Pleasance Courtyard

Iraqi-Brummie Al-Habib scored great notices with the funny, slick musings of last year’s debut Fringe hour Death to the West (Midlands), a coming of age-style set about growing up with Iraqi heritage during Iraq War-era Britain, and also about being from Birmingham. For his second show he promises to offer something ‘more relatable for white British people’ – Stuck in the Middle (East) With You is about growing up as a child of divorce, though from the title one imagines his heritage will come into miore than a smidge.

Even by the fairly vague naming conventions of stand up comedy shows, it’s hard to imagine what sardonic Anglo-Russian Olga Koch’s new show Fat Tom Cruise will be about. Apparently it revolves around a story Koch has to tell. And furthermore, it’s a genre-defying show with immersive elements. In the world of solo stand-up shows this could mean everything or nothing, but Koch is an undoubtable pro and if she’s stretching her wings a bit formally then so much the better.

Like every stand-up comedian in the SNL UK cast, Larry Dean has a had a massive profile boost from the hit show. At the same time, the Glaswegian comic had the most establish career of any of the show’s stand-ups, and if a bigger name in Scotland than the UK as a whole, he’d certainly made a name for himself with a series of acclaimed, high concept shows that ran the gamut from coming out to his strict Catholic family to dicussing his grandmother’s dementia and his own autism diagnosis. Latest Hellbent is descrived as ‘a riotous show about refusing to grow up’.

Produced by Edinburgh Fringe hitmeister Francesca Moody, The Scaring sees sketch trio Crybabies follow up their very silly sci-fi Bagbeard and absurdist World War 2 show Danger Brigade with what you could probably have correctly guessed to be a rummage around the horror genre. The series of sketches that comprise The Scaring follow a former priest who must team up with a ghost after peril strikes at a creepy hotel.

‘If you laugh it's comedy, if you don't it's performance art’ runs the undoubetdly laughter-worthy tag line Frankie Thompson’s new show, which not only points to how weird her work is but also to the fact that the genre is genuinely uncertain: 2022’s superbly weird Catts was classed as comedy; 2023’s follow up Body Show was in the theatre section of the Fringe brochure. For Horrible Things it’s back to comedy with an hour in which Thompson explores… horrible things, both real and conceptual. Assuming she’s not radically changed her MO, the key thing to remember here is that her performance is in no way done in a stand-up style, but rather involves her lip syncing disquietingly to a mad collage of vidoe clips, like a sort of Adam Curtis fever dream. A genuinely singular performer.

Andrew Doherty burst onto the Fringe with his superb spoof folk horror Gay Witch Sex Cult, before enjoying rather more tepid reviews from with last year’s Sad Gay Aids Play. Well when life gives you lemons, take brutal revenge: his latest show is a pointed swipe at the haters who gave Sad Gay Aids Show a three star review specifically (NB Time Out gave it a three star review). Doherty’s latest slice of amusingly macabre storytelling follows Felix Chatelier, a reviewer who accepts an invite to be guest of honour at a new fringe festival but soon finds creepy things happening ‘as he desperately seeks to answer the question: Why oh why did I only give Andrew Doherty three stars?’

Famously, Ahir Shah’s last Edinburgh Fringe show Ends came to the festival in 2023 as a work in progress that turned out to be so good that not only was its WIP status rescinded but it won the main comedy award that year. Whether or not newie Golden can top it – we know basically nothing about it so far – expect another personal but also cerebral tour de force from a master.

Sublimely quirky US comic Schaal hasn’t played the Fringe in years, probably because she’s been incredibly busy with a voiceover career that’s taken in major roles in Bob’s Burgers, Gravity Falls and Bojack Horseman (plus many more). She’s not exactly sticking around for long this year. But rather than straight stand up we seem to be getting an entire comedy play, starring Schaal and John Roberts (also of Bob’s Burgers). Exactly what The Legend Of Crystal Shell involves seems extremely ambigious: some descriptions say it’s about centaurs, but the current official Fringe blurb merely says it’s ‘about an extraordinary soul who has been hiding from the world because of a fantastic secret’. It’s very possible she’s a centaur… you’ll have to wait and find out. 

US comic Alex Edelman has an intimate connection to the UK – his previous shows were directed by Soho Theatre’s late, great Adam Brace. This is his first set of new material since since his smash hit final Brace collaboration Just for Us, and while there are no clues as to an overarching theme or what the title What Are You Going to Do exactly means, we are promised ‘jokes about things like seashells, an amputee hospital in Jerusalem, various deities and our personal responsibilities amidst global conflict’.

Out there US comic Patti Harrison has brought some very disturbing stuff to the Edinburgh Fringe over the last several years, and we love her for it. What the hell Just Ironing Some Things Out! actually involves we don”t know: the description calls it ‘a new HORRIBLE show that will probably give you “diarheoaha of the mind'. She doesn’t know how to spell diarhreoaha, but hopes you understand she means like the stinky dark water’. That probably gives more insight into Harrison’s vibe than the actual content of the show, although it does seems likely that there will be special guests and it’ll have a quasi talk show vibe, as with her 2025 shows.