The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 55,000 performances of 3,548 different shows in 317 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. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to its historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.
Henry James Naylor is a British comedy writer, director and performer. He is also a playwright.
Gilded Balloon is a producer and promoter of live entertainment events, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and best known as one of the Big Four venue operators at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe each August.
Lucy Donna Porter is an English actress, writer and comedian. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Brighton Festival and many clubs around Britain. She is also a regular voice on BBC Radio 4 in various panel shows, including Quote... Unquote and The Personality Test.
Kev F. Sutherland is a Scottish comedian and comic strip creator. He has drawn for a variety of publications, including The Beano. He has produced several shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including The Sitcom Trials and The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.
The Sitcom Trials is a stage and TV show devised, produced, and presented by Kev F. Sutherland. Beginning in Bristol in 1999, it showcases new sitcoms and comedy items in a head-to-head format. The audience then vote for the one they like best and only see the ending of the winner.
The National Theatre of Scotland, established in 2006, is the national theatre company of Scotland. The company has no theatre building of its own; instead it tours work to theatres, village halls, schools and site-specific locations, both at home and internationally.
The Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival is a programme of free entry events that takes place at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, each August. It is organised by the comedy promoter Laughing Horse, although it includes shows of different genres, and is one of several "free" festivals taking place in the city at that time, most of which incorporate the words free, fringe and/or festival in their title, often leading to confusion.
Lloyd Woolf is a British comedy actor and writer.
Chris Cox is a mentalist magician – a self-proclaimed "mind reader who can't read minds". On television he stars in "Chris Cox's Mind Blowing Magic" on CBBC & BBC iPlayer and is "The Geek" in the award winning Killer Magic on BBC Three. He also stars in touring stage show The Illusionists and in the West End in Impossible. He is the only mind reader in history to play Broadway, London's West End and Sydney Opera House. In his radio career Chris was the writer and producer for Matt Edmondson on BBC Radio 1; the assistant producer on The Chris Moyles Show.
Daniel Craig Jackson, also known as D.C. Jackson, is a Scottish playwright, born in 1980.
Frisky & Mannish is a British musical comedy double act, created and performed by singer Laura Corcoran and pianist-singer Matthew Floyd Jones. Known for their pop music parodies, the duo have toured the fringe festival and comedy festival circuits in the United Kingdom and Australia, and appeared on a number of British television and radio programmes. The act's name derives from two incidental characters mentioned in one couplet of Byron's Don Juan: "Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, / Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish"
Daniel Sloss is a Scottish comedian, actor and writer, notable for having become established as a professional live and television performer while still in his teens.
Wilfredo is a fictional comedy character portrayed by the British comedian Matt Roper.
Broadway Baby is a British online review guide and arts news website which launched in 2004. It is the most prolific reviewing publication at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 2012 onward. It contains reviews of music, comedy, theatre and dance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Brighton Fringe, Camden Fringe and year-round in London and Central Scotland. Formerly, a printed version was also published.
Bob Slayer is an Edinburgh Comedy Award winning comedian and promoter. He has been part of a new economic model for venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which has made the event fairer and more affordable for performers and audiences. Acts that have performed at his venues have won and been nominated for a number of prestigious awards.
Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company is both a repertory theatre company, and an actor training provider and drama school for young actors.
Paul Vickers is the vocalist and lyricist with cult rock band Dawn of the Replicants. After the group went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, he continued to release music with various collaborators as well as branching out into comedy and writing. Described by The Guardian as "a pioneer of the indie/fringe crossover", since 2010 he has performed an annual, award-winning cabaret show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as Mr. Twonkey. He has also released four albums with Edinburgh band The Leg. In 2013 he published his first book, Itchy Grumble, and in 2015 his first theatrical play Jennifer's Robot Arm debuted in London. Twonkey's Mumbo Jumbo Hotel won the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2022 What Broke David Lynch? written about the Hollywood film director having difficulty making a costume for The Elephant Man was announced as Vickers 2nd theatre vehicle with Paul playing Lynch himself.
Nathan Cassidy is a British comedian and podcaster. In 2021, he was nominated for an Off West End Stage Award for his show 'Bumblebee' along with nominations for Best Comedy Show at the Greater Manchester Fringe and Buxton Fringe. 'Bumblebee' was released as an Amazon Prime Special in 2022. In 2022 he was nominated for Best Standup at the Buxton Fringe for his show 'Hot Tub God' and this show along with his show 'Observational' were awarded with the Best Standup Award at the Brighton Fringe 2022. He was previously nominated for Best Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival 2020 for his show 'Observational'. This show was widely reported in the press as the only live show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2020. The show was given four stars by The Times which reviewed it as 'The best show at the Fringe. A classic, structured, rollercoaster Fringe hour...star-in-waiting...he is untouchable.' Previously he was nominated for a Malcolm Hardee Award in 2012, won best solo comedy show on the Buxton Fringe in 2014, and was nominated for the same award in 2015, 2016, 2017 2019, and 2021. He has also won the Sir Michael Caine Award for new writing in theatre. He also presents the podcast Psycomedy about the Psychology of stand-up comedy and the daily comedy/piano podcast Daily Notes.
Austentatious is a long-form improvised comedy show, in the style of a Jane Austen novel, where each show is improvised by a six-strong cast, based on a title suggested by a member of the audience. Begun in 2011 in London, the original cast members took the show to the Edinburgh Festival Free Fringe in the summer of 2012. Following their initial success, they began performing a monthly show in London, transferring to the West End in 2017, and have since performed on BBC Radio 4, on tour, and at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Scottish