26 h. ago Fringe Firsts: six more winners of the Scotsman's prestigious theatre awards

Our prizes for new writing premiered at the Fringe are announced each Friday during August - today we’re delighted to reveal our second week of winners.

Events

46 h. ago Edinburgh Fringe cabaret and variety reviews: Apocalypse Cabaret: Songs for the End of the World | Dangerous Goods | Arthur Hull’s Flop: The Best Songs From The Worst Musicals Ever Written

If it’s the end of the world as we know it then go out feeling fine with Scout Durwood’s first-rate one-woman karaoke-confessional Apocalypse Cabaret

Culture

4 d. ago Edinburgh Fringe musicals and opera reviews: Nerds | Escape Room | Daddy, Tomorrow Will I Be a Man?

Musical lovers, take note of our latest round-up of reviews for the Fringe’s musicals.

Culture

7 d. ago Four and Five Star Edinburgh Fringe Theatre 2025: Here are 13 shows the Scotman critics have loved you can still get tickets for this weekend

Looking for something to see this weekend in Edinburgh? We have some recommendations from the experts.

Culture

8 d. ago Fringe Firsts week one: we reveal the first five winners of the Scotsman's prestigious theatre prizes

Edinburgh festivals editor Andrew Eaton-Lewis explains the importance of the Scotsman’s Fringe First awards - and announces our first five winners of 2025

Politics

8 d. ago Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Cheese and Guava or Romeo and Juliet | What's in the Kitchen | Another Sight | Honest Fraud | The Mequetrefo

Five shows from São Paulo bring a dash of Brazilian flair to the Fringe, from an energised musical take on Shakespeare to a domestic drama played by blind actors in total blackout conditions. By Fiona Shepherd

Politics

8 d. ago Amaarae: Black Star review – glamour, glitz and lust from a pop star who should be a supernova

(Golden Angel/Interscope)With a sleek dancefloor-facing sound, the Ghanaian American singer is deliriously in thrall to wealth and celebrity – but most of all loveFountain Baby, the second album by Amaarae, was a revelation – a sensual, funny, frank and musically dense record released in 2023 that established the 31-year-old Ghanaian American pop musician as a cultural force to match contemporaries such as Rosalía and Charli xcx. Although the songs are hedonistic – largely oscillating between wry flexes of wealth and lyrics about trifling with, and being trifled by, women in her orbit – she is also a realist: actions have consequences in Amaarae’s world, such as on Reckless & Sweet, as she wonders whether her lovers desire her or merely her money.Despite the ingenuity and complexity of her music, Amaarae has struggled to break into the mainstream, in the UK at least. A recent Glastonbury set felt sparsely attended and, aside from 2020’s Sad Girlz Luv Money, one of the most ...

Politics

1 week ago Five Edinburgh Fringe performers on the true life stories behind their shows

Each year the Fringe is full of powerful and deeply personal true life tales. We asked five performers to share theirs.

Politics

1 week ago Four Edinburgh Fringe performers on the incredible true life stories behind their shows

Each year the Fringe is full of powerful and deeply personal true life tales. We asked four performers to share theirs.

Politics

1 week ago "I nearly died at the Fringe, but worse, my show was cut short" – actor Andy Linden on his Edinburgh nightmare

Actor/writer Andy Linden gives us the lowdown on nearly dying - literally - at the Fringe in 2022, and his triumphant return to Edinburgh this year

Events

1 week ago Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: She's Behind You | I Kissed Batman | Iphigenia: Dead/Alive + more

Our latest round-up of Fringe theatre reviews includes a delightfully defiant panto-about-panto, a take-no-prisoners yet big-hearted farce about contemporary student life, and a radical reimagining of a Euripides epic.

Society

1 week ago Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Shitbag | The Horniest Girls in New York City | Dropped | Timonopoly + more

A bright, compelling and very funny Fleabag-influenced solo performance, a gloriously unfiltered gonzo Gen Z sex comedy/social satire, and a bruisingly authentic football-themed monologue take centre stage in our latest batch of Fringe theatre reviews.

Events

1 week ago Edinburgh Fringe dance and physical theatre reviews: Circa: Wolf | A Teen Odyssey | Pickled Republic + more

Our latest round-up of dance and physical theatre reviews includes a circus troupe with canine blood pumping through its veins, a highly engaging interactive show about adolescence through the ages, and a surrealist solo show starring fruit and veg with recognisable human emotions.

Culture

1 week ago The Best Edinburgh Fringe Theatre 2025: Every show with a four or five star review from The Scotsman so far

Wondering what theatre you should see at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe? Here are the best shows our critics have seen, so far.

Culture

3 w. ago What’s on at Edinburgh Fringe: Glasgow & Bristol based theatre makers bring powerful show to festival for 2025

A powerful piece of theatre will have its Edinburgh Fringe debut this year – be ready for a production critics have called “Tremendous”, “Extremely moving” and “Exceptional”.

Culture

3 w. ago Miriam Margolyes: ‘The closest I’ve come to death? When the media reported my imminent demise’

The actor on disappointing her mother, the only time she will tell a lie, and a terrible spat with Glenda JacksonBorn in Oxford, Miriam Margolyes, 84, began acting at Cambridge University. In 1994, she won a Bafta for her role in The Age of Innocence and was later cast as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films. Her stage credits include Wicked, The Vagina Monologues and Dickens’ Women; her TV work includes Trollied and Blackadder. In 2002, she was made OBE, and in 2022 received a BBC Audio Drama lifetime achievement award. She takes Margolyes and Dickens: More Best Bits to the Edinburgh fringe at the Pleasance at EICC, Pentland theatre from 9-24 August. She lives in London.When were you happiest? On tour during Christmas vacation at Cambridge with its European Theatre Group, playing Shakespeare. I knew it was the best time of my life. Continue reading...

Events