Every year, for three hectic weeks in August, over 3,000 performing arts productions descend on the city of Edinburgh for the world’s most famous Fringe Festival. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival dates back to 1947, when eight theatre troupes turned up uninvited to the annual Edinburgh International Festival. They performed in whatever venue would have them, on the fringe of the existing festival, coining the phrase ‘Fringe Festival’.
With an enormous array of productions to choose from, planning your trip to the Fringe can be overwhelming. To help you plan, we’ve highlighted thirteen shows featuring OSD alumni from the Foundation, Three Year, and One Year Courses.
OSD at The Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Basic Bald B*tch
Written by and starring 2025 One Year Course graduate Emily Glaze.
Show Bio – “Hair is everything. Until it’s not. Until it’s 2007 Britney b*tch.
This one-hour, one-woman, one-night stand of a show is about Amy. Everyone wants to be Amy. Until her hair falls out in all the wrong places.
What follows is a knotty mess of swimming caps, cat shit and four-finger foreheads. Things buried threaten to rear their ugly bald head. She can’t stop thinking about the door. Her bedroom door. And the man hiding behind it. Now Amy attempts to take back her body, one fake eyebrow at a time.”
When – 3:55 pm, 5th – 30th August
Where – Underbelly Cowgate
Jelly Belly
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/basic-bald-b-tch
The Pitch
Starring 2022 Three Year Graduate Jake Douglas.
One of five productions selected as part of the prestigious Edinburgh National Partnerships programme!
Show Bio – “Robbie is a sports-mad Belfast boy. When his favourite pitch is refurbished into a Gaelic football ground, he sees it as an invasion of his culture. But for GAA player Deren, it’s a chance to play the sport he loves, in the home where it was never accepted.
As Robbie’s sister, Melissa, starts playing Gaelic football in school, and a United Ireland referendum looms, can all three of them find common ground? A fast-paced, energetic and laugh-out-loud Belfast story, which celebrates the country’s favourite sport and asks the growing question: will Ireland ever be re-unified?”
When – 2:00 pm, 1st – 25th August
Where – Baby Grand at Pleasance Courtyard
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-pitch
Youth In Flames
Starring and written by Mimi Martin, with voice over by Hari Kang and directed by Jessica Whiley, all 2023 Three Year Course Graduates.
Following a sold-out, award-winning Fringe run in 2025, and a sold-out run in New York as part of the Brits Off Broadway programme, Youth In Flames returns for another year of Fringe chaos.
Show Bio – “Inspired by real events, Mimi Martin’s ‘urgent… superb play’ ***** (Scotsman), returns to the Fringe, direct from a sell-out Off-Broadway season.
Plunging audiences into the raw intensity of 2019’s Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, and the story of a young British expat’s desperate search for home amidst a city fighting for its future. Directed by Jessica Whiley and produced by Richard Jordan, Olivier, Tony, Emmy and 19-time Scotsman Fringe First Award-winning producer. Youth in Flames captures the emotional truth of a city in chaos, and the true cost of resistance.”
When – various times, 5th – 31st August
Where –Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/youth-in-flames-winner-scotsman-fringe-first-award
Pink Rabbit
Written and performed by 2023 Three Year graduate Farah Ashraf.
Beginning life as part of a module of work here at OSD, and selected from over 200 applications to Francesca Moody’s Shed Load of Future Fund, Pink Rabbit is a must-see!
Show Bio – “Amna is a good Muslim daughter. Mostly. At home she’s modest, obedient, invisible. Online she’s PersianBaby – bold, flirtatious, watched.
Pink Rabbit is a fierce, coming-of-age, darkly funny solo play about faith, female desire and the intoxicating power of attention.
As Amna hides her OnlyFans from her strict mother, the lies start to fracture. Caught between mosque and male gaze, shame and thrill, she begins to ask: who is she performing for?
Raw, intimate and electric, Pink Rabbit explores intergenerational and cultural conflict – and the dangerous moment when being seen finally feels better than being honest.”
When – 6:15 pm, 5th – 30th August
Where – Daisy at Underbelly, Bristo Square
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/pink-rabbit
Big Dog
Starring 2023 One Year graduate, Eleanor Cross.
Show Bio – “Eve lands a ghostwriting job for a major true crime podcaster. Should be easy, right? She’s intelligent and doesn’t care about rising through the ranks. Besides, she has her own hidden agenda. But as the boundaries between ethics, ambition and self-preservation blur, Eve finds herself overly invested and increasingly implicated in the very systems she is questioning.
Big Dog is a comedy which interrogates the true crime industry, influencer culture and workplace politics. It asks who gets to tell certain stories, who profits from them, and who ultimately bears the emotional consequences.”
When – 6:20 pm, 5th – 31st August
Where –Dram at Gilded Balloon Patter House
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/big-dog
The Crimes of Pete
Starring 2023 One Year Course graduate Gregor Roach.
Show Bio – “A failing author is banged up by an authoritarian regime. Not for telling the truth to power; because the Great Leader thinks he’s sh*t.
A dystopian comedy from Hughie Shepherd-Cross, the writer of Gang Bang, Ringer and Out To Lunch. ‘Good nasty stuff’ (Scotsman). ‘Gonna be a household name’ **** (VoiceMag.uk).”
When – 12:15 pm, 5th – 30th August
Where – Beside at Pleasance Courtyard
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-crimes-of-pete
Target Audience
Starring 2023 One Year Course grad James Coward.
Show Bio – “A TV production company gets word from Whitehall that they must adapt their programming to align with the government’s new policy to rapidly prepare the country for war. Panicked, the producers offer writer Tobias an exorbitant amount of money to pen a ‘pro-weapons sitcom’, forcing him to choose between his morals and his mortgage.
Comedy play from Dan Bishop, writer of smash hit Brainsluts.
Previous praise: ‘Bishop writes so well’ **** (Guardian). ‘Laughs come fast and furious’ **** (Stage). ‘Bishop’s witty play could easily be the pilot for a sitcom’ **** (Times).”
When – 4:50 pm, 5th – 30th August
Where – Above at Pleasance Courtyard
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/target-audience
Silent Disco
Starring 2020 Foundation Course in Acting Graduate Nathan Golo.
Show Bio – “‘What’s on your mind?’ A musician and a psychologist walk into a disco, one, ever the social butterfly, the other reserved and introspective. These polar opposites attract and a romance develops – two souls at the start of their lives, two neurodivergent lovers living with their respective conditions, whilst the audience, equipped with headphones, witness every private thought and every secret anxiety. Silent Disco is a work of two halves simultaneously: The first, a tender narrative of the lives of neurodivergent young people, and an abstract, pre-recorded stream-of-consciousness, broadcast directly into the ears of its audience.”
When – 1:10 pm, 5th – 31st August
Where – Turret at Gilded Balloon Teviot
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/silent-disco
After Party
Starring 2019 Three Year Course graduate Ruby Glyne
Tickets are selling fast for this production, so get in while you still can!
Show Bio – “‘From acclaimed playwright Morna Young, After Party is a bold and life-affirming story about a life-ending decision, and our responsibility to others, in life and in death.
Matriarch Vivienne Blackwood has always lived life on her own terms, much to the frustration of her fractured family. Summoning them for her 80th birthday party, they arrive expecting the usual family escapades. But as old tensions surface and beliefs collide, Vivienne’s reasons for gathering them soon unravels. She wants the party of a lifetime – but can her wayward family make it through the night?
Sharp, darkly funny and unflinching.”
When – Various times, 6th – 30th August
Where – Traverse 1 at Traverse Theatre
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/after-party
INDY!
Starring 2015 three-year graduate Victoria Blunt
Show Bio – “Three amateur archaeologists… One fedora… A whole lot of snakes. Join our fearless troupe as they parody the legendary Indiana Jones trilogy live on stage!
Brand-new breakneck comedy of chaos by and starring Daniel Clarkson (co-creator of Potted Potter and Panto, director of Biff To The Future) and Brendan Murphy (creator of FRIEND and Buffy Revamped), joined on stage by Victoria Blunt. Directed by Olivier nominee Owen Lewis.
Armed only with sheer misplaced confidence, can this heroic adventure stay on the mine-cart rails? Buy the ticket, take the ride and find out whether… you have chosen wisely.”
When – 4:15 pm, 6th – 30th August
Where – Auditorium at Gilded Balloon at the Museum
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/indy
Thermodrama
Starring 2023 Three Year graduate Aiyana Bartlett.
Show Bio – “Four people enter a sauna, three walk out. Over an hour, a group of strangers get hotter and hotter. So hot, they start to cook. Coco Cottam’s new play Thermodrama measures the costs of a culture of self-improvement on four precarious lives.
Following a sell-out run of BLANDY – ‘Riotous, visceral and whip-smart’ ***** (BingeFringe.com) – Lovelock Productions have taken a room in Summerhall and are going to make it sizzle.”
When – 10:30 pm, 6th – 31st August
Where – Old Lab at Summerhall
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/thermodrama
We Were Sisters
Written by and starring 2025 Foundation Course in Acting graduates Julia Van Praagh and Tigs Edwards.
We love to see Foundation friendships turning into fruitful collaborating partnerships!
Show Bio – “What happens when your supposed ‘built-in best friend’ becomes someone you can’t stand? When Celia loses her phone after a night out, it sets off a chain of small, seemingly inconsequential events that force Celia and Josie to accept their incompatibility.
Beginning as a morning-after comedy of errors, the fuse is lit as the play slowly develops into the unravelling of sisterhood. Through clashing personalities and different life stages, distance creeps in. This funny and honest play begs the question: how well do we understand the people we love, and what happens when we don’t?”
When – Various times, 7th – 22nd August
Where –Theatre 2 at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/we-were-sisters
The Unwilling Accomplice
Written by and starring 2023 Foundation Course in Acting graduate Rachael Kellett.
Show Bio – “Pigeon Patter Productions presents their debut show The Unwilling Accomplice. A horror comedy, following two sisters – Riley a serial killer, Emily her unwilling accomplice. We step into their world as cracks begin to form and the sisters learn that sometimes family shouldn’t be forever…
This show tackles the difficulties that come when you can no longer rely on the few people you grew up with, and we ask the question of whether blood relation should be held sacred if all it’s doing is poisoning your life.”
When – 3:40 pm, 7th – 15th August
Where – Stephenson Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-unwilling-accomplice
SpitNights – Poetry Meets Improv Jazz
Featuring 2017 Three-Year graduate Caitlin O’Ryan.
Caitlin has built an incredibly successful poetry career in recent years. She has a tour coming up in October and her debut poetry collection, At What Point, is on sale now!
Show Bio – “Combining the most exciting talent on the jazz and poetry scene, where no two events are ever the same. The one rule of the show: no rehearsals. Just explosive interludes, hilarious collaborations, and poetry designed for anyone who thought they didn’t like it.
Headliners of each show will be announced on our socials @spitnights. Viewed online by over 90 million people in 2025. TLDR: (poets + band = good time).”
When – 10 pm, 7th – 22nd August. Caitlin will be performing 16th – 22nd August
Where – Amphitheatre at theSpace @ Symposium Hall
Booking Link – https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/spitnights-poetry-meets-improv-jazz
If you’re performing at The Edinburgh Fringe, OSD Alumni or otherwise, break a leg! And for those taking a trip up to watch shows and soak in the atmosphere, make sure to book one of these OSD shows!!