The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events.
Henry James Naylor is a British comedy writer, director and performer. He is also a playwright.
Forbes (Robertson) Masson is a Scottish actor and writer. He is an Associate Artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is best known for his roles in classical theatre, musicals, comedies, and appearances in London's West End. He is also known for his comedy partnership with Alan Cumming. Masson and Cumming wrote The High Life, a Scottish situation comedy in which they play the lead characters, Steve McCracken and Sebastian Flight. Characters McCracken and Flight were heavily based on Victor and Barry, famous Scottish comedy alter-egos of Masson and Cumming. Masson also stars in the 2021 film The Road Dance, set on the Isle of Lewis as the Reverend MacIver.
Richard Shelton is a British film, TV and theatre actor and singer, who performed in ITV's Emmerdale. He portrayed Frank Sinatra in Rat Pack Confidential in London's West End, and performed in the movies House of Lies and in My Week with Marilyn. In 2016, he starred in a free Sinatra show in the basement of a pub in Edinburgh, called Sinatra and Me.
Matthew Earnest is an American theater director. He has also written plays, as well as adapted plays from novels, non-fiction books, short stories, and essays, and he has translated works in other languages for his direction.
Malachi Bogdanov is a theatre director.
The Pantaloons are an English touring theatre company specialising in open-air productions of the plays of William Shakespeare. Their work draws from a wide variety of popular theatre traditions, and is often performed for free in public spaces.
Annabel Scholey is an English actress. She played Lauren Drake in the BBC supernatural drama Being Human (2009) and the leading role of 'Maddie' in the musical feature film Walking on Sunshine (2014). Scholey played Contessina de Medici in the television series, Medici: Masters of Florence (2016) with Dustin Hoffman and Richard Madden. In 2021, she played the major recurring role of Claire Brown in Doctor Who: Flux.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre is a comedy act that began in the United Kingdom in 2005 and has performed nationally and internationally since. They first appeared as part of The Sitcom Trials in London. They appeared in the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022 attracting highly positive reviews. The act has toured nationally and internationally every year since 2008 including Australia, Holland, Denmark and the Channel Isles. Prestigious appearances have included the Cheltenham Literary Festival and the Edinburgh International Magic Festival. They have appeared on BBC TV's The One Show, Comedy Shuffle, The Culture Show, Points West and Upstaged, GMTV, MTV, Current TV and Channel 4's Big Brother's Little Brother.
Zinnie Harris FRSE is a British playwright, screenwriter and director currently living in Edinburgh. She has been commissioned and produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her plays have been translated and performed in many countries across Europe and the globe.
The Porters of Hellsgate Theatre Co. is a Los Angeles–based classical theatre company that was founded in 2006 by Edward Castuera, Jack Leahy and Charles Pasternak. It is a member organization of the LA Stage Alliance. The Porters are working their way through the works of Shakespeare, with the goal of becoming the first theatre company in the city of Los Angeles to perform the entire Shakespearean canon. In addition to classical pieces, the company also occasionally takes on new works, often written or translated by company members.
Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company is both a repertory theatre company, and an actor training provider and drama school for young actors.
Scott James Kyle, is a Scottish actor, best known for his roles as Ross in Outlander, Clancy in The Angels' Share, and Corporal Stu Pearson in the film Kajaki: The True Story. Kyle received the 2010 Stage Awards Best Actor Award for his role in the play Singin' I'm No A Billy He's A Tim.
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is a play based on the 1998 novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. It received its world premiere at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2015, before embarking on a short UK tour. The play is a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre. The production ran at London's National Theatre in August 2016 and was scheduled to transfer to the West End's Duke of York's Theatre in May 2017.
Guy Alexander Masterson is a British actor, writer, theatre director, producer and playwright widely known for his solo theatre performances of Under Milk Wood, Animal Farm, and Shylock by Gareth Armstrong. He is a regular producer at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival and responsible for several of its most notable productions including Twelve Angry Men in 2003, The Odd Couple in 2005 and Morecambe in 2009 – which transferred to London's West End and won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment, and The Shark Is Broken in 2019 – which transferred to London's West End and won a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Comedy. It opened on Broadway on August 10, 2023 for a 16 week run.
Richard Gadd is a Scottish writer, actor and comedian. He created and starred in the 2024 Netflix drama series Baby Reindeer, based on his one-man show.
Yaël Farber is a South African director and playwright.
Benjamin Hart is an English magician. In 2007, he was awarded the "Young Magician of the Year" award by The Magic Circle. Hart has worked on British television and is an inventor and designer of magic tricks and stage illusions. In 2014, he starred in Killer Magic on BBC Three. Hart was a finalist on Britain's Got Talent in 2019. He is a member of The Magic Circle (organisation)
Haley McGee is a Canadian actress, writer and comedian based in London. McGee is best known for her role as Dorothy Skerritt, the personal assistant to Nikola Tesla in the Doctor Who episode Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror. She is also known for her solo performances, most recently Age Is A Feeling and The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale.
Ella Marchment is a British opera director, artistic director, and an associate professor. She is a co-founder of the campaign charity SWAP'ra, Supporting Women and Parents in Opera, and the artistic director of Opera Festival of Chicago, and Opera in the Rock, Arkansas. She previously founded the opera company Helios Collective. She has directed the International Opera Awards since 2017.
