Edinburgh festival 2025: 20 theatre shows to see this summer

The Guardian

20-06-2025

Whenever you see a performance in Canada, it will begin with a land acknowledgment; a way of crediting those who were there before the Europeans arrived. Indigenous playwright Cliff Cardinal questions the motives of such declarations in a broadside that uses Shakespeare's pastoral comedy to comment on our attitude to the natural world.Church Hill theatre, 20-23 August
Jack Holden, the formidable star of Cruise and Kenrex, is the author of this party-themed take on Peter Pan in which songs by Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake celebrate the millennial generation that refused to grow up. Director Steven Kunis calls it 'a full-blown pop fantasy'.Assembly Checkpoint, 30 July-25 August
Leaving its Roundabout pop-up theatre at home, Paines Plough has a lower-than-usual profile at this year's fringe, but is responsible for one of the flagship shows at the Traverse: a story of four generations of Northern Irish women. Directed by Katie Posner, Karis Kelly's dark family drama won the Women's prize for playwriting in 2022.Traverse theatre, 30 July-24 August
From Belgium, actors Anemone Valcke and Verona Verbakel ask where social boundaries should lie for young women growing up after #MeToo. Drawing on their own experiences of sexism and abuse, they raise questions of shame and internalised misogyny in a show about watching and being watched.Zoo Playground, 12-24 August
William Kentridge returns to his 1995 version of the soul-selling fable and updates it to the age of the climate emergency. Handspring Puppet Company (of War Horse fame) imagines a rapacious Faustus plundering the African continent with colonialist greed, while the world picks up the tab.The Lyceum, 20-23 August
Song of the Goat have been beguiling fringe audiences for two decades with their otherworldly polyphonic singing inspired by classical archetypes. This time, the Wrocław company gives Shakespeare's tragedy a pagan spin.Summerhall, 3-15 August
Afreena Islam-Wright is both a performer and a pub-quiz host, skills she combines in an interactive show about being British and Bangladeshi. Among her claims to fame is an appearance on The Chase.Traverse theatre, 31 July-24 August
The government recently sold its remaining shares in NatWest Group (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland) after nearly 17 years of public ownership, losing £10.5bn in the process. Meanwhile, the bank's old boss, Fred Goodwin, is said to be picking up a £600,000 annual pension. James Graham's play – which stars Brian Cox – asks what went wrong in the city of Adam Smith.Festival theatre, 30 July-9 August
Trumpeter Jay Phelps, who has played with Amy Winehouse, Courtney Pine and Wynton Marsalis, provides the live soundtrack to Oliver Kaderbhai's play about Miles Davis and the making of Kind of Blue, the 1959 jazz landmark. Benjamin Akintuyosi stars.Summerhall, 31 July-25 August
Time was when pop stars felt they had to put up with scurrilous tabloid stories. Not so Elton John. Falsely accused of 'vice boy shame', he sued the Sun for libel. Henry Naylor's play takes up the story that ended with a 'Sorry Elton' headline and a £1m payout.Pleasance Dome, 30 July-24 August
Joining forces again after England & Son and The Political History of Smack and Crack, campaigning actor/comedian Mark Thomas and playwright Ed Edwards look back to the 25-day Strangeways prison riot in 1990 and the liberal experiment that followed.Summerhall, 31 July-25 August
Part of the Made in Scotland showcase, Ruxandra Cantir's surreal cabaret is inspired by her upbringing in Moldova, a country where seemingly anything can be pickled. Featuring songs, puppetry and vegetables, it is an absurdist meditation on the preservation of life. Shona Reppe directs.Summerhall, 31 July-25 August
What started life as a highly entertaining – and unexpectedly moving – lecture about the Scottish pantomime tradition has morphed into a full-blown show. The great panto dame Johnny McKnight performs in glamorous Dorothy Blawna-Gale costume, celebrating the humour and radical spirit of the form. John Tiffany directs.Traverse theatre, 1-24 August
Smartphones at the ready as Mallorca's female-led La Mecànica creates a teen-friendly interactive event using the Kalliópê app developed by Barcelona's La Fura dels Baus. The show, about identity, technology and relationships, is observed through the audience's mobiles, which interact with the performers and environment.Summerhall, 31 July-25 August
The inspirational Ontroerend Goed has a record of surprising and unsettling work that redefines what theatre can be. It can, of course, be nothing without an audience and in this piece, the Belgian company uses video to celebrate the fact that nobody has the same experience of a live event. They call it interactive theatre for people who don't like interactive theatre.Zoo Southside, 12-24 August
Actor Armando Babaioff relocates Michel Marc Bouchard's play from Canada to his native Brazil, where the story of a young man who leaves the city to attend his boyfriend's rural funeral has a special poignancy. Brazil, says Babaioff, 'leads the world in the killing of LGBTQ+ people'.Pleasance at EICC, 30 July-24 August
This four-day celebration of Palestinian culture includes a lecture-performance by Noor Abuarafeh recounting a journey through the West Bank; a wordless object-theatre show by Mahmoud Alhourani about the devastation of war; and a play by Randa Jarrar following a woman who wakes up in 2055, the last person alive.Portobello town hall, 12-15 August
Novelist turned performer Alan Bissett imagines a conversation between two cultural icons: comedian Billy Connolly and the late author Alasdair Gray. The scene is the launch of Gray's modern classic Lanark in 1981, which Connolly is known to have attended. Bissett speculates on what the two Glaswegians said next.Scottish Storytelling Centre, 31 July-23 August
Having extended her range to theatre with 2016's excellent Wind Resistance, folk singer Karine Polwart returns to the stage with a poetic and musical meditation inspired by the sabal palm in the glasshouse of Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden. The 200-year-old tree was chopped down in 2021 to make way for renovations.The Queen's Hall, 9-13 August
A wordless piece by Antwerp theatre collective FC Bergman exploring the passage of the seasons and our dependency on the land. Inspired by an ancient letter about the art of agriculture by the Greek poet Hesiod, it is a visual commentary on the power of collective labour and the threat of modernity.The Lyceum, 7-10 August