Sue Perkins, Sara Pascoe, Richard Herring and Many More Shows Announced as Part of Pleasance's Edinburgh Fringe 2017 Line-Up!

On Thursday, 20th April Pleasance Theatre Trust announces 132 more shows on sale with an array of exciting newcomers and Festival favourites highlighting the pages of Edinburgh Fringe 2017 programme.

The Comedy programme welcomes back to the Pleasance Great British Bake Off host and a celebrated comedian Sue Perkins, Live at the Apollo and Frankie Boyle's Autopsy star Sara Pascoe along with the Pleasance and Max and Ivan's sell-out, Edinburgh Comedy Awards-winning spectacular The Wrestling. Following the remarkable success of I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach's latest film, its award-winning starDave Johns brings his stand-up comedy back to the Pleasance. His last show was in the Pleasance Attic in 1999!

Joseph Morpurgo returns with a hotly anticipated follow-up to his Edinburgh Comedy Awards-nominated 2015 smash hit, and comedy legendRichard Herring celebrates the 30th anniversary of his first Fringe with his 40th show in his 50th year (alive). Older and wiser? Or just older?

Comedy A-listers such as Nick Helm, Pippa Evans, Doug Anthony All Stars, Dane Baptiste, Gary Delany and Matt Forde are also back at the Pleasance this August as is, for the third time, James Acaster, five times Edinburgh Comedy Awards-nominee! James brought his last three shows to the Pleasance (Recognise, 2014; Represent, 2015; Reset, 2016) and has since taken TV by storm, having appeared in everything fromLive at the Apollo to Have I Got News for You to Mock of The Week!

Deanna Fleysher's alter-ego Butt Kapinski presents a show at the Pleasance following her (his?) successful run at the Adelaide Fringe. Also,Adam Riches is back after his five-star sell-out 2015 show with all new material: The Inane Chicanery of a Certain Adam GC Riches.

Among the Pleasance debuts this year are three great double acts: The Death Hilarious, Welsh comedy duo, Sisters: White Noise and Great British Mysteries, a live mockumentary investigating monsters, myths and Noel Edmonds. Also making their debut is Tom Lucy whosupported Jack Whitehall on tour, going solo for the first time from sketch double act Watson and Oliver - Ingrid Oliver, Phoebe Walsh of the cult sketch group Oyster Eyes, Darren Harriot who has appeared on Russell Howard's Stand Up Central and brilliantly astute British-Kurdish comedian Kae Kurd.

In the Theatre programme, Cardboard Citizens come to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time with a legislative theatre version of Cathy, following their one-off theatrical re-staging of Ken Loach's seminal work Cathy Come Home at the Barbican last July and a successful forum theatre tour last autumn. Bristol-based Wardrobe Ensemble bring their new show Education, Education, Education, marking their Pleasance debut!

The Theatre programme also presents a couple of outstanding shows supported by Hull UK City of Culture 2017, including A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) written by Jon Brittain. Charlie Hartill Special Reserve Fund-supported theatre show Flesh and Bone by Unpolished Theatre also makes its Fringe debut this year at the Pleasance and graduates of the Pleasance's "XYP" scheme Incognito Theatre return with their sell-out 2016 show All Quiet on the Western Front.

20th April sees four more shows go on sale as part of the British Council Showcase: Girls, Home, Plan B for Utopia and Testosterone. Pleasance also welcomes Sapiens, a new show from the Pit Theatre which is directed by David Byrne, the artistic director of the New Diorama Theatre. Worklight Theatre, who won a Fringe First award for their show Labels in 2015, come back to the Pleasance with a new production, Monster.

Theatre Ad Infinitum, celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, bring their critically-acclaimed shows Translunar Paradise and The Odyssey back to Edinburgh Fringe.

The Scottish Drama Training Network (SDTN) and Pleasance Theatre Trust have developed a new initiative to support Acting, Performance and Technical Theatre graduates from Scotland's Colleges and Higher Education Institutions as they make the transition from training to industry. The initiative will see a new show produced for the Pleasance's Fringe programme every year. This year's production is Snowflake, directed by Mark Thomson, former Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre Company. More details to follow soon!

The Children's programme includes Tall Stories presenting their Future Perfect: can Dominic change the past and make his future perfect? This is Tall Stories' second show on sale, joining a musical adaptation of one of the best-loved books in The Gruffalo's Child.

These 132 titles join the 25 Pleasance shows already on sale which included award-winning comedian Katy Brand and French dance troupeTutu with their rhythmic and humoristic maelstrom. Multi-award winning four strong, five-star sketch group Gein's Family Giftshop is back with their new material presented as Volume 3. Winner of the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year 2017 title Alasdair Beckett-Kingpresents his debut solo show and Edinburgh Best Newcomer Nominee Brennan Reece returns to the Pleasance following a sell-out UK and Australian tour. Part of British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2017 and following a sell-out run at the 2017 London International Mime Festival,Theatre Re presents Nature of Forgetting, a powerful, explosive and joyous piece about what is left when memory is gone.

Anthony Alderson, Director of the Pleasance said: "The Pleasance programme this year is truly spectacular, the work on show the very best. For seventy years the Festival Fringe has been a window for some of the greatest artists in the world. This year the Pleasance programme stands up alongside the very best of those."

Earlier this year the Pleasance Theatre Trust announced the celebration of 33 years at Venue 33 (Pleasance Courtyard) through a commission of a brand new type of mobile venue. From an initial innovative concept created by Triple E the final pop-up 120 seat-capacity 'Project 33' is a design collaboration between Triple E and The Pleasance. The Venue will launch at the ABTT (Association of British Theatre Technicians) Theatre Show in June before going on to host eight shows a day at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as the all new Pleasance Beside. Following the festival, the structure will move to the Pleasance in London where it will form a new rehearsal and performance space.

Performers taking advantage of the new space include Bennan Reece, Angela Barnes, Tez Ilyas, Rose Matafeo and the Free Association with JACUZZI.

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