‘Roleplay’
Any Fringe show with Francesa Moody’s name attached is a likely hit: She’s the producer behind breakout hits like “Fleabag,” “Baby Reindeer” and “Weather Girl” (which Netflix and A24 are turning into a TV series).
This year, Moody already seems to have a success on her hands with “Roleplay,” a one-woman show written by and starring Hannah Reilly, about a fame-seeking podcaster who reinvents herself as a sex influencer. Its whole Fringe run is sold out in advance.
This fall, “Roleplay” will move to London, and the involvement of Global Creatures, an Australian theater company behind juggernaut musicals including “Moulin Rouge!,” suggests that it could eventually head to theaters outside Britain.
Moody said in an interview that she thought the buzz around “Roleplay” was down to its poster, which features Reilly staring seductively at the viewer while twirling a headphone cable. “A strong image always works well in Edinburgh,” Moody said.
But Carmen Pavlovic of Global Creatures said there was far more to it. “Roleplay” isn’t a just a sexy play, she said, but an “of-the-moment” piece discussing “that relationship between sex and power and where sex positivity has landed us.” — ALEX MARSHALL
Through Aug. 31 at Summerhall, then Oct. 22 through Nov. 21 at the Soho Theater in London.
Amanda Knox
It’s over a decade since Amanda Knox was exonerated, after years of appeals and retrials, of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy. Yet such was her demonization by the news media during that first, sensational murder trial that she has struggled to banish the stench of notoriety.
Her infamy makes her jump out from this year’s Fringe listings like some bizarre anomaly. And indeed, her appearance in a one-woman comedy show at the Fringe has caused some disquiet: An online petition calling for the show’s cancellation has garnered thousands of signatures.
But, per Italy’s highest court, Knox was the victim of a miscarriage of justice; she wrongfully served four years in jail, and that story is hers to tell.
The title of her autobiographical show, “Cartwheel,” refers to the yoga poses she was seen doing in her cell after her initial arrest. Misinterpreted as cartwheels, they were cited by the prosecution as evidence of her callous indifference to Kercher’s death.
The show looks set to unpack the ignorance and misogyny that informed Knox’s portrayal as a femme fatale by a prurient tabloid media. And the billing promises an added personal dimension as Knox ponders how to explain her ordeal to her young daughter when the time inevitably comes. — HOUMAN BAREKAT
Through Aug. 17 at Gilded Balloon Teviot.
Ania Magliano
The British “Saturday Night Live” was an unexpected success after it premiered on TV in March, and a bunch of cast members and writers are performing in Edinburgh this year — and getting a lot of extra attention.
Chief among them is Ania Magliano, one of the show’s “Weekend Update” hosts. She’s been having a run in the spotlight in the lead-up to the festival, where she is performing a solo stand-up show called “Peach Fuzz.” It hits on a diverse range of topics including body modification, Sabrina Carpenter and “indoor boyfriends.”
Magliano has had success at the Fringe before. But this year she’s one of the hottest tickets in town, and sold out her whole run weeks before the festival kicked off. For those who have already been shut out, “Peach Fuzz” is set to tour in Britain and the United States starting in November.
Other names from “Saturday Night Live” on the docket in Edinburgh are show writers like Bella Hull and Omar Badawy, and cast members like Ayoade Bamgboye and Paddy Young, who is Magliano’s “Weekend Update” co-host — and whose show is almost sold out, too. — JILLIAN RAYFIELD
Through Aug. 22 at Monkey Barrel Comedy, then touring Britain and North America.
‘Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It’
The New York-based performing duo Xhloe & Natasha have been Fringe favorites since their enthusiastically received 2022 debut. Their new show is set in a tiny, flood-ravaged town in the Appalachian Mountains, where two teenage misfits amuse themselves by manufacturing fake sightings of the mythical Bigfoot.
It’s all fun and games until they happen across the bisected remains of their neighbor’s trusty pet canine and their lie starts to feel a bit too real.
Made up like clowns, Xhloe & Natasha’s pranksters have a strange, compulsive physicality, pushing, pulling and clambering onto each other as they deliver a choppy, frenetic performance punctuated by unnervingly brief snatches of ’90s pop.
“Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It” is an affectionate, absurdist love letter to small-town life and folk superstition that is also a timely allegory for how societies cope with crises, real and imagined. — HOUMAN BAREKAT
Through Aug. 30 at Summerhall, then Sept. 7 to 26 at the Soho Theater in London.
Alex Edelman
The last time Alex Edelman performed at the Fringe, it was with “Just for Us,” a show about his experience of infiltrating a white nationalist group (he’s Jewish). That was in 2018, and after collecting awards and accolades there, the show went on to have a global tour, a run on Broadway and an HBO special, with Tony and Emmy wins on top.
Edelman, who has been a reliable Fringe hit since 2014, when he won best newcomer, is back this year with new material in a show called “What Are You Going to Do.” The show, which runs in the last two weeks of the festival, is another narrative comedy solo hour. It covers more ground than his last, including his time as a hospital clown in Jerusalem and themes like personal responsibility and religious belief — with some amusing asides about how in New York City, “cruelty” is a “love language.”
After Edinburgh, Edelman will take the show around North America this fall, including to New York. — JILLIAN RAYFIELD
Through Aug. 31 at Pleasance Courtyard.
Frankie Thompson
Clowns at the Fringe regularly push comedy in far stranger, more inventive and theatrical directions than the stand-ups. And if you want to see one this year, my pick is Frankie Thompson.
Thompson was one of the breakout acts of the 2022 Fringe with “Catts” an out-there show in which she lip-synced and performed physical comedy to feline-related audio and video clips, including one featuring the original Broadway cast of “Cats.” A Time Out critic called it “hilariously funny” and “like nothing else you’ll see.”
This year, Thompson is back with “Horrible Things,” which once again features her lip-syncing, this time to recordings of things she finds unsettling. It features more audience interaction than her past shows (get ready to dance) and more physical comedy. And it includes one unforgettable yucky moment when she starts licking things.
The show may leave some audience members confused, but it’ll likely blow many more away with its inventiveness. Thompson seems to realize her potential divisiveness: The poster for the show features the tagline “If you laugh, it’s comedy. If you don’t, it’s performance art.”
And if you can’t get to Thompson’s show, try Elf Lyons’ “The Woman on the Edge,” another inventive hour of clowning about a breakup. It’s already secured a New York transfer.
Through Aug. 30 at Pleasance Courtyard, then Oct. 12 to 24 at the Soho Theater in London.
Adam Riches
In 2024, Adam Riches sweated his way through his hit show “Jimmy” in the role of the tennis star Jimmy Connors. Riches ran back and forth across the stage for about an hour, playing an imaginary match that was impressively timed to tennis ball sound effects. His new show “The Captain” is based on the life of Capt. Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel unaided, and it promises to be another high-concept portrait of an accomplished and complex man.
Riches is also popular for his offbeat character comedies that rely extensively on audience participation. This year, he’ll be performing a new one called “The Critic’s Way,” in which he plays a comedy reviewer. That might be the only way to still catch him: “The Captain” is sold out, including a couple of extra shows.
But if you’re set on seeing a performer overexert himself for art, “The Distance,” also at Summerhall, might do the trick. The show, by Ben Norris, a former long-distance runner for Britain’s national team, is advertised as “part play, part extreme workout.” — JILLIAN RAYFIELD
Through Aug. 31 at Summerhall.
‘Bliss’
This spirited family musical from the producers of the Olivier Award winner “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” offers an irreverent feminist twist on the traditional fairy tale. Co-created by Emma Lively and Tyler Beattie and directed by Sheryl Kaller, “Bliss” is set in the make-believe land of Minisculia, where four witty and precocious princesses have been locked in a tower and home-schooled by their overprotective father. Desperate to experience the real world, they break out.
Geared toward younger theatergoers, the show has plenty of playful humor and an accessible pop-rock score. It also features a comet, a unicorn called Stacey and a deceptively friendly dragon. “Bliss” is whimsical and wise, carrying a valuable message about authenticity, autonomy and authenticity. — HOUMAN BAREKAT
Through Aug. 31 at Pleasance Grand.
‘Evita Too’
The Fringe is a place to discover the next big thing, but the lineup also includes past hits back for a victory lap and shows that have already found success elsewhere. Of this year’s crop, I’d urge you to see “Evita Too,” which is billed as a lower-budget sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s “Evita” — but is actually far more and secured rave reviews last year during a run at the Southbank Center in London.
“Evita” told the story of Eva Perón, the wife of Argentina’s socialist president who was adored by the working classes before she died at age 33. In “Evita Too,” the performers Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit focus instead on Isabel Matínez Perón, a cabaret dancer who married Evita’s widower and became Argentina’s first female president.
Isabel Perón’s life is so bizarre — she even once shared a home with Evita’s corpse — that it’s ripe for musical theater. Yet Mothersole and Biscuit also make her tale into a highly comedic show involving their own attempts to meet her in Madrid, where she lives in exile.
Alongside the laughs, the show ask a serious question: What does a woman have to do to be remembered?
Through Aug. 30 at ZOO Southside.
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