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Bog Witch

It may contain a brief moment of actual tree-hugging but this bracing solo show by Bryony Kimmings finds fresh and compelling perspectives on the horribly familiar plight of our planet. Season through season, she recounts a year of upheaval after moving to a regenerative permaculture homestead with her son, her partner and his daughter. It’s a thrill to see Kimmings back, in a climate reckoning of both cosmic and quotidian proportions – and a theatrical time capsule of the way we live now. Chris Wiegand Read the review. Traverse, 8-30 August

David Elms Describes a Room

“Shall we give ourselves a night off from being funny?” There are unassuming performance styles, then there’s David Elms. At a festival that teems with ingratiating theatrics, it’s quite the gearshift to watch Elms deliver this hour of improv with no mic, props, a set or anything else prepared. We have to lean in, which is useful for a show that relies on the audience’s suggestions to crank things up. A lovely, skilful and understated hour of extempore comedy. Brian Logan Read the review. Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Woodhill

HMP Woodhill houses young men outside Milton Keynes – “a box of souls on our front door”, says a local person. Even within the British prison system, it has a notoriously poor record of care. Tracing vulnerable men who took their lives in prison, writer Matt Woodhead and choreographer Alexzandra Sarmiento have created a verbatim documentary that finds devastating physical form. It honours the dead and those who fight for change. Campaigning theatre is reimagined with astonishing force. David Jays Read the review. Zoo Southside, 7-30 August

The Horse of Jenin

Writer and comedian Alaa Shehada takes us back to a rambunctious childhood in Palestine’s Jenin city, moving through the decades in picaresque strides, from his inseparable friendship with Ahmed, who is born on the same day as him, to growing up in the rubble of repeated invasions, a disastrous romance, and the grandfather who gives him a small model horse. It builds to a gut-punch, although there is no self-pity or sentimentality. This is a production that chooses to find joy amid the horror. Arifa Akbar Read the review. Pleasance Courtyard, 18-30 August

Ten Thousand Hours

This may be the ideal festival show – it has supreme levels of skill but also humour and audience participation. There are gasps and laughs and even a gymnastic game of Pictionary. Australian circus company Gravity and Other Myths have already picked up multiple plaudits for Ten Thousand Hours, an ode to the countless hours spent building the muscle, the reflexes and the precision skills that allow you to make your living flying through the air. Lyndsey Winship Read the review. Assembly Hall, 6-30 August

One Man Musical

“Is this show a legal minefield? Yes it is. But on we go.” So begins musical comedy duo Flo & Joan’s fringier-than-fringe venture placing Andrew Lloyd Webber centre-stage in his own autobiographical show. The duo acknowledge the snobbery directed towards his music, and the poignancy of being left in the slipstream of cultural change, and they pack the show with wickedly impertinent jokes, usually at the expense of ALW and his “musicools”. BL Read the review. Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Creepy Boys: Slugs

If the end of the world is a party, I want these two feral slugs to be our hosts. Fever-dreamed by Canadian clowning duo Creepy Boys, this absurd existential rave is brilliantly smart and beautifully stupid. Sam Kruger and SE Grummett insist, with increasing desperation, that this is a show about nothing. No serious topic will be tackled here. What begins as an effort to distract from the doom-scroll mentality devolves into a critical analysis of the absurdities we accept as the norm. Kate Wyver Read the review. Summerhall, 6-17 August

Furniture Boys

Emily Weitzman explores our intimate relationship with furniture by turning her past boyfriends into a locked drawer that never opens up, a rug that everyone walks over and a fridge (so, so cold). It’s a witty idea but, like an ingenious storage system, Weitzman’s show keeps revealing hidden depths. She makes a whole out of familiar fringe elements: a wacky concept, heartfelt memoir, multimedia diversions, the story of her show’s own creation and a closing cri de coeur for artistic pursuits. CW Read the review. Underbelly, Bristo Square, 5-30 August

Tell Me

Sadiq Ali says that 2025 was the year he might have been expected to die of Aids-related complications, were it not for advances in medicine. Instead, here he is, muscled and strong, wound round a Chinese pole, suspending himself in the air. His show follows a woman with an HIV diagnosis, which is something still stigmatised and misunderstood, especially outside the LGBTQ+ community. Tell Me is not ultimately a story of triumph or transcendence but one of love, support and acceptance, with some poignant, intimate moments. LW Read the review. Summerhall, 6-31 August

Sam Nicoresti: Baby Doomer

Even the most basic interactions can be fraught when you’re transgender, and Sam Nicoresti builds this show around one such happening. Misgendered by a shop assistant, we find Sam in a department store changing room, squeezing into a dress from which they’re then unable to extricate themselves. It’s a big-hitting and farcical standup sketch, delivered with such self-deprecating joyfulness by Nicoresti that you almost forget the sensitivity of its subject matter. BL Read the review. Pleasance Courtyard, 15-19 August