐⭐⭐½

Paper airplanes.

Top Gun.

One committed performer.

And two exhausted Americans wondering what the point was.

We arrived about five minutes late, which may have hurt us.

The performer was creative, using paper airplanes to recreate the fighter-jet world.

Other people were participating.

We weren’t.

Eventually we left.

And here’s my rule:

You bought the ticket. You do not owe the performer the remaining 37 minutes of your life.

If you’re miserable, quietly leave.

I’d rather someone leave my audience than sit there radiating “please kill me.”

The performer did nothing wrong.

It simply didn’t connect with us.

Three-and-a-half.

QFWFQ ⭐⭐⭐½

Yes.

That’s the title.

QFWFQ.

No wonder we couldn’t pronounce the damn thing.

We walked all the way down to Summerhall for this.

The show was sold out.

The performer was completely committed.

The performance itself was strong.

And when it ended, my considered critical response was:

“What the hell did we just see?”

I asked Pepper.

She didn’t know either.

We had no idea what the plot was.

No idea what had happened.

No idea what we’d just spent an hour watching.

Apparently other people understand it because the thing has been selling out.

Good for them.

We’re happy for them.

Pepper eventually described it as a chopped-up funnel of different things.

That’s as good an explanation as I have.

The performer was talented enough that I can’t possibly trash it.

But would we see it again?

No.

On the plus side, it was a beautiful walk to Summerhall.

Three-and-a-half stars for the performance.

Approximately zero stars for our comprehension.

❤️ THE SHOWS WE’RE NOT RATING

There were also a couple of shows that simply did not work for us.

One we walked out of.

Another clearly needed more development.

I’m not giving them star ratings here.

That’s deliberate.

The Fringe exists because people are willing to get on a stage and take a risk.

Sometimes the show isn’t ready.

Sometimes the experiment fails.

Sometimes the audience simply isn’t the right audience.

I’ve spent more than 40 years speaking from stages.

When I started?

I sucked.

Luckily, people cared enough to give me feedback and I kept getting back on the bicycle.

So we’re not going to publicly execute a developing performer because we happened to see them on the wrong day.

They got on the stage.

We didn’t.

I respect that.

🏆 SO WHAT SHOULD YOU ACTUALLY SEE?

Okay.

You’ve just scrolled through an insane number of reviews.

If you want us to make the decisions for you, here you go.

For queer stuff we wouldn't miss:

🔥 Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody
🔥 Crocodile Rock
🔥 Swamplesque
🔥 Linus Karp Was Hit by an Umbrella
🔥 Reuben Kaye: Hard to Swallow
🔥 A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings

For something that stays with you:

🔥 Right Before I Go
🔥 Wiesenthal
🔥 Max Olesker: Making the Cut

For sheer “HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT?”:

🔥 Ben Hart: The Labyrinth
🔥 By a Thread
🔥 Adults Only Magic Show
🔥 The Black Blues Brothers: Let’s Twist Again

For pure Fringe insanity:

🔥 Stamptown

For something warm, funny and just damn good:

🔥 Sammy J

And if you’re bringing children — or you’re simply a 69-year-old and a 92-year-old who refuse to grow up:

🔥 Doktor Kaboom and the Wheel of Science!
🔥 Circus: The Show
🔥 The Greatest Magic Show

🌍 WHY WE KEEP COMING BACK

There’s a reason this is my fifth Fringe.

You can see a famous performer in a packed theatre.

Then walk 200 yards and discover someone you’ve never heard of performing for 25 people in a room above a pub.

And that may be the show you remember.

We’ve met performers on the street.

We’ve talked to them after shows.

We’ve watched them promote themselves with flyers, costumes, signs and pure desperation.

And here’s one of the secrets of doing the Fringe:

Talk to strangers.

Stand in a queue and ask the people around you:

“What have you seen? What did you like?”

That’s how I did the Fringe for years.

I’d arrive in Edinburgh without some military-precision itinerary, ask the press office what was good, talk to people in queues, look at posters and follow recommendations.

This year I used AI to help build the schedule.

It was reasonably good.

But the people standing next to you in line?

They may still be the best recommendation engine in Edinburgh.

We’ve seen serious theatre about the Holocaust and suicide.

We’ve seen circus.

Drag queens fighting climate change.

Shrek burlesque.

Gay hockey players singing about sex.

A man turning a homophobic umbrella attack into comedy.

A completely inexplicable show called QFWFQ.

Monks sticking their heads underwater.

A scientist electrifying pickles for children.

And whatever the hell Stamptown was.

Try finding that itinerary on a cruise ship.

Actress Wendie Malick, here for her first Fringe — and her first time in Scotland — described the whole thing to me beautifully:

“It's a cauldron of chaos.”

That’s it.

That’s the Edinburgh Fringe.

And that’s why we love it.

The Fringe isn’t about knowing exactly what you’re going to see.

It’s about not knowing.

Because somewhere among thousands of performances, in a theatre that might seat 600 people or a room that might seat 16, somebody you’ve never heard of is about to do something extraordinary.

And you get to be there when it happens.

If you’re anywhere within reasonable striking distance of Edinburgh before the Fringe ends:

Get your ass (and the rest of you) here.

And if you can’t?

Start thinking about next year.

We already are.