With just over a month to go now until the start of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we’ve taken a look at the best theatre shows to check out in August.
The world’s largest arts festival has, as always, got hundreds of great theatrical treats to choose from, performing across the city in our theatres, function rooms, gym halls and even pubs.
Among the 42 theatre shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe we’ve highlighted are a great mix of returning shows, debuts and even some world premiere runs in Edinburgh.
Check out our galley below to help you choose which theatre shows you will be watching in Edinburgh this August.
25. The Wolf of Poyais
Actor and Edinburgh Fringe veteran Thom Tuck stars in The Wolf of Poyais; an unsettling and darkly prescient show based on the astonishing true story of Gregor MacGregor, the Scottish conman who convinced hundreds of people to invest in - and emigrate to - a country that never existed. Reimagining one of the 19th century’s most audacious fraudsters for the age of cryptocurrency, wellness gurus and get-rich-quick culture, the show asks why people still want so badly to believe the impossible. Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) | 5th - 30th August (not 12th, 19th & 26th), 8.30pm. | Emily Foxton
26. Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie
The critically acclaimed musical Woody Sez: The Life & Music of Woody Guthrie returns to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time in nearly two decades, following acclaimed productions across the UK, the West End and Off-Broadway. Created and performed by David Lutken alongside three actor-musicians playing more than twenty instruments. The show draws directly from Guthrie’s own words, letters and songs to trace the life of the American folk icon through the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and the political movements that shaped twentieth-century America. Underbelly Bristo Square (Cowbarn) | 5th - 30th August (not 17th & 24th), 5.30pm. | Roger Mastroianni
27. Truthmachine
Award-winning Australian company Counterpilot presents Truthmachine, a theatrical social experiment in which twelve strangers enter a room. One volunteer will take a working lie detector test as the other eleven become the jury. Connected to a custom-built polygraph system, the volunteer is subjected to a live interrogation while biometric sensors track heart rate, breathing and skin response in real time, converting their body's reactions into a live symphony of light and sound. The jury watches, votes, and decides. In a world of fake news and alternative facts, can your heart rate lie as effectively as our leaders can? C Venue (C Alto, Quaker Meeting House) | 7th - 30th August | 30-min show, multiple times daily. | KateOSullivan
28. The Ghost of White Hart Lane
After sell-out runs at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Edinburgh Fringe 2024 and London seasons in 2025 and 2026, The Ghost of White Hart Lane returns to the Fringe. Cal Newman performs all 31 characters in this acclaimed one-man play about Scotsman John White - one of the finest footballers of the 1960s, struck by lightning and killed at 27 - and his son Rob's journey to find the father he never met. Moving between parallel lives almost thirty years apart, the play weaves personal history, football legend and the universal experience of grief and identity into something that reaches far beyond the sport. Underbelly Bristo Square (Dairy Room) | 5th - 30th August (not 18th), 2.55pm. | Submitted