12 shows coming to Edinburgh Fringe with live music
Here is everything you need to know.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe stages are set to come alive this August. If you’re looking for something beyond your average stand-up gig, or simply want to see a show with some live music this Festival season, there are a wave of productions that weave everything from jazz and blues to pop-bangers to punk guitar directly into their storytelling. Here are 12 shows heading to the 2026 festival where the music isn't just a soundtrack, but is performed live on stage.
Award-winning singer-songwriter Monique DeBose explores identity and racial categorisation through her own experience as a mixed-race woman. Original Jazz-inspired music is sung live over a recorded underscore, blending humour and storytelling with a personal reckoning on race in America.
This musical comedy roasts the elite world of drama school ambition through a pop, country-tinged score of original songs. Co-writers Riley Elton McCarthy and Hope Johansen use sharp satire and live music to explore loyalty, tradition, and institutional failure.
Struggling musician Jack performs a blend of blues, folk, and pop originals live on stage as his life unravels ahead of a career-defining audition. Partly inspired by writer-performer Daniel Adolfsson's own experiences, the music becomes the one place Jack can be truly honest.
Multi-instrumentalist and storyteller Callum Patrick Hughes performs a live onstage soundscape using guitars, loop pedals, and guitar drones. The music underpins this dark examination of Hollywood's destructive dream, drawing parallels with 2025's anti-ICE protests in LA.
Musician Alanna Hall performs an original punk-inspired live score and foley on electric guitar throughout this non-verbal clown show loosely inspired by Frankenstein. The live sound captures every stumble and movement of the central creature, Frank.
An unhinged musical comedy and sketch show blending hardcore punk, hyperpop and "gay brain rot" internet humour. Audience volunteers are pulled into the chaos as the show examines the strange things people reach for to feel whole.
Five members of the Yat Po Singers, joined by a Sheng artist, perform live vocal artistry, beatboxing, and body percussion in this fierce a cappella showdown. Traditional Chinese instruments are voiced entirely by performers as they battle for supremacy.
Wet Hands (Jack McGuire) performs a live electronic soundscape inspired by the sonic meditations of composer Pauline Oliveros. Audiences are invited to contribute live to the ambient sound, creating a collective, meditative listening experience.
Performers Wan Xing, Gregor Black and Eleanor Dunsdon play the Chinese zheng alongside Scottish musical rhythms live, structured around the four classical elements. The performance is elevated by visual art inspired by Chinese calligraphy.
Everyone’s favourite lifeguard has washed up in a soggy and struggling British seaside town in Spraywatch, a brand-new, unauthorised musical comedy described as Barbie meets The Book of Mormon with a soundtrack inspired by 80s and 90s pop rock.
This nervous-system-themed dance-theatre piece features loud live drumming to demonstrate fight, flight, freeze and rest states. A cast of three combine dance, text and percussion to explore whether we can trust our own perception of events.
This camp horror musical brings a live score blending close harmony, disco, rock and wistful ballads inspired by Kander and Ebb and Elton John. Set during the twilight of Bette Davis's career, the music fuels a fantasy of revenge against Hollywood's inner circle.