Show me the funny: essential comedy at Edinburgh fringe 2026

Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge

No fringe festival has been complete in recent years without some oddball clown confection – usually animal-based – from the idiosyncratic Lyons. But this year’s offering promises something unusually personal, a reflection on a breakup she experienced while touring her last show.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-31 August

Making Love with David Magidoff

After sell-out runs in LA, American actor/comedian Magidoff brings to the fringe his musical improv show, spinning comic gold from love-life stories volunteered by different celebrity guests at each performance. Fran Healy, Mike Wozniak and Rosie Jones are all confirmed so far.
Assembly George Square, 7-23 August

Joseph Morpurgo: Highlander 70

The coming man in fringe comedy a decade ago, after the cult success of Soothing Sounds for Baby and a stream of other whipsmart multimedia hits, Joseph Morpurgo now returns with a show triggered by a visit to a car boot sale.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-11 and 20-30 August

Jack Dee: Jack’s Joke Show

“Guaranteed no new material!” Taglines don’t get cheekier than that on the fringe; no surprise it comes courtesy of comedy’s most enduring curmudgeon, back to celebrate 40 years in standup with a show celebrating his favourite old gags and anecdotes, and the role they played in his life.
Assembly Rooms, 17-23 August

Paddy Young: Will Sir Be Laughing Alone?

One of a dozen young comics whose stock has risen considerably after the success of SNL:UK, the Yorkshireman – who had a best newcomer nod in 2023 – performs his lovelorn new set on the fringe ahead of a national tour.
Monkey Barrel, 4-30 August

Rosalie Minnitt: Clementine 2

One of the great character acts of the decade, Rosalie Minnitt struck the nerviest of nerves with her frenzied frilly-bonnet alter ego Clementine, riffing fabulously on femininity and feminism between the Regency era and today. After multiple tours and a BBC radio show, finally, her second live outing is upon us.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Olga Koch: Fat Tom Cruise

Consistently delivering excellent and unusual comedy shows for several years, not least 2024’s taboo-busting inquiry into (her own) private wealth, Comes from Money, the Russian-born Koch returns to address “masculinity, accountability and the stories we tell ourselves”.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Jordan Brookes: The Part of You That’s Always Screaming

Any new show from Jordan Brookes is an event. No new show from Jordan Brookes is ever remotely what you expect. This year’s offering from the genre-pulverising gadfly purportedly explores love, gossip, therapy and our need to perform.
Pleasance Dome, 5-30 August

Kristen Schaal: The Legend of Crystal Shell

Nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award when she was an up-and-coming star in Flight of the Conchords, lovable US kook Schaal is back for five nights only with a comedy play “about an extraordinary soul hiding from the world because of a fantastic secret”.
Pleasance Courtyard, 12-16 August

Crowd Work with Frank Skinner

In our era of clippable content, a comedian’s “crowd work” – their off-the-cuff, had-to-be-there bantz with the audience – has become their most marketable asset. This new format, helmed by Frank Skinner, reflects that, as a changing bill of comics cast their scripts aside and take on whatever the audience throws at them.
Assembly George Square, 17-26 August

Rosie Jones: I Can’t Tell What She’s Saying

Eight years after her fringe debut, and seven since she performed there for a full run (which, given her telly ubiquity, is no surprise), the devilish Ms Jones returns with her touring set, promising mischievous gags about “being single, the pressures of representing huge sections of the population, and gravy”.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Nish Kumar: Angry Humour From a Really Nice Guy

“The world is in chaos, inequality is widening, autocracy is rising …” Nish Kumar’s latest blurb might have been written at any point since he launched his career in polemical comedy. Thank goodness he’s still here – and back, with a new work-in-progress – to help us navigate, and even laugh at, this bamboozling era.
Monkey Barrel, 5-30 August

Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You

His last-minute addition to last year’s programme, Palestine: Peace de Resistance, was one of the most urgent on the fringe. The Anglo-Palestinian comic’s follow-up looks just as intriguing, a comedy show at a moment of rising global rancour asking: can hate help us? Can it even be funny?
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Ahir Shah: Golden

Ahir Shah came to the fringe in 2023 with a work still in development, Ends, and walked away with the biggest prize in live comedy. In his first new set since that richly merited triumph, the erudite Londoner conjures with “love, money, family, responsibility, fear, forever and frogs”.
Pleasance Courtyard, 6-30 August

Ayoade Bamgboye: Small Talk

The winner of last summer’s best newcomer gong, Ayoade Bamgboye made a very striking impression with Swings and Roundabouts, which returns for a short run this year. She also trials its follow-up, turning her perceptive outsider eye (she was raised in Nigeria) on a very British phenomenon: small talk.
Monkey Barrel, 16-20 August

Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things

Yes, the fringe is one big audition for TV panel shows. It’s also a refuge for misfits, mavericks and creative freewheelers. Step forward the intriguing clown-cum-performance artist Frankie Thompson, following up her leftfield 2022 hit Catts with this inventory of horrible things.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-30 August

Underground Monk Show

Its guru Philippe Gaulier may no longer be with us, but clown-comedy is still riding a wave of popularity, and you can bet that LA import Underground Monk Show – a crack team of hip clowns, dressed as monks, going crazy in a tent – will be the buzziest piece of late-night nonsense at this year’s fringe.
Assembly George Square, 5-30 August

Lara Ricote: Inkling

After winning more hearts and audiences with her turn in Sam Campbell’s batty Channel 4 show Make That Movie, Lara Ricote returns to the fringe (where she won best newcomer in 2022) with Inkling, already award-nominated in Melbourne and supposedly her “stupidest and smartest show yet”.
Monkey Barrel, 5-30 August

Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour

No need greatly to elaborate on the title of this show by Aussie clown Conk (AKA Connor Dariol). It’s a high-concept festival stunt that – judging by rave reviews from the Melbourne comedy festival – will drive you delirious, perhaps with impatience to begin with, and then with delight.
Summerhall, 6-31 August

Ania Magliano: Peach Fuzz

In a series that was all about the viral clips, nothing on SNL:UK went more reliably viral than Paddy Young and Ania Magliano’s news spoof Weekend Update. Now, Magliano returns to the festival where she was nominated for best show three summers ago.
Monkey Barrel, 5-30 August

Rose Matafeo: Work in Progress Morning Hour

For all the rising standups delivering shows they’ve worked all year on, you’ll also find on the fringe well-loved veterans teasing out half-formed ideas. Few are better loved than Starstruck star Rose Matafeo, a former comedy award champ workshopping something brand new at 11am. It’ll be worth getting up for.
Monkey Barrel, 17-30 August