What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

The main character is dangling off the top of scaffolding round a church steeple under repair. Events conspire to make her realise she has nothing left to lose. Before long she is ditching the baking and buying bomb making materials from Homebase.

How do you keep your performances fresh every night?

This is a show for atheists, agnostics, believers and everything in between and actually features an appearance by God – but not in the way you expect. We get the audience’s help to pull this off and it is going to be different every night. Old testament lightning bolt God or nice fuzzy friendly God its up to you!

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

The kind of hot drink you have after a shock to the system – a mug of builders tea – strong, milky and enough sugar to make the spoon stand up.

About the show

SCAFFOLDING

Date(s): Jul 31 Aug 1-13, 15-26

Time(s): 17:40 (1 hour)

Location: Pleasance Dome – Jack Dome

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

Ten Thousand Hours is a nice hot Double Shot flat white (full cream milk) on a cold winder morning. It will warm you up from the inside out and it will certainly wake you up with a bug surge of energy, and it tastes so good.

How do you keep your performances fresh every night?

We play! We play games with each other, we play with the audience, we crack jokes and have fun with little tweaks and changes along the way. Its just like how you keep hanging out with your best friends all the time, its never boring and always a little bit different.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

Acrobatics is spectacular, dangerous and exciting. At GOM we have poured hours and hours of time and energy in to training group acrobatics, and pushing the boundaries of what the human body is capable of. I guarantee you haven’t seen acrobatics like this before, some of the skills in the show will leave you speechless and your heart racing.

About the show

Ten Thousand Hours

Date(s): Aug 1-11, 13-18, 20-24

Time(s): 11:40 (1 hour)

Location: Assembly Hall – Main Hall

What brings a nice show like yours to a place like the Edinburgh Fringe?

Spectacle will be the fourth comedy show I’ve taken to the Edinburgh Fringe, but the first one focused completely on being a visually impaired comedian. Over the past few years I’ve been on a personal journey with my sight loss, and Spectacle is my way of exploring that and sharing my experiences in a funny, relatable way.

What misconceptions do you think people have about you/your show – would you like to clear them up?

I think people often assume visual impairment is all or nothing: you either have full sight or are completely blind. I want Spectacle to highlight the real experiences of visually impaired people like me and show the varying degrees of visual impairment. I also want to show that being disabled doesn’t mean I can’t laugh at myself and the challenges I face. It’s simply human experience and can be just as funny as able-bodied people’s experiences.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

Spectacle is so much more than an ordinary comedy show, and that’s why I’m so excited to bring it to the Fringe this year. As well as a whole new hour of stand-up in my signature self-deprecating style, Spectacle uses light, sound and magic to show audiences a different way of looking at the world – literally!

About the show

Jake Donaldson: Spectacle

Date(s): Aug 1-11, 13-25

Time(s): 18:40 (1 hour)

Location: Just the Tonic at The Mash House – Just the Attic

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

The show would be the office percolator; the hottest topics and huge if true spillages. I would be a filter coffee because I am very careful about what I say online.

How will the audience remember you the morning after?

“I did, I thought the weird little man-boy’s Keir Starmer impression was uncanny.”

How do you keep your performances fresh every night?

Dry clean the wigs.

About the show

NewsRevue

Date(s): Jul 31 Aug 1-11, 13-26

Time(s): 19:30 (1 hour)

Location: Underbelly, George Square – Udderbelly

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

Maybe an Irish coffee? Essentially very palatable but with a significant kick in its final moments

How do you keep your performances fresh every night?

Existing in a constant state of panic about forgetting our lines

If you/your show were a school subject what would you/it be and why?

Surely history-it’s basically a history lesson led by two well-intentioned morons

About the show

Lessons On Revolution

Date(s): Aug 1-11, 13-18, 20-26

Time(s): 14:15 (1 hour)

Location: Summerhall – Former Womens Locker Room

What misconceptions do you think people have about you/your show – would you like to clear them up?

People keep saying that my brother is a horse. And my brother is NOT a horse. I don’t know how to make it clearer.

How do you keep your performances fresh every night?

I make an offering to the fringe gods every day. On a separate note, if anyone is selling “blood of the innocents” please let me know.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

Lot’s of singing accompanied by full throttle eye contact.

About the show

Michael Kunze: Infinity Mirror

Date(s): Aug 1-11, 13-25

Time(s): 12:55 (1 hour)

Location: Underbelly, Cowgate – Delhi Belly

How will the audience remember you the morning after?

I like to leave them wanting more – so I hope my audience will still be singing the songs and chuckling to themselves the next morning. Though they might feel a little exposed or teased…as I love to write songs about relatable themes in a cynical way. All said and done, I hope they’ll remember that we had a LOT of fun.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

I know I’m a wrong ‘un! I like to lead an audience down the garden path, before changing the tune entirely. Tension is all part of the fun. As a singer-songwriter with a knack for funny writing, I find there’s an exhilarating thrill in playing with expectations. Hopefully, they will still find there’s a happy ending.

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

As a lactose intolerant person, I take my coffee black. Like my comedy…But if I were a coffee, I think I would be a Mocha. Hiding my darkness behind a weak veneer of quirky sweetness! Always faking something.

About the show

Chris Tavener is Faking Cool

Date(s): Aug 2-10, 12-17

Time(s): 18:10 (45 minutes)

Location: theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall – Theatre 3

What misconceptions do you think people have about you/your show – would you like to clear them up?

That it will be a difficult and upsetting visit to the Theatre when actually despite it’s weighty subject and challenging issues you will leave with a sense of Joy, hope and feel thoroughly entertained.

What brings a nice show like yours to a place like the Edinburgh Fringe?

The Edinburgh Festival is the most exciting arts festival in the world and to be a part of it is both an honour and a great adventure. My play has been acclaimed in Ireland but it is to an International audience that I want my work to be seen. Where better than Edinburgh.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

Though dealing with the impact of conflict I will appeal to your theatre curiosity with Music, song, Shakespeare,cinema, humour and epic storytelling to give you a unique theatrical experience from a performer who has given 30 years to the craft of Theatre.

About the show

Lies Where It Falls

Date(s): Jul 31 Aug 1-13, 15-25

Time(s): 14:30 (1 hour 10 minutes)

Location: C ARTS | C venues | C alto – studio

What coffee would you/your show be, and why?

Double espresso with a lot of sugar. Something about espresso presents a challenge, it’s bitter, it’s dark, it keeps you awake at night, yet somehow it seems like a taste of reality. The drinker of double espressos, like many of my audience members, often asks, why do I keep doing this to myself” and the answer is, the sugar. Somehow, dissolved in all the bitter acrimony and blackness of coffee is an unspeakable sweetness. And that’s reality.

How will the audience remember you the morning after?

The audience has no need to remember me at all, however, if the play is successful it will have connected with the audience in a way that feels meaningful and intimate. They will not remember me, but they will remember the specific combination of pathos, irony, absurdity and hope, that is the moral universe in which the characters of the play exist. And that moral universe will feel like a new home.

What do you/your show do to make an audience’s heart beat faster?

Easy! My character stalks them with a high voltage, garish anthropoid neon marionette made of glass and loose wires. Then I ask them embarrassing questions about their most intimate private lives.

About the show

Funny Guy

Date(s): Aug 2-10, 12-17, 19-24

Time(s): 17:20 (55 minutes)

Location: Greenside @ George Street – Lime Studio

How will the audience remember you the morning after?

Unlike anything they’ve seen before. Something they should tell that one friend to go see who likes really dumb stuff. Also kinda needy.

What brings a nice show like yours to a place like the Edinburgh Fringe?

We’re both raging neurotics with a desperation for attention, so we wanted to see if we could mainline pure anxiety for an entire month. Also, we love that there’s a room for everything at the Fringe. Maybe even a whack absurdist narrative sketch show like us. 👉👈

What misconceptions do you think people have about you/your show – would you like to clear them up?

We are NOT dating each other. We’ve tried it and we didn’t like it. But we’ll share crushes when necessary.

About the show

We Forgive You, Patina Pataznik

Date(s): Jul 31 Aug 1-18, 20-26

Time(s): 18:20 (1 hour)

Location: Gilded Balloon Patter House – The Penny