Best Shows Edinburgh Fringe 2025

It’s nearly August, Airbnbs are being hawked at an inflation rate of 500%, and locals can’t move without being harassed by a fire-breathing magician or jester – The Edinburgh Fringe is back. The largest arts festival in the UK is a summer highlight, as tourists descend on the town en masse to sample the inimitable buzz, and hopefully catch a show or 20.

For those heading up, how on earth do you pick what you’re going to see? Thankfully, we’ve done the research and picked out 12 of the highlights of 2025’s showcase.

Ahir Shah: Work in Progress

Ahir Shah has some serious Fringe pedigree after winning the 2023 Sky Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show. For the first time since, Shah returns to Monkey Barrel to try out new material, fresh off a recent Netflix special, Ends.

What do we know about Work in Progress? Well, not all that much to be honest. But we do know Shah is one of the most talented comedians at the festival, so this is well worth the dive into the unknown.

WHEN: August 14th – 24th
WHERE: Monkey BARREL COMEDY – MONKEY BARREL 3
BOOK HERE

Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

2023 nominee for best show, Julia Masli is back, and she’s coming for the top prize. The absurdist Estonian clown takes on a daunting task by attempting to solve the problems of her audience, to comic ends.

Not convinced? Here’s the official Heath Ledger Joker-esque blurb: hahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha hihihi hahahahahahahaha hoho hahahhahahaha hehe hahahahahahahahahaha.

WHEN: AUGUST 11th-24th
WHERE: PLEASANCE doME – QUEEN DOME
BOOK HERE

Anna Hale: Control Freak

A rule of every comedy festival: There must be one Bo Burnham-style act performing that combines neurosis and original musical numbers. The premise follows Hale, a confessed control freak, spending an hour trying to come to terms with relinquishing control.

A rule of every comedy festival: There must be one Bo Burnham-style act

when: July 30th – August 24th
where: Pleasance Courtyard – Cellar
book here

Emmanuel Sonubi: Life After Near Death

Following two sold-out Edinburgh Fringe runs and back-to-back Edinburgh Comedy Award nominations, Sonubi returns to the Fringe with Life After Near Death. This personal yet laugh-out-loud show explores his near-fatal heart failure, recovery and the unexpected comedy in life’s darkest moments.

when: July 30th – August 25th
where: PLEASANCE COURTYARD – CABARET BAR
book here

Ayoade Bamgboye: Swings and Roundabouts

The much-anticipated debut show about suffering (and smiling) from Nigerian stand-up Ayoade Bamgboye. Born in London, raised in Lagos, sacked in Budapest – this show is about the underwhelming cycles of life.

The much-anticipated debut show about suffering (and smiling)

when: July 30th – August 24th
where: PLEASANCE COURTYARD – BUNKER ONE
book here

Alice Cockayne: Licensed. Professional. Trained. Qualified

Sometimes at Fringe, it’s the after-midnight shows that provide the best spectacle. Everything gets a bit weirder, and what is the festival if not an embrace of the weird? Alice Cockayne is back in 2025 with an hour of intellectual prophecy and pure late-night nonsense that will leave you thinking about it long after it finishes.

Alice is a writer and performer for BBC Radio 4’s Time of the Week, and was nominated for Best Newcomer at the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards.

when: July 30th – August 24th
where: Pleasance courtyard – bunker two
book here

Leila Navabi: Relay

Writer and multi-disciplinary rebel Leila Navabi returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with her sophomore show, Relay, following a sell-out debut hour, Composition, in 2023. With sharp wit and frequent sincerity, she dives into the wild ride of making a baby at home with her partner, a best mate as the sperm donor, and, naturally, his boyfriend cheering from the sidelines. A wholesome if unusual relay team of sorts.

when: July 30th – August 25th
where: Pleasance courtyard
book here

Josie Long: Now Is the Time of Monsters

We love Josie Long, one of the UK’s most recognisable comedians, who you might recognise from every panel show ever. We especially like the theme of her 2025 Fringe show, all about the time of the megafauna. You know, those gigantic ancient beasts like dire wolves, woolly mammoths and giant sloths.

By looking to the past, hopefully Long will find a way for us to wade through a landscape of monstrous disaster

when: JULY 30TH – AUGUST 24TH
where: PLEASANCE DOME – QUEEN DOME
book here

Figures in Extinction

Returning to the International Festival, Nederlands Dans Theatre and Complicité present Figures in Extinction. Dance and theatre legends Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney unite to confront the climate crisis through movement and sound in this theatre show.

We promise it’s not as gloomy as it sounds.

WHEN: AUGUST 22nd – 24th
WHERE: Festival theatre
BOOK HERE

Dear Billy

If Edinburgh had a Glastonbury-style legends slot, this would be it. National treasure Bill Bailey is back with new material as he performs his show Thoughtifier, direct from a London sell-out.

Expect a musical mystery tour of the human mind, along with some other pressing matters about whales, biophilia and unrequited love.

WHEN: AUGUST 23rd-24th
WHERE: Edinburgh Playhouse – auditorium
BOOK NOW

Nowhere

In this intricate solo show, inspired by his involvement in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and his experience of the counter-revolution that followed, actor and activist Khalid Abdalla takes us on a surprising journey into his own history, set against the backdrop of seismic world events.

Encompassing the histories of colonialism and decolonisation, friendship and loss, protests and uprising against regimes across the world and the violence in Gaza following the events of October 7th 2023, Khalid brings together the personal and the political in an act of anti-biography that asks how we got here and how we find agency amidst the mazes of history.

WHEN: AUGUST 12th-24th
WHERE: Traverse theatre
BOOK HERE

Make It Happen

If you love The Big Short, Margin Call or Succession, you’ll want to get tickets to Make It Happen, a satire about the fall of The Royal Bank of Scotland starring the one and only Brian Cox, who returns to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade.