Theatre highlights from Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023
The best-reviewed shows which will be touring around the UK in the coming months

1. Kieran Hodgson: Big In Scotland
In this “brilliant” one-man show, Yorkshire-born Kieran Hodgson, who moved to Glasgow in 2020, explores what it means to be Scottish, said Adam Robertson in The National. It’s less a comedy show, more a hilarious and captivating one-act play in which Hodgson plays all the characters, including a spot-on Gordon Brown, a disgruntled Highland barkeeper, and an over-enthusiastic Gaelic teacher. Hodgson takes “a topic it would be easy to get wrong and manages to get everything so right”.
Pleasance Courtyard until 27 August, then touring 8 September to 6 April 2024
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
2. Strategic Love Play
This “effervescent and thoroughly unpredictable” two-hander by Miriam Battye, a writer on the last season of “Succession”, charts a “close-up, blow-by-blow account” of a pub first date, said Clive Davis in The Times. Letty Thomas is brilliant as the “wilful and contrarian” unnamed woman, Archie Backhouse just as sharp as the more conventional man. It’s a fascinating “Rubik’s cube of a play”.
Roundabout @ Summerhall to 27 August, then tours from 6 September to 21 October
3. Bill O’Neill: The Amazing Banana Brothers
This comic tour de force is a “bizarro faux-circus act gone wrong”, said Brian Logan in The Guardian, in which the US performer Bill O’Neill plays both parts of a clowning double act: Kevin Calamity, who promises to slip on 1,000 banana peels, or your money back, and his brother-cumgopher, Joey. An amazing, “twisted” show, full of death-defying pratfalls.
Pleasance Courtyard until 27 August, then Soho Theatre, London W1, 7-16 September
4. England & Son
Ed Edwards’ “blistering” one-man play holds a mirror up to England in the form of a working-class man – played by Mark Thomas – whose life has been dominated by his brutal, wife-beating father, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Thomas gives a superb, agile, nuanced performance.
Roundabout @ Summerhall until 27 August, then tours from 14 September to 9 December
5. The Grand Old Opera House Hotel
Isobel McArthur’s “inventive, uproariously witty comedy” is set in a bland corporate hotel that “once led a much more romantic existence as a home of grand opera”, said Clive Davis in The Times. It blends operatic fantasias with screwball comedy to vastly entertaining effect.
Traverse Theatre until 27 August, then Dundee Rep, 13-16 September
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
AI hallucinations are getting worse
In the Spotlight And no one knows why it is happening
-
Social media: How ‘content’ replaced friendship
Feature Facebook has shifted from connecting with friends to competing with entertainment companies
-
The Alien Enemies Act
Feature President Trump is using a long-dormant law to deport Venezuelans. How does it work?
-
A journey into Egypt's western desert
The Week Recommends There is much more to be found in Egypt when straying from the usual tourist destinations
-
Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style: full of 'revelations and surprises'
The Week Recommends The Design Museum's sweeping collection of all things swimming contains hidden depths
-
The Ugly Stepsister: 'slyly funny' body-horror take on Cinderella
The Week Recommends Emilie Blichfeldt's cutting Norwegian revision of the classic fairy tale leaves no character unscathed
-
John Boyne shares his favourite books
The Week recommends The bestselling novelist picks works by Tobias Wolff, Christos Tsiolkas, and Agatha Christie
-
The Brightening Air: a 'gripping' family drama
The Week Recommends Connor McPherson's Chekhovian drama about a pair of siblings whose lives are upended by the arrival of their relations
-
6 isolated homes for hermits
Feature Featuring a secluded ranch on 560 acres in New Mexico and a home inspired by a 400-year-old Italian farmhouse in Colorado
-
Allies at War: a 'revelatory' account of the Second World War
The Week Recommends Tim Bouverie's 'old-fashioned diplomatic history' explores the often fraught relationship between world powers
-
The Friend: a 'graceful' but flawed dog movie
The Week Recommends Naomi Watts stars in 'intelligent' adaptation of Sigrid Nunez's book about a 'problematic pooch'