The Road To Edinburgh Festival 2026: Friday 17 July
In which the Fringe goes discount crazy, Stewart Lee gets dewy-eyed about Fringes past, and we give a shout out to some very strange Slugs
And so Festival season is wiping off the cobwebs of the past year and sputtering into life: tonight, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival begins and Assembly George Square Gardens opens its doors to the public. Likewise, we’ve jumped into the action with the launch of our Edinburgh Festival Guide and have a few more details about The List Festival Awards to share. Read on for the latest in Fest-related goss.
The List Festival Awards and The Stand to honour Paul Sneddon with new award…
… celebrating the best in Scottish comedy. The award has been established in memory of Paul Sneddon, better known under his act names Vladimir McTavish and Bob Doolally, who passed away last month. Honing his act for more than four decades, Sneddon became a firm favourite on the touring circuit, and had been a major contributor to The Stand Comedy Club since its inception.
The award will be presented at The List Festival Awards at W Edinburgh on Friday 28 August.
Our Edinburgh Festival Guide is out now…
… with some pretty darn good features, interviews and previews on Festival Season. On the front cover is Amanda Knox, who became globally recognisable after being wrongfully convicted for murder. She’s turned her life experience into a stand-up show.
Knox told Claire Sawers: ‘The comedy world is notoriously hard on women. People have found astounding ways to be cruel and punishing towards me, in insane ways. I am aware there are tabloids who cannot wait to talk shit about me. They would love for me to fail. I am prepared for criticism. I’m speaking about personal things in Cartwheel: raising a daughter given my own history, being abused as a woman. Everyone is familiar with little kids saying “it’s not fair!” Oh! Yes! Really? Let’s talk about that! How do I explain injustice in an age-appropriate way to my four-year-old given what I know? I’m trying to explain how the world works to my kid. But also, in a way that doesn’t make her afraid to exist in this world. The “funny” is the tension between those two things.’ Read the full article.
There’s plenty more in the mag: we’ve interviewed Siobhan Wilson about Flowercore; chatted to Marc Brew about defying gender roles in dance; explored the opioid crisis with Missy Mazzoli; and have laid out a stall of recommendations to help you plan your month.
Fancy it? Our Edinburgh Festival Guide is available from all good stockists in Edinburgh and can be found online.
New Edinburgh Fringe award announced to support working-class performers …
… in an initiative by The London Arts Facilitation Society (LAFS), which describes itself as a ‘creative hub and funding platform that helps emerging artists make music, comedy, film, and more.’ The organisation is bringing its first Fringe show to Edinburgh, which will showcase emerging acts from a working-class background and are eligible for their Banneret Award, which comes with £1500 in prize money.
According a press release: ‘Historically, a banneret was a knight who was qualified to raise their own banner and lead their own forces into battle. Here at LAFS, we want people from lower income backgrounds to be able to raise their own banner.’
Any performance from any medium will be eligible for the award, as long they’re performing at the Fringe and aren’t bankrolled by ‘daddies’ money’.
You can catch LAF’s mixed-bill showcase at Hoots @ Nicolson Square at noon from Friday 7–Monday 31 August. Find out more about LAF’s work on their website.
Fringe At Nobles to welcome line-up of folk musicians to Leith…
… in an expansive programme taking place from Tuesday 4–Saturday 29 August. The shows will be either free or low-cost, and feature a run of free sessions on Wednesday evenings and late-night sessions on Fridays and Saturdays.
Tuesday nights will consist of ticketed events priced at £12, and will feature the likes of Jack Badcock and Andrew Waite, Kirsteen Harvey and Lewis McLaughlin, Hector Shaw with Fraser Fifield & Graeme Stephen, and Stewart Hardy & Frank McLaughlin with Fell Line.
Other free sessions include The Shore Trad Sessions at 8pm on Wednesdays, and late-night sessions at 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays with Lewis and Frank McLaughlin plus a selection of guest musicians.
Bellfield’s Alistair Brown said: ‘From Glastonbury-winning songwriting and Scots Trad Music Awards nominees to Celtic Connections favourites, jazz-folk innovators and battle-of-the-band winning trad trios, our Fringe At Nobles programme brings together the warmth of a proper pub session with the calibre of a festival stage.
‘The result is a Fringe programme with real range: expect polished performances, spontaneous late-night magic, established names, emerging voices and the kind of communal music-making that belongs at the heart of Edinburgh in August.’
Assembly Festival and Gilded Balloon start discount offers for local residents…
… giving access to plenty of shows at reduced rates, including Jason Byrne, Afrique en Cirque, Jess Robinson, Susie McCabe, Ten Thousand Hours, Scaramouche Jones and more.
Assembly's discounted tickets will be available from 10am on Tuesday 14 July until 11.59pm on Sunday 26 July (or until allocations run out) for Assembly Festival Fringe performances from Wednesday 5–Sunday 9 August for residents in EH, FK, G, KY, ML and DG postcodes. Residents across the central belt can take advantage of the discounts with postcodes in Glasgow, Kirkcaldy, Falkirk, Stirling, Motherwell and Dumfries and Galloway included in the scheme.
Tickets available via the official Assembly Festival website using promocode LOCALAF26.
Gilded’s offer is called Postcode Pals, and is exclusive to EH, KY, FK and G postcodes. Cut-price tickets will be available for more than 140 shows taking place between Wednesday 5–Sunday 9 August, and will be available to purchase from from 10am on Monday 20 July until 6pm on Friday 31 July on the Gilded Balloon website.
Karen and Katy Koren, artistic directors of Gilded Balloon, said: ‘As an Edinburgh-based venue, we want to encourage our neighbours to come to our shows. The Fringe is one of the most exciting times of the year, but we know that rising costs can make it harder for local people to take part. Postcode Pals is our way of saying thank you to the communities that support us year-round and making it easier for them to discover brilliant comedy, theatre, music, family shows and more.’
A few notable acts participating include Jack Docherty, Mhairi Black, Fiona Allen, Kim Blythe, Michelle Shocked, Madeleine Brettingham, Jamie Kilstein, Phil Nichol, Doris, Dolly And The Dressing Room Divas, HR: The Musical, Puck Bunnies: A Heated Rivalry Musical, SLAY and CADEL: Lungs On Legs.
Here’s how to book, according to Gilded:
‘Residents with EH, KY, FK or G postcodes can: Log in to their Gilded Balloon account; Ensure the billing address on their account includes a valid eligible postcode; Use the code PALS26 when booking via the Gilded Balloon website’
Stewart Lee reflects on the Fringe’s early years…
… in an interview with BBC Radio Scotland that underscores the Fringe’s shift towards a less egalitarian and increasingly corporatised system.
‘Changes in the Fringe are tied up in society and economics. When I went up in ’87, student companies would sleep on the floor in a church hall without any running water,’ he told Grant Stott on Radio Scotland Afternoons. ‘The thing is, it was economically viable for young people to go and take shows there and for young audiences to come, and for people to see things. There aren’t all the little cheats and loopholes that there used to be. The audiences are older and richer, and the performers need bankrolling in some way. So they either need to be middle class or they need to have backing. Or they need to be heroically determined in what they’re doing.’
As ever, Lee takes a frothy chat about his stand-up (he’s currently touring Stewart Lee Vs The Man-Wulf across the UK) and turns it into an incisive and empathetic discussion of class politics in the arts. You can listen to the full conversation on BBC Sounds.
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Four stars or more
Sam Kruger and SE Grummett are back as Creepy Boys with a reprise of their Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated show Slugs, an anarchic multimedia work of clowning with razor-sharp absurdist wit.
We loved Slugs last year, awarding it four-stars. ‘When Sam Kruger and SE Grummett commit, they truly commit,’ wrote Jay Richardson in his review. ‘The Canadian clown duo previously set themselves apart with their adolescently anarchic 2023 show Creepy Boys. But Slugs takes the pair’s boundary-pushing art-comedy to the extreme. Oozing onto stage as ghastly, outsize gastropods, viscously vomiting up all manner of paraphernalia, it’s a solid visual metaphor for the abrupt manner in which they share everything over the course of this hour.’ Read the full review.
Slugs will take place at Summerhall from Thursday 6–Monday 17 August. The Creepy Boys are also undertaking a work-in-progress show called Nude Parade, Grummett’s solo show on trans bodies, with behind-the-scenes magic and sound design from Kruger. That’ll take place at Summerhall from Wednesday 19–Monday 24 August.