Sir Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn, and Nadine Dorries Will Appear at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Following the incredible 23 shows announced as part of the Pleasance Futures season, the third and largest official on-sale brings a host of incredible acts to the Pleasance this summer. With returning Edinburgh Comedy award-winners, international companies, exciting new companies and debut comics, music, cabaret, live podcasts and children's work. This unmissable programme has something for everyone.

Theatre, Musicals, Cabaret and Variety

Bringing true stories to the stage this August, a number of works in the programme use verbatim voices or tell of real-life events. Using the exact words of the victim, the perpetrator, and their families, 20 Minutes of Action guides you through the most controversial sexual assault case in America in an examination of women's safety and rape culture. Fringe First award winner Apphia Campbell's stunning solo show Black Is The Color Of My Voice, inspired by the life of Nina Simone, returns with a new performer under Campbell's direction. Featuring recorded interviews from trans and non-binary people, Sound Cistem examines the cisgender gaze on the transgender body in this exuberant verbatim show. Instead of finding her prince, Sarah Mills finds a surprise in her poo which leads to swapping dresses for hospital gowns and Lambrini for laxatives in BADASS. As David's friends and family raced to evacuate amid the devastation of fires in Australia, You're Safe Til 2024: Deep History is the story of 75,000 years of human history and 75 hours of brutal consequences. Kafka and Son, the five star multi-award winning international production returns to the Fringe for 11 shows; at 36, author Franz Kafka, still living at home, a failed artist and a timid-Jewish-son, wrote an extraordinary letter to his father which is now brought to life. Ultimatum is a new play by Jon Gracey that forces a conversation on class, autobiography, truth, reality TV and ethical duty to our fellow humans.

So many women's issues still remain taboo topics of conversation; multi-award-winning Popelei return to Edinburgh with PUSH, a fiercely funny solo show about an (un)maternal instinct, as a woman is staring down the barrel of motherhood. Blood, Sweat & Vaginas is a moving play about female sexuality and self-discovery, told with a backdrop of hypnotic rhythms and original soulful melodies. Comedy, cabaret and tap collide in Period Dramas, a hilarious one-woman show about how people in the past dealt with their periods, teaching the history you never learnt at school.

The need to discuss mental health and how we choose to shape our own realities remains more pertinent than ever. Please, Feel Free to Share is a dynamic, darkly comic, one-woman show about our personal addictions, the never-ending pursuit of 'likes' and our growing desire to share all. In aid of the suicide charity CALM, and soundtracked live with songs from his upcoming second album, SK Shlomo is back with Breathe: The Play That Becomes A Rave - a breath-taking display of bravery and virtuosic performance, recreating the impromptu rave in his living room that not only saved his life but transformed a sleepy village community. From award-winning Les Enfants Terribles comes Everythinglessness, a brand new solo show using a blend of live music and video design to take an intimate look at the insidious nature of toxic masculinity.

As we grow up and watch the world change around us, it can sometimes be hard to find out where we fit in. A beautifully timeless urban story from acclaimed contemporary playwright Wadji Mouawad, Alphonse tells of a young person's struggle to hold on to their imagination as they grow up. In Fanboy, Fringe-first winner Joe Sellman-Leava explores our relationship with our past and future selves, in this love hate letter to pop culture and nostalgia. A funny and deeply moving coming of age story, told through a blend of spoken word and theatre, The Land of Lost Content is set in a town where worlds are turned upside down, yet nothing seems to change. Exploring one boy's distorted world where he is fighting to keep his head above water, The Rip Current looks at how it feels when you can't escape the past, a past that doesn't quite make sense.

Family also changes over time and sometimes we realise people aren't all they appear. A fast-paced, candid, darkly comic and gripping new play, Let's Talk About Philip is about loyalty, long-held beliefs and how much we ever really know about those we love. Pauline relays what happens when you go digging around in the family secrets file, looking for answers and finding questions. Jesus, Jane, Mother and Me is a hilarious and moving drama from acclaimed playwright and director Philip Stokes about idolisation, growing older and the complex relationship between a son and a mother.

Many of us have idols where a musician, a celebrity or someone we watch on the TV. Fringe legend Pip Utton offers us a backstage pass to Bob Dylan's final concert where Dylan settles old scores, spins a few tall tales and reflects on over sixty years in the public eye in Pip Utton as Dylan. Buffy: Revamped goes through the entire 144 episodes of cult 90s TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in just 70 minutes - satirical, funny and bursting with pop-culture references. From Manchester's acclaimed Hope Mill Theatre Classic combines you the novels that you never had a chance to read, or couldn't be arsed to. In EastEndless, watch live as Tony Coventry lifts the lid and spills his beans about his time on EastEnders!

Theatre is a vital space for exploring contemporary social issues and provoking conversation; the Pleasance always presents dynamic and relevant artists doing exactly this. Staging Change x VAULT award winner for ecologically-conscious development, My Lover was a Salmon in the Climate Apocalypse uses live music and audience interaction to investigate global industrial food production, colonialism, ecological destruction. Informed and inspired by conversations with International Artists living under authoritarian regimes, Rhum + Clay return with Project Dictator - the clown show about totalitarianism you never knew you needed. With song, dance, rap, spoken word and live music, five artists share their real-life stories and talents in the hope of getting paid by you in Payday Party, the most glamorous LEGAL political party you will go to. A possible origin story for one of the most colourful and divisive figures in modern British politics, starring Mischief Theatre favourite, Harry Kershaw, Boris III is one illicit party you won't want to miss. Using the arts world as a metaphor, MASTERCLASS is a literate and hilarious examination of gender and power featuring the savagely comedic feminist discourse of Adrienne Truscott. POLES: The Science of Magnetic Attraction is a bitingly witty dark comedy about strip clubs and their customers, loneliness, and the stigma of monetising your body.

Just want to go and have a good laugh in a show? World premiere of a new murder mystery starring Arthur Bostrom ('Allo 'Allo!), Are You Being Murdered? is set in the golden age of BBC sitcoms, from the acclaimed Father Brown writer David Semple. Every night is a new adventure where you choose the characters, what paths they take, and how hilarious their hijinks will be; battle monsters and solve riddles in The Twenty-Sided Tavern and be rewarded with a unique ending. The Anniversary is a brand-new murderously funny comedy farce - leave your preconceptions at the door and expect the unexpected. A deliciously depraved double bill by award-winning writers, how will two children's TV presenters dispose of a corpse before time runs out - check out Twisted Tales to find out.

Carol Tambor Award winners Pants on Fire present one-woman's first-hand nostalgic trip through the early 90s UK rave scene in Second Summer of Love. Victoria Melody combines storytelling, stand-up, mischief and research to lift the curtain on both the brain, and the secret world of stand-up in Head Set. Fire Signs follows Bobbie and Emma through a chaotic second year at uni, as new boyfriends and ghosts-of-Freshers-past test whether their friendship is really written in the stars. Fearing a career-jeopardising backlash after discovering a film's heroic lead role, played by a white actor, was in real life actually Black, two film producers frantically try to keep the film from getting any attention whatsoever in Press.

In Musicals and Opera, Sex With Friends (and other tiny catastrophes) is a brand new musical following six friends as they fall in love and fall apart. While in the Cabaret and Variety categories, The Magic of Jim sees Jim the Magician's first indoor residency filled with jaw dropping magic and true tales - you will already know him from being the Pleasance Courtyard's resident close-up table magician! Or catch BBC Radio's favourite musical comedy duo Fladam (Florence Poskitt and Adam Sowter) as they bring Fladam's Musical Comedy Hootennany! to delight us this August.

Children's Shows

Pleasance's varied and often interactive kids' theatre programme is also complemented by its Kidzone; created in 2009, it remains the only completed dedicated child-friendly area at the Fringe with a child-friendly café, a nappy change and pram shelter and weather-proof art pods along with storytelling sessions, face painting, music, author book signings and regular visits from all the Pleasance performers.

The children's theatre programme just keeps on growing: Science Adventures: The Power Pickle is a fun accessible storytelling show where an elite team of scientists have to do science like no one has ever 'science-ed' before! From optical illusions to chemical reactions, a homemade hovercraft, and more, Doktor Kaboom And The Wheel of Science gives you the chance to choose what happens next. Captain Zac and the Space Pirates are lost in a broken-down spaceship and need your help to answer questions, solve puzzles and sing songs so they can survive the bubble attack. Join the Superhero Academy: Environmental Adventure! to be part of the greatest quest of all: to save the world through the art of interactive storytelling, music, puppetry and games!

A joyful, kaleidoscopic new show for 5-12 year-olds about change, why change happens - and how to deal with it, Everything Has Changed is a fast-moving musical adventure about the chaos of the last few years from Rhum + Clay. Adapted from Chris Naylor-Ballesteros's award-winning book by Toby Mitchell (artistic director of Tall Stories) and Verity Clayton, The Suitcase is a heart-warming new show about a weary stranger and where he's come from for ages 4 and above. A hilarious rip-roaring game show with humour for all ages, in Blue Badge Bunch kids join in the games and learn about disability. Smashing Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet is a comedic blitz of physical theatre, puppets and potions from Lecoq-trained actor Penelope Solomon (BBC's 'Goodnight Sweetheart').

Comedy

With both Edinburgh Comedy Awards in their awards cabinet from the last full Fringe, Pleasance's comedy programme is always unmissable. Star of The Tim Vine Chat Show (BBC Radio 4), Tim Vine returns with his new stand-up show Breeeep!, a mountain of nonsense, one-liners, stupid things, unlikely songs, wobbly props. Presented by Emmy-nominated actor Nick Mohammed (star of Apple TV+'s smash hit Ted Lasso), The Very Best And Worst Of Mr. Swallow gives us a mix of new, old, very old and previously unusable material with noise, maths, magic and the whole of Les Mis. Change is always hard and what better person to lead the men, selflessly by the hand into the new world than TV's multi-award winning Jayde Adams in her brand new show MEN, I CAN SAVE YOU. Vir Das, fresh off an Emmy nomination for his latest Netflix stand-up special, brings his brand new Wanted world tour to Edinburgh - a show about freedom and a journey into foolishness. Mary Beth Barone (creator and star of Comedy Central's Drag His Ass) brings Silly Little Girl to the UK for the first time, sharing her chequered journey as an aspiring young starlet through to the present day. Tim Key (Alan Partridge, The Witchfinder) is back with an all-new show Mulberry, ruminating about the great indoors.

Critically acclaimed stand up, writer and actor Tiff Stevenson (Mock the Week, The Office, Game Face, ABC's The Weekly) invites you to spend an hour with a woman and her self diagnosed Sexy Brain. Join critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning comedian Nick Helm as he embarks on What Have We Become?, a show so insightful, so honest and so legitimate that it will fix all of society's problems and lead the way to a new plane of existence. Njambi McGrath's hour of political comedy is the Attenborough of Kenyan history - it's satire with a zing in Black Black. Edinburgh's favourite Guardian-approved naughty boy Fin Taylor is back with his painfully funny stand-up in Daddy Self-Care.

Many comedians join the Pleasance programme to present their debut hours this summer. Join rising star Chloe Petts in Transience as she uses her trademark cerebral 'laddishness' to explore topics as far reaching as the darts and her (strictly non-romantic) love for the men who watch it. Social-media sensation and Chortle award-winner Rosie Holt debuts The Woman's Hour, character comedy based on her hit satirical videos. Best Newcomer winner 2022 and star of BBC1's New Comedy Award, Celya AB talks about learning to swim at 25 in Swimming. In his intimate and highly anticipated Silly Boy, Rich Hardisty (C4, Netflix, BBC) takes us on a journey through the highs and lows of his unusual life. Bella Hull (as seen on BBC1, BBC3, ITV2, Channel 4) brings Babycakes, full of stupid, stupid jokes, never-before-heard gossip and scenes of a gorgeous nature. Welsh funny-man Morgan Rees brings Edinburgh his fast gags about growing up, modern day masculinity and jokes about bumming. Based on his own personal love story, Cake from Sam Lake (Leicester Square New Comedian of The Year) is about reassessing your goals when things don't go how you planned. Party with carnage-wielding, mayhem-manifesting, award-winning, human disco ball Katie Pritchard, in her debut musical comedy hour, as she tries to figure out 'who she is' while possibly dressed as a pavlova. From emerging idiot Frankie Thompson comes an anarchic one-woman adaptation of Cats (the musical); CAttS is a lip-sync ballet through the distractions and obsessions that help us cope with an increasingly dystopian reality. Host of BBC Sounds Wheel of Misfortune, The Guilty Feminist podcast and writer for Have I Got News For You, Alison Spittle tells us she's an outwardly nice person who lives for confrontation in WET. Creator and host of Let's Go, Atsuko! A (woke) Japanese Game Show, a sold out monthly live show and hit weekly podcast, Atsuko Okatsuka now comes to Edinburgh with The Intruder. Humiliating and outrageous, New York comedian and Fringe newcomer Emily Wilson shares the story of her experience as a finalist on The X Factor USA at the disastrous age of fifteen in Fixed.

Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee and NHS doctor Kwame Asante presents a hilarious, witty and heartfelt introspective on the place of religion in modern life, modern love, and modern medicine in Living in Sin. An epically funny action-adventure and follow-up to the smash-hit Don Rodolfo, Ciarán Dowd (winner, Edinburgh Comedy Award) presents King Rodolfo and takes us to one of the most bloody, violent and sexy periods in history. Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee Sara Barron returns with a blistering new hour of stand-up on smart sex, dumb kids, conception, rejection and wine-in-a-can in Hard Feelings. Now he's finally allowed to reconnect with human people again, Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee Brennan Reece has forgotten how to do it and needs your help. For the 75th birthday of the Edinburgh Fringe Arthur Smith writes a love letter to this playground of the imagination and recalls some of the triumphs, disasters, love affairs and arrests of his many Augusts in My 75 years at the Edinburgh Fringe.

And there's more! BBC New Comedy Award winner, Japanese Londoner Yuriko Kotani was about to make a change and have a fresh start in her life until kaiju showed up (Kaiju About). World-famous prankster and Lee Nelson creator Simon Brodkin is back with his highly anticipated new stand-up show Messed Up. In 2017, Red Richardson and pop sensation Ollie Murrs (amongst others) were caught in a major police incident and here he tells us all about it in Shots Fired. A brand-new stand-up show from the fringe favourite Lucy Porter (Would I Lie to You, QI), Wake-Up Call is a show about revelations, realisations and epiphanies - both large and small. With over 10 million views of his online videos, comedian and impressionist Luke Kempner is one of the UK's hottest mimics and stand-up comics and now he's coming to Edinburgh with Macho Macho Man.

Fresh from their universally adored BBC Three pilot, Charly Clive and Ellen Robertson make their long-awaited return to the Fringe with a sketch show about love in Britney: Friends and Nothing More. After two sell-out Fringes, Tessa Coates is beside herself with excitement to be back with Get Your Tessa Coates You've Pulled. Winner of Comedian's Comedian, Chortle Awards (2020) Jack Tucker returns with Comedy Standup Hour. Comedians Rachel Fairburn and Kiri Pritchard-McLean bring their smash hit true crime podcast, All Killa no Filla, to the Edinburgh Fringe as a late-night show. Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, and one of the best and most prolific joke-writers of his generation, Glenn Moore puts in another shift in Glen Moore: Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me, Glenn I'm Sixty Moore.

Despite everything that's happened, Tom Rosenthal is still talking about his penis in Manhood and how he has spent his life trying to avenge the theft of his foreskin. Following his critically acclaimed debut and Soho Theatre Live comedy special (Amazon), award-winning comedian Kai Samra returns with Native, about race, class, youth homelessness, Birmingham, India and 2010 indie-rock bands. Matt Forde (Spitting Image, British Scandal, The Last Leg, The Royal Variety Performance) lashes out right, left and centre and chucks in some funny voices too in Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right.

Improv requires incredible skill and knowledge and a lot of great suggestions from the audience. Hilarious new improvised comedy from members of Tony and Olivier Award-winners, Mischief Theatre, and Olivier winners, The Showstoppers, Star Quest is an homage to everything from Star Trek to Galaxy Quest - boldly go where no improv has gone before. A classic murder mystery is created on-the-spot in this ingenious and hilarious show in Murder, She Didn't Write. The Improvised Doctor Who Parody is back - travel on an adventure made entirely from your suggestions and be home in time for tea.

If you just can't decide, many shows offer mixed bills or changing special guests. Total sell-out 2005-2019 AAA Stand Up is back and there's a late night version too with AAA Stand Up Late. A raunchy, chaotic and full-on fringe experience, Stamptown: Comedy Night is a late-night variety show featuring the best alternative performance on the international circuit. Fast Fringe is an unmissable Edinburgh Fringe institution where 12 top comedy and variety acts perform ridiculously short sets in one furiously fast-paced showcase, hosted by the best MCs in the business. New Zealand's favourite improv show and the sell-out hit of the 2019 Fringe SNORT returns with New Zealand's best comedians and a brand new guest every night. The critically acclaimed, cult, comedy TV show is back; every night, become part of the studio audience for a live TV show full of surprise guests, live music, grumpy puppets and technical hi jinx in The Mr Thing Show.

Music

If you're seeking an afternoon of toe-tapping, the music section of the programme does not disappoint. In Flamenco Fusion, world-renowned Ben Bruant and Will Cashel fuse flamenco, pop and classical music in this exhilarating Fringe debut. Acclaimed Edinburgh born singer-songwriter Adam Holmes is one of the brightest stars on the UK roots music scene and here he mixes his own original songs with favourites from the Scottish trad songbook. From Leith to Tuscon sees songs and stories from this award winning Scottish troubadour's extensive back catalogue with a unique blend of Americana and Scottish roots. After a sell-out run in 2019, The Sorries old Scottish songs offer joy, grand old tales, comfort and a good laugh in this Corries-inspired hour of uplifting traditional music.

Spoken Word

Award-winning LBC radio presenter and 'For the Many' podcast host Iain Dale brings his acclaimed, incisive insight on current affairs back to the Fringe with a number of in-depth interviews featuring audience questions. All Talk guests include: Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party; Rory Stewart, former MP and London mayoral candidate; Nadine Dorries, MP and Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in Boris Johnson's cabinet; Angela Rayner, MP and deputy leader of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer; Dame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, author and broadcaster; David Starkey, the controversial conservative historian and presenter whose new YouTube channel has over 50,000 subscribers; Jess Phillips, MP and Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding in Keir Starmer's Labour frontbench team; Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader; and Diane Abbott, MP who was Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Plus join LBC legend Iain Dale and his partner in crime, former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for their smash hit political podcast For The Many. Expect the usual cocktail of political analysis, unfiltered opinion and outrageous smut. Different guests will feature each day.

With still more shows to be announced over the coming months, there will be comedy, theatre, circus, magic, dance, kids' shows and much more, alongside support for some of the most innovative newcomers through artist development strand Pleasance Futures. The Pleasance should certainly be the pick of your Fringe this August.

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