Pleasance Courtyard

There’s more to Edinburgh Fringe kids shows than bubble performers and bad science. Not a lot more, perhaps, but this show from Irish company Branar is certainly something a little different, being a kids’ adaptation of James Joyce’s famously impenetrable Ulysses. Presumably not that much is used for what is, after all, a 45-minute show. But the endeavour sounds admirably quixotic and the staging – based around intricate paper models and an original score – sounds compelling. Not one for the tots – the age advice is eight plus.

Slightly bombastically billed as ‘the play Trump does not want you to see’ – we’re pretty sure the only theatre he has heard of is the musical Cats – Indian-born, US-educated performer Priyanka Shetty’s solo show #CHARLOTTESVILLE nonetheless looks like a promising and topical docu-drama about the infamous Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virgina on August 11 and 12 2017. Having moved to Charlottesville to study acting at the University of Virginia shortly beforehand, Shetty was horrified at events and constructed the play verbatim from interviews, court documents and news reports. Yury Urnov directs.

This promising young comic makes his Fringe debut with an hour of sketch comedy based entirely around a series of ‘sad and pathetic characters’ who are absolutely not like him. To be honest we’re putting him here because a colleague saw the show and thought it was great, but we’ll soon find out if she’s right eh. 

Lorna Rose Treen’s 2023 show Skin Pigeon was a joyously bonkers hour of sketch comedy that was on paper somwhat unfashionable but in reality delivered with such total bug-eyed conviction it felt instantly timeless. And now here’s the follow up! Whereas the sketches in Skin Pigeon weren’t directly connected to each other, 24 Hour Diner People is nominally set in a diner, which apparently has a working grill. If it’s anything like as good as its predecessor it’ll be a must see.

Oddball comic Toussaint Douglass has never played the Fringe before, though in the summer of 2020 he made an online splash as something of a Fringe substitute: his wilfully terrible greenscreen web sketches did some decent numbers the year the festival was cancelled. Now he finally makes he debut in person with Accessible Pigeon Material, a series of ruminations on the outsiders who inspired him, and also his belief nobody talks about pigeons enough.

There’s something genuinely heartening about the fact that Tim Key – essentially a weird poet – has become such a big deal, in part (of course) thanks to his appearances in less poetic guise in everything from talk shows to Alan Partridge to Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17. There’s no clear explanation as to what his new show Loganberry is about, and it seems like a stretch to imagine it’s signifcantly related to his excellent previous show Mulberry (which has nothing to do with mulberries). But really just enjoy the ride as the shambolic master dips into the Fringe for a couple of weeks.

Ultra-nerdy standup Kieran Hodgson – a man who once did an entire hour about the 1975 European referendum – recently had a cameo role in notorious superhero flop The Flash. In fact he spoke the first line in the movie. This is so prodigiously improbable that it’s no wonder it’s the jumping off point for his new show, Voice of America.  In fact the very English Hodgson makes relatively little hay out of his turn as the character dubbed Sandwich Guy, the drawling American barista who opens the doomed Ezra Miller flicks. Of course he talks about it a lot, and is as bemused as anyone that it happened. But there’s no behind-the-scenes goss or analysis of the film itself. Rather, some initial feedback over the quality of his accent is used as a jumping off point to explore his relationship with America as a whole. To a certain extent the point of Hodgson’s unswervingly high concept stand-up shows is that they’re not especially relatable: he’s an intensely warm and likeable performer, but he pursues odd obsessions, in an eccentric manner. His last, Made in Scotland, followed his relocation to Glasgow and his attempt to immerse himself in Scottish culture and language to such a ludicrous degree that it seemed calculated to wind up anyone Scottish in the audience (which is quite a lot of people at the Edinburgh Fringe). Voice of America, though, is very relatable: it’s about the complicated relationship we all have with the US, a country that we tend to be drawn to in our youths...

Exactly how in earnest we’re supposed to treat Cat Cohen has always been pleasingly ambiguous: her hilarious Streisand-scale diva shtick has always been intentionally out of whack with playing small comedy clubs (though they’re not so small anymore), but it was clear that at least some of the stories she was telling in her last show Come for Me were entirely true. Broad Strokes takes its name from the fact Cohen – then in her early thirties – randomly had a stroke in 2023. While it seems likely that this show about the incident will be full of showtune style piano numbers, overbearing crowd patter and faux unselfawareness, it will also very likely actually be about how she had a stroke because it would be an insane thing to make up. Whatever the case, Cohen is simply gloriously entertaining company off vibes alone. 

Thirteen years on from his last solo Fringe show, beloved Kiwi Rhys Darby is back. The Flight of the Concords and Our Flag Means Death star promises silly musings about his own continued relevance in the high tech modern world; expect physical comedy, props, silliness and charm.

Brilliantly high concept sketch absurdists Sheeps appeared to disband with last year’s fine Fringe show The Giggle Bunch, and it is certainly possible that they’ll never do another full-length show again. Since then, however, they’ve made an extremely improbably Christmas album – A Very Sheeps Christmas – and this Fringe they’ll be reuniting to perform it for two nights only. Seasonaly appropriate or not, it’ll be a laugh, and we’re promised special guests – look out for the likes of Rose Matafeo and Lolly Adefope, who perform on the record. If that’s not enough Sheeps for you, then the group’s Jonno will be performing his debut solo set I Know I Can Become Good at This at Monkey Barrel Comedy the three following nights (Aug 11-13).